THE ITV evening news has undergone a startling transformation of late. The programme makers are now dramatising topics of the day with documentary-type back-ups.

Last week it was a searching probe into the scandal of dirty hospitals and superbugs. This week it has been the culture of binge drinking.

I unreservedly applaud the efforts of the ITV news team. Their exposure of shortcomings in the National Health Service which have led to crippling infections, even deaths, from hospital superbugs was compulsive viewing. The follow-up on binge drinking among Britain's young was equally shocking.

It made me question whether Britain as a nation could go any further into the dumper or have we, as I believe, reached the nadir. Those watching on Monday would probably agree as the disturbing footage was taken from towns and cities across the UK, not one particularly infamous trouble spot.

Thus we saw young men admitting that weekends were spent drinking themselves stupid, which didn't really need the ocean of alcohol they downed as they did a decent job of making themselves look and sound stupid on camera.

But the staggering part of the programme for me was the number of young women who were not only matching young males pint for pint, but in many cases leaving them for dead.

One, built like an Olympic shot-putter, had downed 20 pints of lager. Another, shown a bucketful of fluid which represented what she had drunk the previous night, attempted to justify it, saying the week days were spent looking after a family, the weekends were for her.

Far from looking contrite, she appeared to resent the implication that what she was doing was anything out of the ordinary. God help us all.

I was hesitant to write the following observation as it could well trigger an avalanche of hate mail from well-upholstered young women who might feel I am having a pop at them personally.

I'm not but have to say that some of their contemporaries featured in the ITV film reminded me forcibly of The Fat Slags, immortalised in the irreverent comic Viz.

I freely admit that it is virtually impossible for me to relate to what is happening to today's youth. I'm not daft or sanctimonious enough to say that nobody got drunk in my younger days. Of course we did. But there was little of the violence which pervades the so-called 'yob culture' nor did it take security men (bouncers) or legions of police to keep us under control.

How and why has it happened. Tony Blair believes the 1960s, when free love and dope emerged as influences on society, is responsible. Others blame Maggie Thatcher for creating a feeling of nihilism among a certain group of Brits labelled the 'underclass.

But one period was 40 years ago; the other 20. Could it be that trash TV, tabloids and the glorification of everything cheap, nasty, self-promoting, crude and immoral, has resulted in bad behaviour, particularly binge drinking, becoming the norm? God help us.