Another SNP gimmick

Here’s an instance where I wholeheartedly agree with El Blogador. He suggests that Northern Ireland should resist following the Scottish government, should it go ahead with its plans to introduce a minimum price for alcohol. I concur with the thrust of his article and with the Scottish Conservative spokesman who described the strategy as ‘horribly flawed’.

Imposing a minimum price on alcohol sales is a short term gimmick, entirely consistent with the SNP’s style of government. Rather than tackling the problem of alcohol abuse at its root, these proposals are designed in order that Holyrood can conspicuously be seen to be doing something. It is a populist policy which will merely exacerbate the attendant problems which accompany alcoholism.

Alcohol abuse is largely a social issue and only changes in society and its attitudes will successfully alter behaviour which is associated with it. Prohibiting drinking to various extents, trying to price people out of buying alcohol, restricting its availability for consenting adults or changing the legal age at which young people can drink are all besides the point.

Efforts should be concentrated on education, on heightening awareness and on modifying people’s behaviour. And importantly, laws which already exist should be properly enforced. Outlets should be heavily fined for selling alcohol to children. Where crime is precipitated by drinking it should not be treated as if there are mitigating circumstances which make it less serious.

By the way, if you think that I’m being unduly cynical about the SNP and its largely cosmetic intentions on this issue, well the pictured ‘tonic wine’ will not even fall under the remit of the minimum pricing measures.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Shia Revival

The Iranian author, Vali Nasr, has written an interesting book called The Shia Revival: How conflicts within Islam will shape the future .  Its argument is exceptionally pertinent at a time when European governments are edging toward arming Sunni extremists in Syria. Nasr portrays Shiism as the more liberal, palatable strand of Islam and a religion for underdogs.  He makes his point persuasively, although putting a progressive gloss on the regime in Iran and Hezbollah does undermine his thesis. A lot of the material is focussed on Iraq, where there is a Shia majority, which was suppressed during the presidency of Saddam Hussein.  The leading cleric, Ayatollah Sistani, is depicted as a moderating influence, who opposed retaliation as Sunni extremism threatened to cause sectarian civil war. The book’s opening chapter provides an erudite and fascinating history of factions within Islam.  The split dates back to the origins of the faith and a dispute over the prophet Mohammed’
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro
Read more