Brian Monteith: Whining over cheap drink isn't the answer

Published on Friday 6 March 2009 09:16

WHY is it that some politicians think that if you ban something, or make it more difficult to obtain, people will just shrug their shoulders and comply?

There is no doubt that Scotland as a society has a problem with alcohol, but why, oh why, is it thought that by simply raising the price for the law-abiding majority and by making it harder for us to buy the stuff, those that have little resistance to breaking the law already will obey these new regulations, moderate their drinking and pull their punches instead of throwing them?

I regularly visit other countries where alcohol is significantly cheaper, cheaper with Spanish or German taxes paid, than it is at Scottish duty free airport shops – and yet their drink-related violence problems are not in the same league as ours. Also in England, where drink is often cheaper or at least the same price, the problems are less. So what does this tell us?

It says loud and clear that the reason we have a problem is not because of the price or the easy availability of drink (the bars are also open longer in other countries), no, it's because of our cultural attitudes to drink and especially to drunks.

In Scotland, to be drunk – and I don't mean happy, tipsy or merry, I mean aggressively drunk or violently drunk – such a state is often seen as a joke, a laugh and a rite of passage. Well it should not be – it should be a cause of shame.

Unfortunately, we have a society that tries to avoid personal responsibility and absolves people of the shame that used to come from neglecting it. Why, it might breach someone's human rights and offend someone at the United Nations if – in being arrested, convicted, punished and their abhorrent behaviour widely publicised – that aggressive drunks are humiliated by the shame of it all.

There's no shame for politicians to raise the price of cider, vodka and whisky (although ironically not Buckfast) for the rest of us and there will be no shame in drunken louts still getting hold of it in enough quantities to wreak havoc.

The SNP wanted to introduce even tougher laws, such as separate tills for alcohol in shops and preventing even 20-year-olds from buying a six-pack to watch the footie at home. These ideas may be gone for now, but the SNP would dearly love to have been able to introduce such restrictions. Their vision of an independent Scotland looks a very sobering puritanical one run by a Tartan Taliban.

I asked last week that if displaying tobacco at its point of sale is the cause of so many youngsters taking it up, why then do so many young people do illegal drugs that are never seen? The same goes for booze, if the cheap price of alcohol is the cause of so much aggressive drunkenness, why then are so many people willing to pay far greater sums for illegal and harder-to-come-by drugs?

The logical extension of this idiocy is to say that having sweets called wine gums encourages children to want wine. They don't, they just want more wine gums (if they like them at all).

Scotland's alcohol problems are far more complex and demand far more thought than simply putting up prices for the law-abiding majority.

Kenny MacAskill brought shame on his party and the Scottish Parliament by being so drunk on his way to an England versus Scotland match at Wembley that the Metropolitan police had to lift him. The SNP response is shamelessly to make him Justice Minister.

Is it any wonder that our youth of today think ten pints and a barney in Lothian Road is nothing to be ashamed off?

Streets behind

Is it just me or are there other locals that think the trams fiasco has shown us the way to solve our city centre travel problems – by pedestrianising Princes Street?

Whether or not the trams go ahead matters not, is it really an inconvenience having the buses going along George Street? On the journeys I've made I found no appreciable difference. Indeed, it seems to me George Street has become a far livelier place while Princes Street's potential as one of the most attractive shopping streets in the world can now be taken advantage of.

Of course, Princes Street shops might not like the idea at first, but if the street was to be properly pedestrianised with attractive facilities, including some cafe seating and flowerbeds, would it not be a boulevard to die for?

We could remove the street furniture and unattractive clutter making it people-friendly again. Flat, level pavements could be laid with space to walk without fear of falling in front of the number 26.

I think we need a campaign – maybe we should ask Iain Lutton and his mates in Leith if, after their welcome success in fighting Forth Ports, they might do the same to our unimaginative council.