I wonder how much of this is to do with fear after the Swedish minister got killed in a Stockholm store in 2003. We always consider the Swedes as being a rather liberal people but alcohol laws there are ridiculously tight. If you gear up the populace to strict policing then they are less likely to reject even stronger law enforcement - as what seems to be happening in Sweden. The apathy in the UK is the one thing that is scaring the hell out of me, if we keep going down this route then civil liberties will be gone within the next ten years.