With the alcohol commission set up by the Labour Party in Scotland due to publish its final report it begs the question, why have they wasted time and money on looking at alternatives to the Scottish National Party's ( SNP ) idea of minimum pricing?
Labour and the other opposition parties say that minimum pricing with penalise moderate drinkers and that more information on sensible drinking is one of the better alternatives. but it is absolute nonsense to say that moderate drinkers will be the ones to suffer from such a policy. let's look at some facts.
If we take the last thirty or so years and look at the multitude of initiatives that various Governments, Councils and other agencies have introduced to inform people of the dangers of irresponsible drinking, of drug use and of under age sex it is plain to see that they have had little or no effect in any of these areas. There has been more information available in that time than there has ever been before and yet it does not change people's habits.
It is the same with any self regulation, if it is not to someone's advantage they will not do it. By the very nature of people they have to be forced to change. And this is where minimum pricing comes in.
If someone has a finite amount of money to spend on alcohol then setting a minimum price means that they will be able to buy less with their money therefore cutting the amount they will be drinking. It makes sense.
As for the moderate drinker, as they are not drinking a lot anyway then any increase in the price of drink is not going to make a big dent in their finances. If it does then i would suggest that they are not moderate drinkers, but are in fact drinking more than is good for them.
So the opposition parties should listen to everyone else who thinks that minimum pricing is the answer - these include the Police, the medical profession and drinks companies - and join them in having it implemented rather than trying to score political points. It is too important an issue for that.
When Jensen Button won the Formula1 World Championship in 2009 as usual the English press went into 'over the top' mode, declaring that he was a brilliant driver.
Before this season started i told anyone who would listen that Lewis Hamilton was the better of the two drivers and that the only time that Button really comes into his own is either when his rivals have technical issues or the track is wet.
A look at the season so far has shown this to be true, as did the Belgian Grand Prix today. Before he was taken off the track by Vettel he was doing well but once again it was because parts of the track were wet. If anyone doubts what i say my point was confirmed by McLaren Mercedes, Team Principal, Martin Whitmarsh when he said - commenting on Jensen's performance , "We've seen how good Jenson is in wet conditions " .
So don't expect him to win another World Championship any time soon unless the aforementioned conditions are met.
Yesterday On BBC Final Score Garth Crooks was one of the pundits commenting on the various English football matches as they happened. Anyone who watches the programme regularly will know that he could start an argument with himself because he is always of the opinion that he is right even when he is clearly not.
Yesterday he decided that the rules of the game should be disregarded so as not to ruin the game as a spectacle. He was commenting on the incident which saw a Blackpool player sent off for what is called stopping a goalscoring opportunity. What Mr. Crooks ( as an ex-player ) conveniently forgets is two important points. Firstly, the referee did not ruin the game as a spectacle it was in fact the player who broke the rules of the game by committing the foul. Secondly it was because of players of his time in the game that that particular rule was brought in.
Prior to the introduction, if an attacking player was heading for goal the defender would deliberately go for the man instead of the ball to stop him in any way he could. Therefore Garth Crooks should remember that it was because of players cheating that the rule was introduced. So it is they who ruined the game as a spectacle not the referee who was doing his job correctly.
Watch this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItZyaOlrb7E
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