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Wondrous

The Scottish government wants to end cut-price alcohol deals in supermarkets in an attempt to tackle the country’s booze culture.

The alcohol Bill is expected to set out a minimum price of 40p per unit — a controversial proposal that has drawn protests from the drinks industry.

The Scottish Conservatives are opposed to minimum pricing, but Labour has softened its position in recent months and is now expected to back the idea.

A spokesman for the SNP administration said: “The UK’s four Chief Medical Officers all back minimum pricing, and the BMA, Royal College of Nursing, the police, the British Liver Trust, and indeed the licensed trade association, all support the Scottish government’s proposals — which would stop high-strength beers and ciders being sold for pocket-money prices, while not affecting premium and quality products such as Scotch whisky.

Doesn\’t matter how many Scottish politicians and their paid bureaucrats think this is a good idea. It is illegal.

The European Union says so.

Having a minimum price per alcohol unit goes against the Single Market rules. For it could potentially discriminate against low cost alcohol from outside Scotland in favour of high priced from within.

We\’ll put this one down to a failure to understand where the power lies, shall we?

Or, as I wrote earlier.

7 thoughts on “Wondrous”

  1. “The UK’s four Chief Medical Officers all back minimum pricing, and the BMA, Royal College of Nursing, the police, the British Liver Trust, and indeed the licensed trade association, all support the Scottish government’s proposals”

    Gosh I wonder why the licensed trade association supports proposals to force supermarkets to raise their prices.

  2. Don’t tell ’em Timmy. Sound no sirens, hoist no flags. Let these glad tidings remain unpublicised.

    Your cause is much better served by cheering their headlong rush to the top of the moral high ground, only to see it bulldozed out from under them by the ‘crats in Brussels. We want to see the minimum pricing brigade take their petition all the way to Parliament, so that a Cabinet Minister is forced to break this news while the TV cameras are broadcasting it.

  3. Never mind the Brussels sprouts. The bootleggers and moonshiners will save the day. The rule of law takes another knife wound in the back from an ill considered and trivial law.

  4. @5 is correct. If this law passes, I’m opening a Calais-style hypermarket in Berwick-upon-Tweed, stacked to the ceiling with Tennents and Buckfast.

    Tim adds: Last time this was mentioned I started looking at maps. I think I recall that Hawick would be better….

  5. Of course, they will also rapidly realise that in order to hang on to the votes of the welfare class, they will have to find some way of supplementing benefits so the Rab C Nesbits can afford the increased prices. It’s just beaut when you think this thing through.

    But the trouble is that most political initiatives wind up like this. Think them through to the end and you rapidly find out why they can’t be done, but even if they could be done you wouldn’t want the consequences they would inevitably bring.

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