Tonight:
5°c
Up to 70 lives will be saved in the first year, according to a study by Sheffield University, if the Scottish government pushes through plans to introduce a compulsory minimum cost per unit of alcohol.
That was the headline yesterday, and we Sassenachs should pay attention. There's every reason to believe that where Holyrood leads, Westminster will follow.
The way the Scots are doing this is instructive. The policy came first; the study into its likely effectiveness second: the Alcohol Bill — which will set a minimum per-unit price and ban off-sales promotions — is already on its way before the Assembly.
Now they publish their independent study — or rather, press-release their headline findings — in support.
Scotland's chief medical officer was quoted yesterday as saying: “I've got to admit that initially I was sceptical about minimum pricing but when you look at the facts, it becomes a no-brainer.”
We have to assume good faith but I never feel reassured by being told something is a “no-brainer”. Particularly when “the facts” are hypotheses about social and economic behaviour, and the whiz-bang announcement about these “facts” is made the day before the actual evidence is made available.
How large was this study, and what exactly did it test? At the time of writing, I don't know: it is to be published in full only today. But it has the look of old wine in new bottles.
In December 2008, a study was published — again by Sheffield University, again commissioned by Government, again paid for by the taxpayer — that covered substantially identical ground. It was an analysis of existing data rather than new research, and it speculated that a 40p per unit price would reduce hospital admissions by 41,000.
I can't speak to the facts. The Scandinavian example (punishingly costly booze; everyone plastered) suggests that the relationship between price and consumption is not as simple as all that. But let's say those guesses are right.
We're obliged nevertheless to consider not just the potential harm reduction, but also how it will be achieved and at what social cost.
Who will minimum pricing actually prevent from drinking? The 2008 study argued that since “harmful drinkers” tended to be the ones who bought more alcohol and cheaper alcohol they were the ones most likely to be hit.
True. But when you factor in tolerance and addiction, the whole business becomes much more complicated. For the determined alcoholic, price will only ever be an inconvenience: ask the Russians, where during the years of vodka drought Muscovite poets used to eat stick deodorants sandwiched between two bits of bread, if they could get the bread.
And for the non-addicted heavy drinker, no level of price-tinkering can overcome the price downshift from drinking in the pub to drinking at home or, worse, in the street.
Minimum unit pricing, therefore, targets one social group and one group only: poor people. And the “change of culture” it is most likely to bring about is to force poor people to buy drink in off-licences rather than in pubs.
When licensing hours were first brought in, the notion was to keep the lower orders productive and under control. Minimum pricing, however you dress it up, has just the same flavour of class discrimination.
Touching times in politics
MUCH was made, in coverage of the G20, of Michelle Obama's refusal to embrace Silvio Berlusconi. After cuddling other world leaders, she was photographed stiffly extending a hand to Berlusconi, while the Italian premier made that arms-wide gesture of “Eeeeeeeyyy! Come to Poppa!”.
Hers seems to me to have been an instinctive and personal response. She wasn't seeking to distance her husband's administration from Berlusconi's alleged corruption or alleged use of prostitutes.
She was thinking: “Eek! It's a pervy little dwarf with hair-plugs. No way am I kissing that.
“He looks like the kind of guy who'll stroke the back of your neck with his thumb when you peck his cheek.” And so he does.
Less remarked, though, went the much weirder photograph: Barack Obama holding Sarah Brown's hand. Isn't that odd?
Who goes to a business meeting or office party and holds hands with his colleague's wife?
Bright starts... those were the days
AS I was watching telly at ridiculous o'clock this morning — hollow-eyed in that dead zone where QVC and repeats of 1980s cookery programmes are all that's out there — I found myself wondering about the biorhythmic mismatch between adults and babies.
Babies wake up at crack of dawn in a state of anticipatory delight: waving arms, gurgling and shouting. What, they wonder, will this new day bring? Huh? Huh? Up and at 'em!
Their parents, meanwhile, drag themselves groggily from sleep, dreading the day. At night, babies fight sleep with wailing and howling, while their parents embrace consciousness close-down with gratitude.
Blind optimism versus proven life experience, is what's going on right there, I reckon.
* There's something horribly Weimarish about this recession. Not only are we in denial about it, but the rich are positively revelling in pointless extravagance. In just the last week the designer Kelly Hoppen has launched a “bespoke range of dog furniture” and, to celebrate PG Tips's 70th anniversary, Boodles jewellers have made a £10,000 diamond-studded teabag. Two words: Sodom, Gomorrah. Oh yes. We'll get ours. And we'll deserve it.
Reader views (1)
Costly booze, costly petrol, costly smoking: all put in to place by various do-gooders to stop people being tempted. In the Governments' case (and of whichever colour) this comes down to the amount of revenue raised.
Anyone with any sense knows that person "addicted" to alcohol, smoking or any other drug is not going to be put off by its price. They will find the money from somehwere; even if that means defaulting on loans, rent or mortgages.
Those who beleive that these increases are being put in to place by a caring Government are blind fools. The amount of money generated by these Duties (taxes) have little to do with caring auntie Governmnet, but more a money interested group of MPs whose expenses AND Salaries are paid for by Joe Public.
Increasing duties will not stop alcoholism believe me.
- The Debt Collector, Chelmsford, England, 01/10/2009 12:20
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