Charles Clarke has said that pubs and clubs whose customers indulge in alcohol-fuelled yobbish behaviour should pay for extra police.

Interviewed in the Times, the home secretary says that the government is considering whether to impose a cash levy either on geographical areas or on the nature of the drinking establishment.

He says his three main priorities are the Lords judgment on terrorism, asylum and binge drinking.

"I am not an instinctive liberal," he says.

"I am instinctively much more hardline on a lot of issues about civil liberties than others. It depends what you mean by liberal.

"If liberal is the same as being a card-carrying member of the Bar Council I am not. But if liberal is trying to promote a tolerant society, I hope I am."

He also had some words of criticism for the legal system and lawyers, saying: "I think the courts and the legal system do not always focus, as they should, on the social issues which should be addressed."