Letter: Drinking ban

As a recent graduate I was utterly disgusted by the comments of so-called "student leaders" in the article "Call to veto drink ban for under 21s" (29 September).

I was at the University of Glasgow last year when Alex Salmond superbly rebuffed a question on the issue from a student. He merely explained that in studies crime had dropped exponentially with such a ban.

I'm willing to bet that the same student leaders who propose a veto on the drink ban have never lived in areas particularly affected by violence and serious vandalism. I would be surprised if they spared a thought for the victims of such crime (who are often the most vulnerable in our society), never mind those who are trapped in cycles of crime from a young age.

They say proposals for different areas to have different age limits for off-sales "would be chaos". The ignorance of such statements baffles me.

As to the claims that local changes are "surely entirely undemocratic", it seems to me that our government has acted entirely democratically, transparently and with great integrity in this matter, especially in the face of opposition from the drinks industry and the supermarkets. To imply, therefore, that its actions have been somehow undemocratic is as nonsensical as it is vague.

I don't expect these so-called student leaders to get behind the ban, although I wish they would - it would be nice to think that the future politicians of Scotland cared about saving Scottish lives and about raising the standards of living for their own people.

Graham Andrew McIlroy

Great Western Road

Glasgow