To Britain, where it is estimated that 300 denizens of that misery-sodden isle find themselves on the sharp side of a glass every week: The Royal College of Surgeons of England and the British Medical Association, alongside Knifecrime Island’s emergency room doctors, are calling for pubs to make a switch to shatter-proof polycarbonate glassware.

Since the introduction of the trial in Hull in 2008, nobody has been injured because of “glassing” and the local NHS has saved £7.2m in eye surgery costs.

Research presented tomorrow at a conference in London on safety shows young people are happy to drink from plastic containers, whereas older drinkers prefer glass. “It’s much easier to eliminate glass than knives. Young people don’t mind plastic, but people over 40 prefer glass because, they say, it keeps the drink cooler, which is nonsense,” said Alasdair Forsyth of the centre for study of violence at Glasgow Caledonian University.

(I imagine that violence studies is probably the most popular major at Glasgow Caledonian.)

I understand the concern that these medical practitioners have for their disgusting countrymen, but I’m not sure they should be so hasty. Glassing is a great British tradition, recognized worldwide as a symbol of a kingdom whose foul-smelling subjects love nothing more than to stab each other and will use whatever tool is at hand to get the job done. Is it worth tossing that aside just so the island’s repugnant, vomit-encrusted layabouts will have slightly fewer facial scars? Will no one think of the yobs?