Monday
A crackle of buzzwords in the braes. The Scottish government has "bold proposals to deal with the issue" of the "impact on crime and anti-social behaviour" of people drinking alcohol, which is reputedly "often cheaper than water" in some Scottish supermarkets. Where that leaves the stereotype of Scots as careful with money, I don't know. Why would they buy water from supermarkets rather than getting it near-free from a tap? Perhaps they are all drunk.
To solve the problem of cheap and plentiful products and consumers willing to consume them, it is proposed to institute minimum prices - with the enthusiastic support of specialist retailers, from whom the "cheaper than water" claim comes - and to raise the minimum age for buying alcohol to 21 in Scotland. The evidence that this will do anything to mitigate the alleged problems is, of course, lacking.
Also in the absence of evidence, I have a prediction about the effect on crime of minimum prices and reduced availability for alcohol. Crime will go up. Not only will new criminal offences have been created, but since many will find it more difficult to get booze, some of them will steal it.
Well, yeah, it's gotta be effective. I mean, look at the American experience. Here in California, no one under 21 ever touches ethanol.
Posted by William H. Stoddard at June 16, 2008 07:59 AM
It's interesting how the Scottish Executive became a government just by saying that it is one.
Posted by MDC at June 16, 2008 09:45 AM
> some of them will steal it.
Some of them will smuggle it. Some of them may even produce it. A veritable free-market stimulus package!
But watch out for a character named Al MacCapone!
Posted by mr_ed at June 16, 2008 09:56 AM
Why would they buy water from supermarkets rather than getting it near-free from a tap?
Tower blocks. The tap water in them is undrinkable.
Ironic that Glasgow used to be known for the purest water in Britain.
Posted by Sam Duncan at June 16, 2008 10:36 AM
Where that leaves the stereotype of Scots as careful with money, I don't know. Why would they buy water from supermarkets rather than getting it near-free from a tap? Perhaps they are all drunk.LOL!
Posted by Alisa at June 16, 2008 10:36 AM
There are several problems here.
(i) Government with a belief that it can sort out everything.
(ii) That belief requiring (near) perfect compliance with the government's wishes (usually expressed through law and regulation).
(iii) The further belief that imperfect compliance can be solved by more of the same (failing) mechanism.
(iv) Additional belief that indirect (or mis-aimed) action will have direct effect on the problem.
If the government wish to stop people being drunk and disorderly (or whatever might be the problem), it should prosecute them for that.
Making the sale of alcohol even more difficult for everyone, including those who are not drunk and disorderly, will fail to achieve benefit. It may even, with the assistance of less intellectually endowed shopkeepers risk causing breaches of the peace, to say nothing of wasting the time of the police.
There may well be some merit in protecting minors, by laws against sale of certain substances to them. However, if politicians wish to receive the votes of those aged 18 (especially beneficial to left-leaning political parties) they really should not go around claiming these people are not grown-up.
Best regards
Posted by Nigel Sedgwick at June 16, 2008 10:47 AM
Of course Prohibition will make things worse, but they don't care! (Except maybe Harry Cohen, one of few MPs who thinks we ought to legalise most drugs).
It's called 'sending a message', which is Newspeak for 'criminalising everybody and everything to win some knee-jerk votes while making things worse and ignoring far more pressing issues'.
Posted by Mark Wadsworth at June 16, 2008 11:44 AM
Of course Prohibition will make things worse, but they don't care! (Except maybe Harry Cohen, one of few MPs who thinks we ought to legalise most drugs).
It's called 'sending a message', which is Newspeak for 'criminalising everybody and everything to win some knee-jerk votes while making things worse and ignoring far more pressing issues'.
Posted by Mark Wadsworth at June 16, 2008 11:45 AM
Of course Prohibition will make things worse, but they don't care! (Except maybe Harry Cohen, one of few MPs who thinks we ought to legalise most drugs).
It's called 'sending a message', which is Newspeak for 'criminalising everybody and everything to win some knee-jerk votes while making things worse and ignoring far more pressing issues'.
