I stand to defend vertical drinking. Is a pub that doesn’t allow it a real pub at all? | Simon Jenkins

The time-honoured tradition of standing up with a drink, gossiping and putting the world to rights is under threat. If councillors ban it, we’ll all lose out It is unbelievable: unconscionable. Westminster Council is moving against “vertical drinking” in pubs, starting with Soho. It claims drinking standing up is noisy and disruptive. It makes pubs, the council says, boisterous places where customers crowd round bars, get drunk and become pains in the neck in the street outside. Westminster’s...

By Simon Jenkins