The Daily Telegraph

The SNP’S puritan state has left Scotland in the doldrums

- ALAN COCHRANE FOLLOW Alan Cochrane on Twitter @Alan_cochrane; READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion

Contrary to what my SNP friends might claim, I haven’t been opposed to every policy introduced by their government. Indeed, I confess today my former support for one of them: the minimum unit pricing of alcohol, which saw bottles of booze increase, depending on their alcohol content. It was a law introduced north of the border in the face of massive opposition from the drinks industry four years ago.

Reluctantl­y, I now concede that the industry was right and I was wrong, at least on the convincing evidence published by independen­t researcher­s that those who suffer most from alcohol abuse have also suffered most by the price increases.

The researcher­s discovered that the extra cash that people with acute dependence on alcohol were forced to fork out for their booze meant that, in some cases, they spent less, sometimes much less, on essentials such as food, rent, heating and lighting. Perhaps more worrying is that some hardened drinkers switched from their normal expensive tipples to cheaper, and often higher-strength, drinks.

Such evidence would almost certainly lead to a drastic rethink in any other government. But those of us who have watched Nicola Sturgeon over the years know how unlikely it is to hear even a peep of an admission that she got something wrong.

The minimum unit pricing (MUP) policy was all of a piece with La Sturgeon’s other policy initiative­s, often derided as her “nanny state”, in the sense that “Nicola knows best what’s good for you”. This was writ large during the Covid pandemic when she insisted that Scots should wear masks and be isolated longer and suffer restrictio­ns tougher than in any other part of the UK.

The Scottish nationalis­ts had found out when they replaced Labour 15 years ago that this governing business wasn’t easy and so they opted for seeking to control how we live and corralling Scotland’s population with a plethora of gimmicks and freebies.

The MUP was a natural product of that arrogant delusion. An untested and unproven policy that could be easily introduced to tackle Scotland’s shocking relationsh­ip with the demon drink. And so, rather than waste time on education and rehabilita­tion for serious alcoholics, simply push the price of booze up and blame the brewers and distillers if they oppose the move.

Fixing things like Scotland’s dismal record of educationa­l attainment for the poorest communitie­s is not easy. But dishing out free university tuition with the stroke of a pen is a dawdle by comparison. All you need is lots of taxpayers’ money. It doesn’t help the poorest kids at all – in fact, it has meant that there’s less money for bursaries and grants – but Sturgeon’s big state always knows best.

I supported the alcohol pricing policy for two reasons. First, my respect for Scotland’s then chief medical officer, Sir Harry Burns, and second, the sight on my daily walk down the Royal Mile to Holyrood of the groups of homeless men downing their pavement “breakfasts” of cheap extra strength lager and cider.

I reckoned that something must be done to force the manufactur­ers to accept responsibi­lity for the damage they were doing with these ferociousl­y strong drinks. But doing that by legal means instead of simply shaming them was evidently a misguided way to tackle the problem. I was wrong then, and the SNP is still wrong now.

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