There is something appropriate about Home Secretary John Reid's latest scheme to make drunken thugs return the morning after to the scenes of their indiscretions the night before and clean up the mess they left behind.

It smacks of good, old-fashioned "punishment fitting the crime" to envisage hungover louts on their hands and knees at the crack of dawn, scrubbing up piles of vomit, righting kicked-over rubbish bins and picking up abandoned kebabs.

Such fairly low-level offences do not generally attract the full weight of the judicial process, but are nevertheless annoying and the impact such behaviour has on local communities can, especially over time, become a big problem.

Anyone who has woken up to find their car aerial bent, anyone who has had to step over a puddle of something unpleasant on their way to work, anyone whose street is blown with the litter and debris of a drunken night would be quite pleased to see the perpetrators put to work to fix the damage.

And there is no doubt for many who let drink get the better of them that it would be a salutory lesson to be woken up, handed a mop and bucket, and be forced to clean up in full public view.

However, if this announcement from the Home Office is not to be dismissed as merely gimmickry, it needs a fuller explanation of how exactly it will work.

A lot of resources would be required to watch the streets or monitor CCTV cameras for anti-social behaviour, track down the culprits and force them to take their punishment when they are quite likely to resist.

Practical and workable solutions to the growing problem of anti-social behaviour are needed. Whether this is one of them remains to be seen.