Martin Hannan: Punish bingers, not all drinkers

Published on Tuesday 9 February 2010 09:07

DESPITE them drinking plenty, I saw very few French people overly intoxicated at the weekend. I'd say the ratio of obviously drunken Scots to clearly drunk French was about ten to one. Therein lies a tale.

Recent World Health Organisation figures showed that average consumption of alcohol in France was only just behind that of Scotland, which has the eighth highest level in the world. That was the report which suggested the average Scot was drinking the equivalent of 42 bottles of vodka per year. That's not a lot, actually, around 16 units of alcohol per week – so why do Scots get smashed in public and the French don't?

It seems to me that Edinburgh has a very ambivalent attitude to booze. Our corporate jollies flow with the stuff, stag and hen weekends maintain our tourist industry, and our local licensing board has made this the late-drinking capital of Britain.

You could even say Edinburgh was built on the stuff. Leith gained its prominence from the importation of claret, the Distillers Company made its home here and breweries once abounded across the city.

Yet from the time of John Knox – more about him next week – there have been regular outbreaks of religious fervour agin' the demon drink. The various temperance movements down the decades always found followers here, and as one of the world's leading cities for the medical profession, I imagine we have been subjected to more dire warnings about alcohol consumption than almost anywhere else.

As someone who really was a ten pints a day man – a scurrilous diarist once said I drank for Scotland – I am now paying in medical terms for my habit. I have type 2 diabetes, and my drinking undoubtedly contributed to me developing it. I still have the occasional Guinness, but gin and wine flavour my much-reduced tippling now.

We are presently seeing a recurrence of the anti-drink diatribes with the Government's ill-fated and ill-conceived minimum price plan. Frankly, it is a farrago of nonsense which is almost certainly illegal under European law and which will do nothing to tackle the real social problems caused by alcohol which can be summed up in one word – bingeing.

At my local co-op, there's a perfectly gluggable claret which costs 3.50. The suggested minimum price of 50p per unit would put that up to 4.50. Why should I and the vast majority of decent citizens be punished for the actions of a minority whose regular binge drinking is the actual cause of most alcohol-related social damage?

There may be too much alcohol being consumed in Scotland, but without any doubt there is far too much bingeing.

People go out expressly to get drunk. George Bernard Shaw once said that 'alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we end the operation of life' but way too many bingers are overdosing on liquid analgesics.

For those in work, leisure hours are less than before, so people cram their drinking into a shorter time. Hence bingeing.

It is bingers who stagger and fall down comatose, bingers who clog up our casualty departments and courts.

We need to change their attitude, and we can do that by learning lessons from the successful campaign against drink driving and sectarianism.

Education backed up by the force of law is the way forward.

For a start, being drunk should no longer be an excuse for criminality. Anyone found guilty of committing a crime while under the influence should have their sentence doubled, not reduced.

Anyone taken into casualty as a result of bingeing should also receive a bill for their treatment.

Edinburgh could lead the way with a by-law permitting the police to issue on-the-spot fines for any person incapable of standing unaided through drunkenness.

Minimum pricing is an easy option that may or may not work, but if we are serious about tackling alcohol problems, let's do the hard stuff and educate and if necessary hammer the bingeing minority, not the sensible majority.

Right royal mistakes

Apologies for the error in last week's column. The song Royal Mile was written by Gerry Rafferty, not Gerry Baker, the former Hibs player and brother of the late Joe, and Rafferty wrote Baker Street, of course. You see my confusion.

Anyway, my point still stands about the clueless mob running this city who are unable to put together a coherent plan to take the centre of Edinburgh forward. The proof of that came with the announcement that the former Royal High School might be converted to a hotel.

What an absolutely stunning piece of cretinous thinking. One of the city's truly great buildings in a prime position set to become yet another hotel – as if we haven't enough already.

It just beggars belief that such folly is even being contemplated. Honestly, our councillors, planners and developers alike do not have the imagination of a mole.

The Royal High was bought back by the council to be a cultural institution, and the best use would have been the long-mooted plan for a National Museum of Photography. Selling it as a hotel is a betrayal of Edinburgh's commitment to culture.

I have long thought we should have a proper home for all our Festival organisations. Why not bring them all under one roof at the Royal High? After all, it even has a 'performance space' that's been ready for more than 30 years.