Milton view Give the SNP a chance
Dear Sir In response to the reader who slammed the SNP for irresponsible promises made during the local election campaign this year, I would ask them to maybe wait and see what the SNP council can deliver.
After all, they have only been in charge since May. The SNP government budget is not due until December. The reader seems to be anticipating new cuts. I would also point out that councils can now choose to put up their council tax to increase revenue but we have seen that many Labour-run councils, including North Lanarkshire, have refused to do so.
I would also urge the writer and all your readers to research the damage that the PFI/PPP initiatives have done to council’s budgets across the UK, not just in Scotland. These Public Finance Initiatives, later renamed Public Private Partnerships, were introduced by the Conservatives and continued by New Labour.
There is a very revealing and worrying documentary on You Tube called “The Only Game In Town” that focuses on dubious practices in North Ayrshire in relation to the building of four new schools under PPP. North Ayrshire Council has been left with a hefty maintenance contract on the schools that they are tied to for 30 years and which costs them around £13 million annually. This millstone round council’s necks is a situation that can be found across the UK and we have Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to thank for it. Independent economists have calculated that the true cost to Scotland for Labour’s PPPS is £36 billion! Of that, £21 billion has still to be paid by councils and health boards.
Scott Harrison Hamilton Dear Sir
So the Scottish Government is happy at last that spending millions of pounds in the courts to win the right to apply a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol – to stop the poorest drinkers from becoming alcoholic.
I always opposed this plan on the basis that it would not work, because having worked in the drugs misuse field with young people for over 50 years I know only too well that when you try to change the culture and behaviour of any group in society you always have unforeseen consequences further down the line, that most often make things even worse than they were. The spin-off from this policy will of course give us winners and losers. The winners – anyone who sells alcohol. The entire increase in price of alcohol will be welcomed by retailers of alcohol because it means more profit to them, as this is not a tax increase, so the producers and retailers get all the added cost into their bank accounts, and not the Government as this is not a tax. A tax increase could have collected hundreds of millions in tax that could have been ring fenced, to fund alcohol education, increase NHS budgets and alcohol treatment for those afflicted by alcohol misuse.
Also, the white van men who will cross the border into England to bring back cheaper boost.
The losers will be the young, usually poorest drinkers, who instead of drinking less will find other ways to afford their harmful drinking. There is nothing surer than the highly successful, innovative drinks industry, given time, will be the providers of that. The young, and poorer drinkers deprived of their cheap cider will most likely turn to illicit drugs which are already cheaper than alcohol.
What could the government have done that would be more effective? Make it illegal to sell wine in restaurants in 250 and 175ml glasses which has led to the massive e increase in wine drinking.
The could make it illegal for restaurants to massively increase their profits, by charging at least a 300 per cent mark up on alcohol, to boost their turnover and profit.
They could revise the law change that I proposed for the last alcohol bill which was to make it the law that every establishment selling alcohol should automatically provide free tap water before serving any customer. The botched that proposal by wording that law proposal in such a way that customers had to ask for free water. So missing a chance to make a real cultural change in our Scottish drinking habits.
Max Cruickshank Hamilton