Labour and alcohol

Most interested was I in the 'independent' commission on alcohol that Labour set up. It had six members: Sam Galbraith, Labour party member and former Labour Minister; Stephen Doran, Labour party member and Glasgow Labour councillor; Brian Fearon, Labour party member, former Labour councillor and Labour's candidate in Ochil in 2007; Sally Brown (chair), former Labour party member and friend and neighbour of Labour MSP and former Labour Minister Richard Simpson; Graeme Pearson, former policeman and now Labour's adviser on crime (providing the skeleton for Richard Baker's sterling work); and Jeremy Blood who spent 21 years working for Scottish & Newcastle and is now a director of Mitchell's & Butler's. Impartiality - ye canna whack it!

Anyway, this commission, fascinatingly, came up with proposals that are already Labour party policy - remarkable the prescience that Labour politicians have - and scorned Minimum Unit Pricing (the policy of the SNP Government). This commission argued that "MUP is not in place anywhere in world and the evidence presented for its effectiveness relies on estimates of impact" just before it refers to the Canadian Social Reference Pricing which it suggests differs markedly from MUR. Perhaps they should have done the tiniest bit of research, something like reading the submission from the Brewers Association of Canada to the Alcohol Bill which describes SRP and shows it to be the same as MUP. In addition, Russia introduced minimum pricing on vodka earlier this year to curb consumption and has already had minimum pricing for other spirits for a couple of years, Moldova introduced it on strong alcohol products, Ukraine and China both have minimum pricing (Ukraine's politicians were arguing about how much it should rise by in April last year), and Australia was considering it at the beginning of last year (just me and my research assistant Mr Google finding MUP in action)

If you want something more stunning than that, though, look at the recommendations - this commission rejects the idea of Scotland bringing in a minimum price for alcohol based on the strength of the product and suggests, instead, that the Scottish Government asks London to introduce a floor price below which alcohol may not be sold and harmonise prices so that the cost of the drink will be based on the strength of the product. So that would be an argument that we shouldn't do it but should ask London to - the argument being that you shouldn't have a different system in Scotland. The irony of Labour being last to understand devolution is almost painful. Also interesting in that section, though, is that Labour's minimum price is based on adding together the cost of production, duty and VAT but there is an aside that "The Commission is unconvinced by those who argue that it is not possible to arrive at a notional basic cost of production." This is the only time in the report that it is mentioned that someone has suggested that it might be impossible to isolate notional basic costs (for instance, if one site is producing 20 different products on 7 different lines, how do you allocate production costs to each unit of each product?)

Labour once again ignoring the duty of responsible politicians and, instead, messing around looking for a tiny political pointscoring opportunity - a party that really can't be trusted. It's time to properly address Scotland's unhealthy relationship with alcohol and Labour just isn't interested.

Let's leave the last word to some international alcohol experts who have written to MSPs encouraging them to support the SNP Government proposals.

Top Trumps - Justice

As I said before, you can buy Top Trumps packs but they've forgotten Holyrood (how could they?). One of the comments on the Top Trumps post on the candidates for First Minister suggested that I should have added "Ability to think on ones feet" as a category - it's one I didn't consider but it would hardly be fair, would it? Salmond seems mildly disappointed if nothing unexpected happens while the Labour front bench looks like it would need to go home for instructions if the newsagent didn't have its favourite brand of chewing gum.
On to Justice though; our contenders are
SNP - Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill MSP
Lab - Shadow CSfJ Richard Baker MSP
Con - Shadow CSfJ John Lamont MSP
LD - Spokesperson on Justice Robert Brown MSP (I had to look that up)
Green - I dunno, I'll let James tell us

Categories:

Tough on crime

MacAskill takes assets from criminals and recycles them into assets for communities - on his watch Scotland’s police and courts have been pursuing organised crime and getting results . This is, of course, a big change since Labour’s time in power - I think he gets 10 out of 10

Baker talks about ASBOs for teenagers drinking but won’t agree with action to address the drinking and wants to jail daft wee laddies who go out with a knife in their pocket but won’t agree with the action needed to persuade them not to. He never mentions serious crime and has never talked about taking on organised crime. He wants to appear to be tough on crime but doesn’t have what it takes to actually be tough on crime. He gets 0

Lamont is new to the job, having taken over after Bill Aitken decided to sing the closing aria on his political career so he doesn’t have much of a record to examine. He does seem to have slotted straight into the strange twilight world of the Scottish Conservatives Justice theory, though, (a pity that he doesn’t take a leaf out of the book of Ken Clarke who takes somewhere approaching sense on Justice issues) and is obsessing on a few matters rather than offering solutions. He’s for short prison sentences and agrees with Labour on jailing wee laddies – wants to appear tough on crime but doesn’t know how. He gets 0

Brown is strange, it’s never very clear where he stands on anything (enough with the ‘typical Lib Dem’ comments, now), he’s unusually indirect for a Geordie. He doesn’t actually say much about the operation of the Justice system and hasn’t brought forward any alternative policies. He most certainly hasn’t spoken about how he would like to see us tackle organised crime. He gets 0

Tough on the causes of crime

MacAskill wrote a fair bit on how to address the causes of crime in the books he wrote a few years ago as well as in articles – firstly address the three Ds – drink, drugs and deprivation, lock up the bad guys, treat those needing treatment, and find ways to give society a fair crack of the whip. In Government he’s implemented restorative justice – Cashback for Communities as already mentioned, but also in putting community service workers to work in places where it will be helpful – like clearing snow from pensioners’ paths last winter or putting headstones back up in Edinburgh graveyards or helping restore peatlands in Lanarkshire. He’s set up a review of sentencing, gave the Advocate General free reign on reforming the prosecution of rape, moved to get rid of short sentences, started the process of addressing Scotland’s unhealthy relationship with alcohol, and started to make sure that offenders pay back to the communities they have damaged.

