Readers' Letters: Minimum unit alcohol 'hasn't cut drinker death rate'

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The minimum unit alcohol policy was introduced by the Scottish Government in 2018 (Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty)

It has done nothing of the sort. To quote from the National Records of Scotland, alcohol-related deaths in Scotland in 2021 were 1,245. The figure for 2017, the last year before the introduction of MUP, was 1,120. Simple arithmetic suggests that alcohol deaths have increased, therefore, by 11 per cent since the introduction of the policy. Historically, mortality rates from alcohol fell between 2006 and 2012, and since then have risen. The introduction of MUP in 2018 has had no effect on this increase.

The policy was sold on the basis that it would target the hardened drinker by increasing the price of cheap cider and the like. Even the latest report admits it has had no effect on such individuals. The further increases demanded increase the price of drinks favoured by ordinary people at a time of huge inflation.

Robert Cairns, Harrietfield, Perth

Highland games

Humza Yousaf and his Minister for Circular Economy etc popped up at the Royal Highland Show in an unconvincing bid to build bridges (if not ferries or better roads) with the beleaguered “people of Scotland” who are countryside dwellers.

Rural leaders did not appear reassured by this odd couple’s vague utterances about moorland management, herbicides or food security.

Both the FM and Lorna Slater looked awkward even in this contrived rustic setting on Edinburgh’s fringes; the Green Co-Convenor brought to mind Marie-Antoinette playing the shepherdess at Versailles.

This hapless pair would indeed be truly comical if only they didn’t happen to be leaders of a devolved government dedicated to destroying our prosperity, defences and way of life.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Thinning crowds

The SNP convention on independence in Dundee only served to demonstrate the shortcomings of what they now have to offer, as they confused each other, as well as everyone else, with their proposals (“Yousaf’s strategy for referendum branded ‘deeply confused’”, 26 June).

Humza Yousaf and his leadership colleagues are at best the SNP’s B team. The majority of the A team have stepped aside, whether for early retirement or the worsening odds of their overriding objective ever being achieved, or simply getting out of the way before the full impact of countless missteps hit home.

In earlier roles the current First Minister and many of his team were tested and came up wanting. They now find themselves in top office simply because others chose to depart the stage. Meanwhile, the audience is thinning and the script is sounding ever more tired and unbelievable as the stand-ins await their inevitable fate at the hands of an electorate sick of being taken for a ride on the SNP party bus.

Keith Howell, West Linton, Scottish Borders

Irish goodbye

Given the hot reception that Humza Yousaf has had after outlining his plan to take forward the case for an independent Scotland, in his speech at the SNP conference the other day, I wonder if the UK unionist cartel could give some indication of the democratic limits for a member country of the union to be ruled by a political party for which the people of that country never vote.

The reason I ask is that the people of Scotland have not given a majority in a general election to the Conservatives, not just for a “generation”, but for a proverbial lifetime, almost three score years and ten. This is a very long time, in an alleged democratic union, for a member country to be governed, most of the time, by a party which is consistently rejected by its people. I know that, now and again, sufficient voters in England vote for the Labour Party, along with the Scots, Northern Irish and Welsh, to enable them to form a government, but this never lasts long, with the majority in England reverting to Tory type, and we in Scotland are back where we started with the generally hated Tories in charge.

It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of the people of Scotland do not wish to be governed by the Conservatives, yet they are constantly imposed upon us, and our masters in Westminster will not contemplate change. Yet just across the Irish Sea, in the Good Friday Agreement, the Westminster Government are party to an explicit provision for holding a Northern Ireland border poll, enshrined in UK law. The Northern Ireland Act 1998 states that “if at any time it appears likely… that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland”, the Secretary of State shall make an Order in Council enabling a border poll. This agreement concerns a coming together of the north and the south in Ireland, but it also concerns a leaving of the UK union by the north, which is a clear precedent for what the people of Scotland might wish to do. So why does Scotland not have such a democratic pathway to independence, if the people of Scotland were to so decide?

Les Mackay, Dundee

Shallow news

John Lloyd on the BBC’s economy measures, merging domestic and world TV news (Letters, 26 June), raises some interesting points, but my observations would be slightly different, although the main sadness is losing so many experienced staff. My take is that their US coverage seems superficial – we have a dangerous, fascist insurrectionist possibly becoming President once again, democracy in peril there as never before, and exploration of the context seems light, with few legal minds brought to bear. Much more analysis of context is needed. I inform myself most about the US from CNN and MSNBC on YouTube.

Don't blame the Corporation, though – blame Nadine Dorries and the Tories, they are defunding the BBC as they did the NHS,

Crawford Mackie, Edinburgh

Tamson’s kings

Frances Scott (Letters, 27 June) is so right when she states that almost everyone of British or European descent will eventually find a monarch on their family tree. The likelihood of not doing so is minimal.

We are, moreover, all the products of accidents of birth and “deviations”: our parentage, our sibling order, our talents, our nationality. Otherwise we'd be identical robots.

But the King’s lineage comprises in Scotland or its part, or in union with England, 38 monarchs over 46 generations, from now back to 500AD, all father-to-son (or daughter), and 95 crowned predecessors overall.

Reading out such a list at St Giles’ on 5 July should be no more controversial than reciting a list of popes or prime ministers (all non-hereditary) in suitable context, so long as it's interesting and relevant to the occasion. On the question of nationality, the sovereign is by definition a member (at least honorary) of every one of his/her 15 realms and their constituent parts, whether or not he was born or resides there. But every one of us has a family tree of potential interest, no doubt about that.

And we're all Jock Tamson’s bairns!

Hamish Allan, Edinburgh

SNP-speak

One of the constant gripes of Scottish nationalists is that they want a second referendum on Scottish independence, but they seem to be unable to answer the most basic questions about this referendum. What would it be for? To decide on independence, they will reply.

The big problem which Scottish nationalists just cannot – or will not – answer is: why stop when you get any decision in a referendum? After all, if we had a second referendum and they won, we would obviously have to have a third, wouldn’t we? If not, why have the second one? Clearly, the word “referendum” has some alternative meaning in SNP-speak. “Referendum” – a binary choice made by the people of Scotland which is to decide one way or another on a single issue such as Scottish independence. The decision is permanent, if the SNP win the vote. If the Scottish people decide to remain part of the United Kingdom it is a pause in the decision-making process. In the latter instance a referendum is purely a holding process before a second referendum is held. This second referendum then decides the same binary issue again, unless the SNP loses, in which case it must be held again and again at great expense until they get the decision they want, and then the process comes to a dead stop. The Scottish people pay the bill, of course.

Perhaps “referendum” should be ditched as a term and a new one should be coined?

How about a “squander”?

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

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