I know I've mentioned that Scotland has been sinking into insanity of late, but the symptoms are becoming more aggressive.
Charging a minimum price for alcohol could save Scotland £950 million over the next decade by reducing crime, absenteeism and the burden on the NHS, researchers have concluded.
SNP ministers have published an academic report which indicates the measure would cut hospital admissions and deaths by 3,600 a year.
A level of 40p per unit would cost a moderate drinker £11 extra a year, but a heavy drinker £137 annually, it states.
Yes, you read that right.
The extra burden of 37p per day is going to turn a heavy drinker into a temperate saint. With no unintended consequences at all, like savings being made on family food budgets to compensate for example, or anything like that.
No. The alcoholic jocks will be suitably chastened, hold their hands up, and swarm to their nearest Al-Anon office for realignment.
Course they will.
I'm starting to believe that the biggest argument against Scots voting for independence is the SNP themselves. I've met 9 year old kids with a more mature view of the world around them.
15 comments:
The SNP are cunts.
End of.
Dick, assuming you don't live in the socialist paradise north of the border, I suggest you do what I intend to do over the next decade.
Sit back and enjoy the show.
By this time next year we will have kicked New Labour into touch, and our northern collectivist brethren, if not already independent, will be well down the independence road to escape Tory influence.
It will be a fantastic spectator sport, watching the setting up, and day to day running of their own SNP utopian nanny state. The best bit, assuming we aren't forced to bail them out, will be watching it all collapse shortly afterwards.
Who will get the increased revenue; the brewers, retailers or the Treasury ?
The proposed 40p per unit minimum will not affect me because everything that I drink already costs considerably more than that already.
I have no idea how much White Lightning or Buckfast costs per unit but any increase will result in a surge in booze-aquiring crime, not a reduction as promised by these crazed fools.
Am waiting for BTS to read this and am standing by with the bottle of black label vodka to assist with the healing process
Great post. Just handed out some linky love :-)
I'm very much of the opinion that people will simply compensate with budget cuts elsewhere. Sooner or later, we'll hear yet more cries of "child poverty" from the Righteous types as the heaviest drinkers allocate further money to their habit at the expense of shoes for the kiddies.
This one has wheels.
It won't make the blindest bit of difference to the NHS (read: emotional blackmail). They know it and we know it.
It's simply a tax hike proposal. As I've often thought, if they really wanted people to stop doing something, they'd just make it illegal. Duty comes first. That's one thing I do know.
You know .. .. not all Scots are nutters .. .. .. some even think the same way that you do!
@MOB - the research published by Sheffield Uni actually suggests that the revenue receipts will fall if the price is fixed.
I liked that too captainff. Not impressed with Rab's language though, but I expect he's tired. :)
There is a serious alcohol problem here in Scotland, drunkenness has become part of our culture.
There's no longer any shame or embarrassment at being found drunk in the street - that goes for females too.
This policy won't stop people drinking. What would help would be if the police would lock the drunks up in a cell instead of carting them off to A & E and bunging that up every Friday and Saturday.
Of course that would affect their Human Rights I suppose.
But the HRA is another matter for another time, isn't it Dick?
3,600 deaths a year?
Update over at mine once I summon the energy.
“I'm starting to believe that the biggest argument against Scots voting for independence is the SNP themselves.”
Oh, I've been saying that for years.
John East: "Sit back and enjoy the show."
I could if I didn't know that we are next. Lead time is less than a year from Jockland (welcome, by the way).
Banned: Where you been, FFS?
MOB: Welcome to you too. Replied at yours.
You too, CaptainFF
You, however, Subrosa, I have to disagree with.
(come on, you knew it was coming, you temptress)
"There is a serious alcohol problem here in Scotland"
I would describe it as a 'perceived' problem. Not a real one.
"drunkenness has become part of our culture."
This would tend to disagree with the rhetoric which has been emanating from the SNP.
It cannot have 'become' a problem when the SNP continually talk of it being a long-standing national problem.
It's neither. ONS stats say that we're all drinking less than 10 years ago.
The only way it can be deemed a problem is if it is compared with 50 years ago when post-war rations were in force.
"There's no longer any shame or embarrassment at being found drunk in the street - that goes for females too."
Now you're getting there.
"This policy won't stop people drinking. What would help would be if the police would lock the drunks up in a cell instead of carting them off to A & E and bunging that up every Friday and Saturday."
Zackerley. It used to be shameful to be arrested for being drunk and disorderly. That was when police used to do such a thing.
So the problem isn't more people drinking, it is the more prominent display of drunkenness on a regular basis which isn't tackled with existing laws - laws which have as much relevance today as they did decades ago.
"But the HRA is another matter for another time, isn't it Dick?"
Perhaps when I'm feeling saucy. ;-)
I saw the ministerette explain that this wasn't a tax rise, because the government doesn't actually get any more, as if this was a good thing. I assume the money will partly increase profits but mainly just be destroyed as in the increased inefficiency of everything. At least when government steal the wealth still exists & some of it gets paid out. When government destroys wealth everybody loses.
this wasn't a tax rise, because the government doesn't actually get any more
Exactly. It's just spent on hectoring people for no profit or benefit.
If this EVER happens down here there will be considerably more than 3600 deaths as a result.
That's a fucking promise.
Thanks for the drink Bear. I fucking need it..
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