If anything, it's not Swindon that lags behind, it's the management of this particular bar. I don't think you can blame those people that grant licences either as they only go as far as granting the licence and setting the hours the licence applies. They don't set the prices and offers or any rules on how the place is run.
The one overriding thing here for me is that this offer is open to over 18s, i.e. people who are supposed to know thier own minds enough to take responsibilities for their actions and the consequences. I think this country is going too far down the road of 'government knows best' which seems to be seen as a reason for regulating what people can or can't do
I certainly wouldn't want to see government stepping in to stop, or try to control, people drinking. They're already a bunch of control freaks but you have to ask how would they do that? increase tax on alcohol?, they already tax it heavily anyway and why should everyone pay extortionate prices in order to save those people that can't do anything in moderation? Even worse, what this government do with the money they raise?
The fact is that the way we, the British, view alcohol is down to our culture, it's ingrained in our way of socialising, this won't change overnight whether the price of alcohol or the availabilty of it changes. Limited drinking hours, with last orders at 11pm, came about, I believe (may be wrong) during WWI when the government decided that people were spendng too long in the pubs and not enough time making bombs. This probably brought about the birth of binge drinking by limiting the number of hours people could drink so they filled their boots and got rat arsed. Nearly 100 years later, these rules have changed, but changing the way people go out, where they go, the time they go out and the speed they drink will take longer to change.
I don't have any answers and I can only speak for what I choose to do, but that's it, it's what I choose, not what anyone else tells me I am allowed to do. I think I would like it to stay that way.