What on earth do you think the Herald is up to now with the image above and the headline – Minimum alcohol pricing: Charity leader calls for probe?
Probe? A charity leader is opposed to MUP? Really?
No.
The charity is Favor UK.
Here’s what they think.
Probe? Nobe.
The charity leader wants the Scot Gov to publish more research evidence in favour of MUP. She doesn’t, as the headline implies, want a ‘probe’ to find out why it’s a bad idea. Quite the reverse.
Has the Scottish Government perhaps already published the research and the media have ignored it, do you think?
“Research commended by internationally-renowned public health experts estimated that our world-leading Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) policy has saved hundreds of lives, likely averted hundreds of alcohol-attributable hospital admissions and contributed to reducing health inequalities.
“Despite this progress, deaths caused specifically by alcohol rose last year – and my sympathy goes out to all those who have lost a loved one.
“We believe the proposals, which are supported by Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer, strike a reasonable balance between public health benefits and any effects on the alcoholic drinks market and impact on consumers. Evidence suggests there has not been a significant impact on business and industry as a whole.
“Alongside MUP, we will continue to invest in treatment and a wide range of other measures, including funding for Alcohol and Drug Partnerships which rose to £112 million in 2023-24.”
Minimum Unit Pricing rise – gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
Am I allowed to say the Herald report is shitty? I just have.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Herald?
More like a ‘trumpet’.
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”Shittty ” ? The Herald ?
Well , shit can be useful as a fertiliser – I ‘m not too sure about The Herald !
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My guess is the story https://archive.ph/lMwus is to deflect SG’s embarrassment (Sandesh Gulhane) over the video of him behaving like a total arsehole in Committee appeared in the National, then was flamed on the internet.
The choice of pic which has absolutely nothing to do with the article headline is fairly typical of ‘Senior Reporter’ at the Herald, to let no turn be unstoned… Likewise the Charity’s request to the SIC is fairly self explanatory, how Caroline Wilson contrived ‘probe’ from it is anybody’s guess, perhaps a Martin the Ferryman suggested it ?
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The article in the Herald may be shitty but so is the policy. This is an assault on the poor. How does this policy affect quaffing rich people it doesn’t. How does it affect hard working, zero hour contract folk? It gives them a shitty time. as well as crap wages they then cant afford to have a drink. It’s disgrace. The evaluation of the policy was a ‘take your pick’ of stats. A problem drinker will NOT give up alcohol because of price, but they will stop eating, they will run up bills. But rich problem drinkers? Another reason why I cannot vote SNP, they are anti the poor. I know because I am one of the zero hour poor. W2hile some buy electric cars and motor homes, I cannot even slake my thirst. A disgrace. FYI:
Minimum unit price not changing alcoholics’ habits – BBC News
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you mean you are a ToryLabour troll………continue to watch bbc for your fakery. You have learned zero from TUS. I suggest you log on to SNP website to see what they have actually done for poor Scots. Not voting for them means you will have to pay for prescriptions, dentist, buses, giving your money to London, no NHS, higher energy bill, unaffordable council tax…..etc……the list is endless of the Scottish Governments achievements in protecting us Scots from Westminster austerity…that is Tory and Labour austerity…….you need to look at the real world. Let’s rejoin Europe and be the rich nation we should be……VOTE SNP TO PROTECT SCOTLANDS WEALTH from this idiocy!!!
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You should be ashamed of yourself. You don’t pay for prescriptions, in Ni or Wales you balloon the SNP have zero votes there. I used to be a member I remember when it was a party for Scotland not one for idiots like you. How dare you rubbish the reality of my situation. How many times have you been to a food bank? The baby box was good but I can’t drink it. Free bus passes are good but |I can’t drink it. I have to pay to get to my work and I get shit wages – if I get them and that’s legal. That’s a 30% rise in alcohol pricing – how is that not an assault on the poor. Enjoy your champagne!
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A nutcase troll!!!I. Ignorance is bliss but then I would imagine you are either a champagne guzzling Tory or a champagne socialist. As a real Socialist I take offence at your mad psychedelic rambling, the SNP has protected poor Scots like myself from the insanity of Wasteminster, this has to be a joke or someone who just doesn’t get it, maybe you should read back what you have written….it is nonsensical garbage!!!
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Scotland, in concert with many other countries, has a problem with the over consumption of alcohol. Nobody has ever said that this policy will solve every aspect of this scourge which affects every branch of society, but, and the evidence is there, it will reduce the problem, and that can only be a good thing. P.S. I am no teetotaler.
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With a name like yours, being tt might be anomalous! —apologies for the flippancy!