Posted by Mark Wadsworth at June 16, 2008 11:46 AM
The other Karl (Marx) was right about one thing: history does repeat itself as farce!
Posted by Laird at June 16, 2008 01:53 PM
(i) Government with a belief that it can sort out everything.(ii) That belief requiring (near) perfect compliance with the government's wishes (usually expressed through law and regulation).
(iii) The further belief that imperfect compliance can be solved by more of the same (failing) mechanism.
(iv) Additional belief that indirect (or mis-aimed) action will have direct effect on the problem.
That pretty much sums up Scottish local - and now regional - politics for as long as I can remember. It's one of the reasons I voted against devolution, and remain opposed to separation. In themselves, they're not terribly bad ideas, but I simply don't trust Scotland's political class to act like responsible adults with an understanding of the limits of their powers.
Mind you, now the contagion has spread to Westminster perhaps it makes little difference.
Posted by Sam Duncan at June 16, 2008 03:11 PM
Nigel,
All I can say is WOW !!
Have NEVER heard the basic problem stated so simply/well/accurately.
It also applies to so many 'other' areas of gov't at ALL levels.
Posted by jerry at June 16, 2008 05:12 PM
As soon a alcohol is more expensive than class A drugs,it will be goodbye booze.
Posted by Ron Brick at June 16, 2008 07:04 PM
This proposal can be described as a "retro-cretinism"...
Posted by Bogdan of Australia at June 17, 2008 11:57 AM
Alcohol is not the problem, it's the low-life you put the alcohol in.
Restricting the sale of alcohol in supermarkets to those over 21, is just another example of the government failing to grasp the nettle and tackle the real (and difficult) problem. Papering over the cracks, as it were. And it also gives out the subliminal message that the individual is not to blame, but the alcohol is.
And there lies the problem - a lack of personal responsibility. If you get drunk and you know that causing trouble will land you a custodial sentence, no matter what sob-story you give the magistrate, then you are much more likely to take responsibility for your behaviour. However, this would involve building more prisons, courts, police stations and recruiting all the people to run them.
But unfortunately, the type of people who run Britain's government, are the same people who say things like "what kind of society locks up its people?", whilst wringing their hands in the comfort of some bijou London bistro. A stroll around Leeds city centre in the early hours of Saturday night would disabuse them about what sort of society doesn't lock up it's people.
I have heard senior police officers state categorically that alcohol is to blame for inner city fighting on Friday and Saturday nights. Well, every now and then, events come up which have the secondary effect of producing a huge social experiment. Such an event was last Autumn's Rugby World Cup. 200,000 English fans out of a total of 1.8 million fans overall, descended on France and drank the place dry over a space of six weeks. Where was the fighting?
Posted by Toad at June 17, 2008 10:35 PM
Raising the drinking age to 21 has done NOTHING to combat drinking problems and "anti social behaviour" in the US. These people need to go hang out with college students on a friday night sometime.
Posted by Faye at June 18, 2008 09:17 PM
I have a prediction about the effect on crime of minimum prices and reduced availability for alcohol. Crime will go up. Not only will new criminal offences have been created, but since many will find it more difficult to get booze, some of them will steal it.The comparison with firearms control is inescapable. It would be rash to say the enormous rise in firearms crime since the original 1920 Firearms Act is a direct result, but the fact is that the curve has grown steeper, in parallel with ever more restrictive gun controls. Anti-gun laws affect only the law abiding: criminals just acquire whatever guns they want. Law abiding citizens will find their booze much more expensive, just as they find gun ownership both expensive, difficult, and bureaucratically oppressive. Just as there was never any substantive evidence adduced for the introduction or subsequent strengthening of gun laws, the proponents of booze restrictions offer none, and rather than being fazed by the apparent failure of the new regime to mitigate drunkenness will simply call for yet more restrictive laws. And so it goes.
Posted by Malcolm Stevas at June 19, 2008 12:19 PM
