Vertical drinking, for those who have not kept up with the literature, is standing up with a drink. The council has since insisted there is no plan, and never has been, to ban standing up in a Westminster pub, which is what organisations always say once a consultation catches fire. But the draft statement of licensing policy says what it says, and licensing policies are not mood boards. If the policy smiles upon seated table service, applicants will promise seated table service, and the West End will get it by increments, one genuflecting application at a time. Vertical drinking is the scotch egg’s second coming: a rule about furniture pretending to be a policy about safety.