You make a valid point – the policy is reducing the problem of excessive alcohol consumption amongst several groups in the population and the net effect is that overall there is an improvement.
The carpers deploy the perfectionist fallacy – heavy, addictive drinkers still drink as much – ergo the policy has failed. The media love to find a datum like that.
Alasdair Macdonald.
PS I am a teetotaler, largely because both my parents died directly as a result of excessive alcohol consumption.
This statement will be seized upon my the media carpers : TT man says, ‘MUP has had no impact on my drinking.’
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You can always tell when a propaganda war is on the go, the trolls venture out, and James Cook ensures an “Analyis by ” is incorporated in an article, runs it through the BBC borrowed Tardis to appear recent, and makes comments open https://archive.ph/PdayE
On the latter, the “Analysis by ” goes to Lis Summers, was archived 18 hours ago yet purports to be 15 hours old, “Minimum alcohol unit price in Scotland to rise to 65p” has accumulated 2,242 comments, the earliest of which is 18 hours old, no other article has comments open….
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Bob with all due respect you reply in terms of protection of the SNP. The policy IS a disgrace it IS an assault on the poor. If you cannot see this, like the balloon above who thinks I’m a troll because I don’t agree with an SNP policy, then what chance have we of a better Scotland? If we ever get independence, I want a Scotland where I can enjoy my life in MY way, in the way I want. What’s the matter with that? I like to have a drink on my way home from my shit zero hours job. I pay my taxes, so why can’t they get off my back? I know why they brought the policy in, but why should the poor always be the ones who pay for these kind of policies? It’s kind of like saying the poor can’t handle alcohol. It’s insulting. It’s such a shit policy, so badly designed that the government doesn’t even get the money out of it! It’s not a tax, the shops keep the money, its crazy, and it’s social engineering – without consent.
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Stop calling me a balloon you baboon, you ARE a troll with no sense of actual reality….read the evidence it is easily found, it DOES reduce excessive alcohol consumption!!! I see you selfishly want to lead your life the way YOU want, well let’s hope it is all within the law then. PROPAGANDA FAILED!!!!
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There is no ‘due respect’ – You attribute “protection of the SNP” to defending doing something/anything over Scotland’s longstanding problems with alcohol, for which there is more than ample evidence, and regular media headlines.
MUP was brought in to curtail the influx of spectacularly cheap booze hitting the market, it has had no affect on pubs etc. whatever. The reality is that the policy restores pricing to what it would have been had this ‘dumping’ not happened.
In all likelihood an independent Scotland will follow the scandinavian model of making booze increasingly expensive to deter excessive drinking. Perhaps you should consider emigration to a country where health is not a priority…
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Increasing MUP keeping people healthy.
Scottish Gov funding total abstinence rehabs £250Million over 5 years. Instead of councils putting people on methadone for years. All drug deaths in Scotland are people prescribed methadone and taking other substances. AA and NA help people get the help they need.
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Excessive drinking/drugs leads to poverty and earlier death. People cannot work. The weathier are more likely to be healthier. Less obesity and over consumption. In S/E people are weathier and healthier. Live longer. No equality in the UK. Thatcher.
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Then the obvious answer to all our troubles is to ban alcohol> Just go for total prohibition. Then we will all be healthy. Have a look at the stats on death biggest killers Heart disease and circulatory disease, stroke and cancer nothing to fdo with alcohol or for that matter drugs. Actually most due to lifestyle choices such as eating shit food and not exercising. They used to call it getting fat. So how does that fit with MUP? It’s just the usual snobs telling folk like me that we are crap. That’s the modern SNP a Scotland for all except the poor.
Honestly, I hate saying these things but from being a member for years this is where they have taken me since Sturgeon took over, The party has gone right down the pan. It’s just people telling us off all the time for not conforming to middle class values.
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You speak nonsense the SNP are the only party protecting the poor, not torylabour and certainly not the actual Tories who all like their backhanders as careerist politicians, all a disgrace, all only interested in power and lining their pockets!!!
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I’m stunned by the ‘statistical significance’ of the HMS James Cook’s piece, yet another LIST MSP spouting garbage, and the arrival of a TuS’s troll claiming poverty yet having supported SNP until they increased the MUP.
As to “Honestly, I hate saying these things”, we do too Sandesh, we always have…
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Scotland drunk 25% more than the south. That is going down since MUP.
Poverty is going down in Scotland. £25 child payment. Kinship payments. Those in care are going down and getting extra support. Education grants and payments. Bus passes, less student loan fees and debt.
£250million over five years funding for drug/alcohol abuse. More total abstinence proper rehabs. Instead of people being put on methadone for years. Or people having to pay privately.
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