Minimum pricing only gives the alcohol industry unearned extra profits. We need better solutions
THE latest update of the research on the minimum price of alcohol confirms that this token attempt to reduce harmful drinking has had very little effect (“Scottish ministers to consider new alcohol price hike after policy review”, May 8). Alcohol Focus Scotland and many others want to push up the minimun price from 50p to 65p. This approach is failing because there is no way of stopping the alcohol industry from creating as many new drinks as it likes to satisfy every palate and budget. Supermarkets illustrate my point, as we now have four to six aisles of alcoholic drinks where there used to be two.
Politicians struggle to reduce deaths from illicit drugs, which continue to rise for the simple reason that the drug barons have created hundreds of new drugs to meet every need; the alcohol industry has done exactly the same thing. It has created hundreds of new alcoholic drinks, to meet every taste bud and the budget of adults and children. More than 300 new gins, all sorts of pre-mixed drinks and cocktails in cans, around 100 alcopops, new vodkas, and hundreds of special beers and wines flood the market every month.
Many people believe that if we legalised illicit drugs we could control their quality and their safety. History tells a different story because tobacco and alcohol have been legalised for three centuries, during which the damage to public health has escalated. Smoking and alcohol have killed billions more of us than illicit drugs.
When successfully legislating to reduce smoking, Scottish politicians did not consult the global tobacco industry, because they knew it would have done everything it could to prevent any loss of business and profit. So why, I wonder, has the alcohol industry been sitting at the table with Scottish politicians for decades, pretending to find solutions to alcohol dependency? Listening in on these discussions has, I believe, allowed that industry to keep ahead of the game and constantly undermine any legislation that would harm its profits. The Scottish Whisky Association took the Scottish Government to court and successfully prevented for years the minimum price of alcohol legislation coming into law.
Minimum pricing has given the alcohol industry around £130 million a year in extra income, which is clear profit, as they are selling the same drinks for more, without it costing them anything. As the cost of alcohol rises the poorest drinkers get priced out of the market, so they resort to buying now-cheaper illicit drugs.
There is no political will to seriously reduce alcohol consumption as it is a great source of revenue for our governments. Politicians should consider how to get the alcohol industry to contribute towards the harm they are doing by diverting the unearned profit they are collecting from MUP to help fund drug and alcohol recovery programmes.
Max Cruickshank, Glasgow.
One-sided view of slavery
NEIL Mackay rightly criticises the lack of knowledge of most Scots with Scotland’s role in the wicked slave trade (“‘My family were owned as slaves by Scots. It’s time this nation faced up to its history’”, May 8). However, for my generation, it was not just an ignorance of the brutal realities of slavery but an ignorance of the history of our own country that was the problem. Having studied history at school and completed courses in British History Honours 1 and 2 at the University of Edinburgh, I knew nothing about the Darien scheme, the Act of Union, the Scottish Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, nor the achievements of the Scottish
Enlightenment. It took an English author, John Prebble, to begin the task of educating me into something of Scotland’s past. Prebble was pilloried at the time by the Scottish academic establishment but his books such as Glencoe were widely read and proved to be very popular.
As reported in the article, Henry Dundas has been severely criticised both by Sir Geoff Palmer and by the City of Edinburgh Council, which has placed a condemnatory plaque beside his monument in St Andrew Square. There can be no doubt that Henry Dundas was a scoundrel. He was a heavy drinker, a womaniser, and a man who shamelessly used his considerable powers of patronage to help his friends, particularly fellow Scots. However, to continue to place all of the blame on Dundas for the delay in the abolition of the slave trade is, I think, unfair and ignores the reality of the tumultuous years of the early 1790s. Those attacking Dundas have to address the question as to how a slave-supporting Parliament at that time was ever going to vote for abolition? Britain was then at war with Revolutionary France and was faced with the real prospect of invasion. Furthermore, the British Establishment was terrified that the success of the French Revolution might inspire similar uprisings in the UK. The country was in turmoil and it fell to Dundas to try to restore order at home and to meet the French threat.
A previous attempt to pass a motion for abolition had been very heavily defeated. It would take years for the force of the moral argument against the vile trade to have any chance of success. During the debate in 1792, Dundas proposed a gradual path to abolition, stating that “my opinion has been always against the slave trade”. This gradual approach succeeded in 1807.
I feel there is a risk that we are being presented with a very one-sided view on the issue of slavery. It is worth remembering that the vast majority of these unfortunate Africans were captured and sold to slavers by their fellow Africans. Finally, we must also remember that during the centuries in question at least one million white Europeans were captured and sold in the slave markets of North Africa. Their plight is graphically described by Giles Milton in his book White Gold. Eric Melvin, Edinburgh.
Funicular needs better analysis
MARTIN Williams’s report on whether to repair the funicular on Cairn Gorm or scrap it (“Call for inquiry into costs for delayed Cairngorm railway”, May 1) explores an issue that much needs it. That the decision to build the funicular is a financial disaster is now beyond dispute – one of a series of bad decisions by HIE on development on the mountain. Whether to repair or remove is based simply on which would be the lesser financial disaster and cost to the taxpayer.
However, the analysis described by Mr Williams seems basically flawed. He reports that costs of urgent repairs have already soared from £14.8 million to £26.75m and the history of these costs strongly indicates they will rise further. Removal is currently estimated at £16.92m as an alternative, but it is not an alternative. Like all technology it ages and will eventually have to be removed. Hence it is only an alternative if you decide to send the bill for removal to the next generation – a practice that underlies much of our current environmental crisis.
Operating costs over the next 30 years, he states, are estimated at £153.7m set against an income of £77.2m, giving a loss of £73.09m. However, that is set against an economic benefit “to the country” of £146.22m.
Where does that figure come from? The chief intended economic beneficiary is the Speyside tourist industry, which had prospered during the years since the funicular ceased to operate. A survey of 40 local tourist businesses revealed that a trip up Cairn Gorm did not rate greatly among local attractions.
More importantly, what would be the financial benefit to the country if the same money was spent aiding the development of potentially profitable businesses around the Highlands and Islands and more widely instead of pouring it down a bottomless financial pit on Cairn Gorm, especially at a time of rocketing inflation and rising cost of living? There is no figure for that but it should be a key figure in assessment of options.
It is time for a decision based on better analysis than that offered and Edward Mountain MSP is right to demand a closer investigation of the situation.