A good article on Sp!ked here by Rob Lyons, although he does take the questionable risk statistics used by North too much at face value. He concludes:
Britain’s roads are very safe both in terms of absolute risks and by historical standards. Applying ever-tougher rules to when we can and cannot drive will have little additional benefit in terms of safety while making our lives more inconvenient or even preventing us from enjoying some activities altogether. If we really want to improve road safety, we should apply a little more thought to the problem of enabling people to drink without driving rather than imposing even tighter controls on our lives.This article from the Daily Mail by Stephen Glover is also well worth reading.
Richard Littlejohn in the same paper is very scathing about Philip Hammond (it’s the fourth section down entitled “I thought Hammond was meant to be a Tory”). However, to be fair, it would not have been politically sensible for Hammond to have immediately rejected the idea out of hand – instead he has simply said that the government will take a good look at it. The show isn’t over until the fat lady sings.