Hard-working Scots could be forgiven for resorting to a stiff drink tonight as they contemplate an extraordinary triple attack on their living standards. The minimum unit price of alcohol has risen by 30 per cent, peak-time rail tickets have nearly doubled, and the energy price cap has just gone up by 10 per cent or £149. Oh, and many pensioners have also lost their winter fuel payments thanks to Rachel Reeves, ‘the pensioner freezer’, as the Labour chancellor is being called, even by some in the Scottish Labour party.
But that hike in the minimum unit price of alcohol, which adds insult to injury, is entirely down to the Scottish government. At a time when families are struggling, it seems entirely the wrong moment to punish moderate drinkers for one of the few compensations for living in our harsh Scottish climate. Beer and wine will cost up to 67 per cent more than in England.
It’s not as if there is any firm evidence that the MUP actually works. Deaths from alcohol rose again last year and are now at the highest level in 15 years. The latest figure, 1,277, is up 25 per cent in the last four years. The Scottish government claims that ‘hundreds of lives have been saved’ by MUP, but this is speculative. It is based on modelling by Public Health Scotland, who claim even more would have died had MUP not been introduced in 2020.
That’s a strange counterfactual on which to base public policy. Deaths are down even as they have, er, gone up.
Drug deaths in Scotland have also increased despite the liberalisation of the laws on possession. But no-one would dare to say that, well, they could’ve been even higher and therefore lives have been saved. That kind of logic only attracts ridicule. It looks like the Scottish government has been manipulating facts to fit the policy. In England, for example, where there is no minimum unit price, deaths from alcohol are 40 per cent lower per 100,000 than in Scotland.
Indeed, the only people cheering are the smugglers. A box of 18 cans of Strongbow cider that sells for about £14 in England will now cost around £22 in Scotland. That’s a nice little earner for anyone with a van willing to hop over the border.
The Scottish government is also implicated in the late Scottish train robbery. Commuters between Glasgow and Edinburgh, already harassed by delays and cancellations, found yesterday that their £16.20 anytime return ticket had nearly doubled to £31.40. This is because the Scottish government has abandoned its much-heralded, country-wide abolition of peak fares. The newly-nationalised rail network found it just didn’t attract enough people out of their cars to make the reduction commercially viable. The restoration of peak fares will, of course, force yet more people into using their cars.
It’s a cruel blow. Though not as cruel as the ever-rising cost of heating bills. The new cap of £1,717 is only an average. Many Scottish homes already pay considerably more to keep warm. According to the ONS, Scottish bills are 40 to 50 per cent higher than in London.
People are wondering where all Scotland’s supposedly cheap-as-chips wind energy is going. Britain is a world leader in renewables, yet bills just keep going up. The new price cap is still £300 more than before the Ukraine war. Some nationalists claim that Scotland’s green electricity is being stolen by the English. But that’s not how the energy market works. Everyone in the UK is paying the same inflated unit price as the Scots. Just don’t expect GB Energy to make any difference. The reality is that renewable energy is not going to reduce bills for a long time, as most analysts admit.
There is a heartless streak of joyless puritanism in Scottish public life
Ed Miliband’s attempt to accelerate the decline of the North Sea oil and gas industry will make Britain even more reliant on expensive imports. That will also push bills higher.
Well, it all helps the transition to net zero, apparently. But tell that to pensioners in Scotland who are braced for a miserable Christmas, deprived even of the consolation of a glass of Scotland’s national drink or perhaps that snifter of Buckfast Tonic Wine.
There is a heartless streak of joyless puritanism in Scottish public life. Finger-wagging scolds telling folk how to live their lives. Unfortunately, many of them are embedded in the Scottish National party.
But this week’s triple whammy on the cost and quality of life in Scotland will surely only hasten their electoral demise.
Comments