He’s addressing recidivism – removing short sentences is a big part of it, keeping people out of prison as far as possible and trying to make them productive members of society, keeping prison for those who are a danger to society . He hasn’t done everything yet, so only 8 out of 10

Baker has never laid out his thought on paper as far as I can tell and only comments to say “I’m against that” – I can’t recall a single time when he has said that he agrees with something that is begin done. He’s in favour of short sentences – even wanted a mandatory six month sentence in spite of the overwhelming evidence that short sentences encourage reoffending and embed many people in a life of crime. Instead of offering the underprivileged a hand up and out of the hole they’ve landed themselves in, Baker appears to want to just put a lid on the hole and keep them down there. For a devastating indictment of the lack of vision in Labour’s Justice policy, there’s only one place to go. Scores 0

Lamont hasn’t said much (give him time) but he’s got to defend this barking policy he hasn’t scored yet, but he could do worse than learn from Malcolm Rifkind who delivered the Kenneth Younger Memorial Lecture to the Howard League for Penal Reform while he was the Minister in charge of Justice policy in Scotland in 1988 and he said:

There will always be those who commit serious or violent crimes and who pose a threat to society which requires them to be confined for significant periods. Nevertheless there are many good reasons for wishing to ensure that, as a society, we use prisons as sparingly as possible. While the use of imprisonment may be inescapable when dealing with violent offenders and those who commit the most serious crimes, we must question to what extent short sentences of imprisonment and periods of custody for fine default are an appropriate means of dealing with offenders and there is no single answer to that. Prisons are both expensive to build and to run and do not provide the ideal environment in which to teach an offender to live a normal and law-abiding life, to work at a job or to maintain a family. If offenders can remain in the community, under suitable conditions, they should be able to maintain their family ties, opportunities for work or training and they may be better placed to make some reparation for their offence.

Brown is just wishy-washy, nothing much there, but he does oppose short sentences. Give him 3 points (is this like Eurovision?)


Taking decisions while resisting undue influence

MacAskill Showed his mettle here by holding off the US Government in the decision to free Megrahi, making the decision on the basis of the evidence in front of him rather than the political pressures that were on him. 10 by gum!

Baker doesn’t have that fortitude; he even thought that MacAskill should go and beg forgiveness from the US Senate. Nil points

Lamont – nae record to examine, he hasn’t made clear how he would make decisions. He doesn’t even get to speak on Megrahi, Murdo Fraser does that.

Brown gave MacAskill full support in refusing to kowtow to the US Senate, saying that the Scottish Justice Secretary is accountable to the Scottish Parliament and not the US Senate – then he ruined it with a sly dig – 8 out of 10

This would be an awfy boring game of Top Trumps but you get the picture. I think a legal mind might do a better job of analysing these contenders, I know one who frequently opines on Mr Baker, for instance …

Mind how you go!

L'esprit de l'escalier

I was having a wee debate about capital punishment last night (not with myself you cheeky rapscallion) and the deterrence effect of punishment on levels of crime (next to nought in my opinion) and I've just thought of the question I should have put to my pro-hangin-an-floggin chum:

Do you need the deterrent of capital punishment to prevent you committing murder?

Must remember in future ...

Twits of the world unite!

You may remember that cool, hip and groovy chap, Frank McAveety MSP who turned out not to be cool, hip and groovy and had to resign from his convenorship over offensive remarks. He has decided not to be offensive in future and has, instead, decided to employ someone else to do that for him. Step forward Stuart MacLennan, onetime Labour candidate for Moray who resigned in disgrace over, erm, offensive remarks and is now happily ensconced in Mr McAveety's Glasgow office.

I'm sure that they've both learned their lessons and there will be no more behaviour treating people in a derogatory and dismissive fashion. Move along, now, nothing to see here!

Art lovers

Here's a thing to go to when you're tired of seeing shows at the Edinburgh Festivals - art that you can contemplate in peace. Barbara Rae is exhibiting some prints in the Dundas Street Gallery (paintings across the road in the Open Eye Gallery).

If you fancy being really nice to me the one I like best is on the left hand wall just opposite the pillar (I've forgotten the name of it). You can see some of her stuff on her website. Mind how you go!

Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Southern Estaitis

If it hadn't been for the chance promotion of wee Danny Alexander to Chief Secretary to the Treasury the UK Government would lack a single Cabinet Secretary who represents a Scottish seat other than the Scottish Secretary. John Major's last cabinet, with fewer Scottish Members to choose from (11 Tory seats under Major, 12 Coalition seats now), had Lang at Trade and Industry and Rifkind as Foreign Secretary (Forsyth was Scottish Secretary).

Interestingly, Brown had only three (including himself) but Blair had four in his last cabinet - each with far more to choose from than Major. Is the quality of unionist MP from Scotland in decline? I suppose it is blindly obvious that Mundell does not have the quality of Rifkind or Forsyth, that Moore is no Jo Grimond and Danny Alexander isn't even Russell Johnston. It's just as clear, I suppose, that Murphy is no Tom Johnston and Douglas Alexander can't hold a candle to Willie Ross, but are they really that much worse than the fodder being served up south of the border - Vince Cable, Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Huhne, Andrew Lansley, Eric Pickles?

It's just as well we can fend for ourselves, isn't it? Mind how you go!

Remember when?

A long, long time ago there was an election and some people used videos, remember these ones?







Ah, principles, eh?