IF ever there was an example of why the SNP would make Scotland a confused, sad, mad and bad place to live, it must be its toxic brew of seemingly-attractive authoritarian ideas to change the drinking habits of Scotland's youth.
How's this for incoherence and self contradiction – the SNP wants to give the vote to sixteen and seventeen year-olds, saying they are mature enough, but believes that their older brothers and sisters of 18, 19 and 20, who are already able to vote an
d die for their country, are too immature to buy alcohol to drink in their home even though they can drink alcohol in a pub.
How's this for sadness – the vast majority of Scotland's young people grow up like we all did, by finding out the hard way what their tolerance for alcohol is without breaking the law. They don't deserve to be categorised and stereotyped as a problem. In fact, it is older people that are legally entitled to buy drink in pubs or at the offy that tend to get blootered, causing various degrees of trouble that have them put in a police cell.
The minister should know this – as a new MSP he once enjoyed the hospitality of the Metropolitan Police when legless.
How's this for madness – supermarkets are to have a checkout for alcohol sales – but when's a Tesco Express, a Spar, a Co-op, or a seven-eleven a store and not a supermarket? Are we really expected to go through two checkouts at Asda? Do Kenny MacAskill and Nicola Sturgeon, the ministers responsible for this puritanical pipedream, ever shop for themselves? Have they ever shopped at Christmas and New Year when the checkouts are like check-in at Edinburgh Airport on Trades holiday?
And how's this for badness – licensed premises will be expected to pay a social responsibility tax to go towards council social services – that's on top of the business rates that take no account of profitability, the large increase in the licence fee they are about to pay, the new Business District tax they are about to endure and the costs for putting seats out on the streets to try and win back the large number of customers they have lost (at great cost) because of the smoking ban.
How's his for daftness – instead of applying the existing laws available to prevent under-age purchase, minimum prices for alcoholic units are to be introduced to try and price cheap drink out of the hands of youngsters – forcing us ALL to pay more. Look for Scots booze cruises to Berwick, Hexham and Carlisle – is that what the SNP seriously wants?
We can't change our hard-drinking bevvy culture by applying more laws to our lifestyles – especially when we don't use the ones that exist. With policies like these, Kenny MacAskill and Nicola Sturgeon are enough to drive one to drink.
Eating out of pocketPRICE inflation is yet again becoming everybody's chief concern, and if the growing cost of living isn't troubling you yet then remember that the cost of driving it back down is usually unemployment that hits as all one way or another.
Whether it's petrol, gas, rice or fish and chips, the direction is up and the prognosis for food costs is especially alarming – more so in the poorest countries where food will literally be priced out of peoples' stomachs.
Surely then it is high time for Alex Salmond to recognise that his alarmist fear of GM crops that will slash food prices is nothing other than junk science that perpetuates the starvation of the poor? Britain, and Scotland in particular, has a great deal of expertise on biosciences that is unexploited – if we are serious about filling people's bellies, should we not let people choose between expensive low-yield organics and low-cost high-yield new strains of wheat, rice and soya?
It's good to talkTWO cheers for the latest plan to deliver a new Meadowbank Stadium on the same site.
I only give two cheers, and not three, as it is unclear how the cash-strapped council will fund the enterprise.
After all, it has just discovered that the costs of the unnecessary Usher Hall extension have climbed beyond the already revised estimate of £20 million and that it is going to have to compensate the orchestras that were promised they could use it to a tune of £1.25m. Then there's the black hole of £3.5m in the Commonwealth pool – a sum that has appeared all because some councillors scaled back a housing development that was going to help pay for the pool's refit.
The new Meadowbank – set to cost £25m – generates only £17m from the sale of land for housing. Who is going to make up that difference and what if some councillors decide to scale back housing at Meadowbank too? Maybe our councillors should start talking to each other?
