Latest from Coffee House

An occasional series in which we dare to take a look at what’s actually happening in the Scottish Parliament. Not, I warn you, for the faint of heart or the easily enraged. Now, yes, it’s true that most MSPs are well-intentioned, even kindly, souls concerned with the public good. But this takes them to some strange places. Consider these questions from “Health and Wellbeing” questions last week (what an awful title for a government ministry incidentally, one that explicitly endorses the idea of nannying adults)…

It could have been worse, I suppose. There was a proposal that you’d soon need a special license to be permitted to purchase cigarettes in Scotland. Presumably this would be accompanied by arm-twisting from “health care professionals” to persuade you to stop, or mandatory sessions with a shrink to demonstrate that you were indeed sufficiently and genuinely bonkers as to be granted a special license to enjoy abuse tobacco… Happily, if somewhat surprisingly, that proposal hasn’t actually passed. Yet. Still, yesterday the Scottish parliament confirmed that it was going to ban the display of cigarettes in shops. Apparently a ban on tobacco advertising – itself an outrageous abridgment of liberty

So, Panmure House, Adam Smith’s former Edinburgh home, has been sold. The ASI reports: Councillors in Edinburgh have approved the sale… to Heriot-Watt University. They chose the £800,000 bid over a higher offer, on the grounds that the University would make the building more accessible to the public. The University plans to restore the house to promote the study of economics. Hmmm. Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to sell to the highest bidder?

And amazingly, it has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. No, it’s Rangers’ Christian Dailly who, having seen the referee keep the Ibrox club’s SPL title ambitions alive yesterday had the effrontery, the gall, the unmitigated audacity to claim: that since arriving at Ibrox in January he has formed the impression that Rangers are more often on the wrong end of decisions. “There have been lots of decisions not given that should have been given in our favour,” he said. “It looks like a couple went our way today, but that is not the norm.” Words fail me. American readers may consider that this is akin to Michael Jordan complaining

This paragraph tells you most of what you need to know: The Scottish Government wants all primary schools to offer two hours of physical activity for all children each week – but figures from 2005 show that 5% of primary schools were meeting the provision. I suppose the situation may be better in secondary schools but to the extent that childhood obesity is a problem, you’re likely to have more success exercising the brutes than trying to monitor and control the sort of junk with which they stuff their faces. Plus, there are other benefits from sport too. But no, it’s more sensible to sell off the playing fields…

Happy St George’s day, English readers. To mark the occasion, the Telegraph offers us Simon Heffer, the would-be John Wilkes of our times, to declare the Union “as good as over”. And this, according to Heffer, is a fine thing since it ensures that England can finally be free from Tartan oppression. Apparently there’s been a conspiracy to to prevent the English from being, well, English: St     Patrick’s, St David’s and St Andrew’s days were decreed as the moments when the oppressed proclaimed their identity and possibly even their liberation. The only thing the English could possibly do on St George’s  Day was to reflect upon their centuries

In the past nine months four pubs in Selkirk, my home town, have closed. It would be simplistic to presume that the liberty-quashing smoking ban was the sole cause of this regrettable trend; it would be idiotic to suppose it didn’t play a part. Still, that’s only one part of legislators’ attempts to run publicans out of town. Consider this latest wheeze, for instance, as told by the Southern Reporter: Pub licensees, who currently pay £172 for a three-year licence to sell alcohol, will have to fork out up to £1,600 just to register their premises under the new [licensing] system. An annual fee on top of that has yet

Anthony Holden in The Observer: Carmen is back at Covent Garden for the first time since last summer’s Orwellian smoking ban and I’m delighted to report that the Royal Opera has taken not the slightest notice. If there’s any opera in which onstage smoking should be mandatory, this is it. Cigarette girls and soldiers alike all puff their heads off during the first act, to the point where the fumes drift gratifyingly into mid-stalls. And, even better, there are none of those ludicrous health-and-safety signs out front, as, for instance, at the Old Vic, to warn us of the perils of entering a smoke-stained auditorium. Of course in plucky Scotland

I wish this surprised or even shocked me. True, this is Dundee, but even so… Six young brothers and sisters face being taken from their parents and put into care because they are overweight. Social workers have warned they will intervene if three of the youngsters – including a 12-year-old boy who weighs 16 stone – do not shed several pounds in three months. The parents have been told they risk losing all their children if there is no improvement in the 12-year-old or two of his sisters aged 11 and three – who weigh 12 stone and four stone – by June. The family have also been ordered to

One of Gordon Brown’s flunkies* writes in today’s Telegraph: More than a year ago I argued that a debate about the future of the United Kingdom was long overdue. I suggested that, unless we start to focus more on what unites us than we do on what divides us, there     is a real risk that one day people will wake up and find that the benefits of the Union – which they had taken for granted for so long – had disappeared. I was accused of crying wolf. But when secessionist forces are loudly at work it is not the time for silence and passivity. We must be

There’s plenty of scaremongering about immigration these days but, even allowing for a proper degree of skepticism, this constitutes a clear and present danger to our way of life: The curry industry will die if action is not taken to address tough new immigration laws, restaurant bosses have warned the Scottish Parliament. They claim food quality will deteriorate and up to half of the Indian restaurants currently in business could shut. The comments came as 100 restaurateurs staged a protest at Holyrood over the changes to immigration rules. They claim a shortage of kitchen staff has been created as a result. Restaurant owners said legislation which came in at the

Megan notes that there are now more than three million Britons living abroad and argues: I assume this has something to do with the fact that it is very easy for Britons to go to wealthy, English-speaking countries, and also that there’s a relative lack of migration opportunities in Britain. If you’re American or Australian, you can always pick up and try another city, but in Britain, you mostly move to London or you . . . move to London. This is an exaggeration, of course, but there’s nothing like the ability to say, “You know what, things aren’t going so well in Boston, so I’m moving to LA.” If

Good grief: THE Scottish Government is preparing to take on supermarkets and off-licences in the battle against alcohol abuse, forcing them to pay a levy under new plans to make retailers meet the social cost of the country’s “bevvy culture”. Proposals for a “polluter pays” charge have been extended from pubs and clubs to include every shop that sells alcohol in Scotland, amid a growing perception among ministers and senior officials that retailers are fuelling crime and anti-social behaviour by selling liquor… Details of the proposed levy will be announced in the spring and will be subject to public consultation, but Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, yesterday made it clear

Should Berwick leave England and return to Scotland? An unofficial vote is taking place in the English borders town asking locals whether they want to switch from England to being part of Scotland. The town, which is near the Scottish border, has changed hands between the two countries at least 13 times… A television debate and vote is being held for the ITV Tonight show to gauge local views on becoming part of Scotland again. Fair enough. But in a spirit of conciliation, perhaps we could give england some town in Scotland as compensation for the loss of Berwick. I’m tempted to suggest Galashiels but am conscious there are many

This being Hogmanay it’s appropriate to post a New Year’s address from the one and only Reverend I.M Jolly.  For anyone who grew up in 1980s Scotland, the late, great Rikki Fulton’s annual appearance on Scotch & Wry was an annual highlight.