Cask and over a barrel

With our streets teeming with drunks, binged out of their heads, our schools chock-full of drunken primary pupils and every body else waiting to become alcoholics it's time for a government consultation exercise.


This consists of some ideas aired to the public, under the guise of "proposals", some of which are then laughed at, ridiculed, then torn apart, leaving some which get crow-barred into an Act of Parliament, so making the country shiny and new and beautiful again.


The Scottish Government are tackling Swalba head on. This is what they're saying, with my comments in red:

• The total cost of alcohol misuse in Scotland is estimated at £2.25 billion per year - £500 for every adult living in Scotland


• The GDP of Scotland is £86billion, so we must be able to function somehow. (And I never quite understand all these missing days being so bad. Surely your work is still there for you to do when you come back? Like holidays? And if you've been on the swally the night before you probably contributed quite a lot to the economy)


• Alcohol-related visits to Scottish hospitals have increased by almost 50 per cent over the last decade and alcohol-related death rates have more than doubled.
• While this looks a bad thing, it could also show that more people are able to get into a hospital to be seen due to increased efficiency of the NHS. In the past they might have been just keeling over in their houses, while the waiting lists kept them at bay.


• Scotland has one of the fastest growing liver cirrhosis death rates in the world at a time when cirrhosis rates in most of Western Europe are falling
• Indeed it has and it's worrying. But is alcohol the only cause? Er, no. Obesity also has its place (though not the main one) and with the amount of fatties in the country it'd an interesting study to look at that effect.
  
• Almost half (45 per cent) of Scottish prisoners in 2007 said they were drunk at the time of the offence
• Which would mean that 55% of prisoners weren't drunk.
  
• 95 per cent of respondents to the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS) 2006 saw alcohol abuse in Scotland as a problem
• There goes one of those surveys again, was it the main problem? A problem? One of many? The propensity to commit crime is a bigger factor amongst perpetuators.
  
• Alcohol is a contributory factor in one in three divorces.
• And alcohol is probably a factor in 100% of weddings. What do we do? It's used as a social lubricant and many asking people out need a bit of inhibition inhibiting, which comes usually after a few swallies, so should we rely on online dating? Tea dances?
• 65,000 children are living with a parent or carer who has an alcohol problem.
• Another stat. Still a terrible one, but it's lined up to suit the chosen argument. Over 110,000 children in Scotland live in over-crowded housing (According to Shelter). What is worse for their development?

The Scottish Government recently launched Homecoming Scotland 2009, one of the themes of which is whisky.

In response to the Chancellor's rise in taxation on alcohol in 2008, the Scotsman reported:

"Mr Swinney (the SNP Finance Minister) said whisky was already at a disadvantage compared with other forms of alcohol and called for taxes to be levied according to the alcohol content of drinks. "

That's the Swally!