MY TWOPENCE WORTH ON MINIMUM ALCOHOL PRICING

BEER SHAMPOO HITS £10 A TUBE!

Minimum alcohol pricing, there's a quandry.

We have to face up to the  fact that we in the UK and more particularly in Scotland, have a big problem with alcohol.  When you go to Spain or France the only drunks you see are Brit tourists or occasionally a North European.  Some of the scenes in our city centres on a Saturday night are a disgrace.  Some people will say that is because drink is so dear that people get hammered in the house before they go out.  So should we make drink cheaper?  Would that bring in a more responsible attitude to drinking?  Personally I doubt it. But, then I suppose you could say that it is much cheaper in Spain where I drink a reasonable wine for £0.65 a litre and Spaniards don't get pissed, even at the football.

Now I speak as one who has drunk like a fish for most of his life, so I think I might have some input here.  I do in principle support minimum pricing but I do believe that £0.50 a unit is too dear.  How, if it gets through the courts, can we charge £0.50 when in England, they are looking to bring in a price of £0.40.  Ridiculous.  And why should we hand the supermarkets a £100 million bonus?  Those bastards have ravaged our town centres, turning them into 'tesco extras', charity shops and bookies.  I'd clobber any multinational in an out of town centre till they felt their orange pips squeeze.  

Is it possible to take this money off them and use it to pay for alcohol education for our young?  I don't know.  But, I will tell you one thing.  This is what a responsible Government means to the people of Scotland.  The SNP and it could be rightly or wrongly in your estimation had this policy as part of their manifesto despite the fact that Labour, the Tories and the Libdums were against it in the last parliament and they know it will lose them votes, but they have the interests of Scotland's people at heart.  Suddenly of course, CamaClegg have decided they are in favour so the Libdums and the Tories have changed their tune.  So in other words, they are not interested in the health of the people of Scotland, just in their narrow Unionist policies.  Plus ca change as my French brothers say!

WHAT ARE THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN SCOTLAND AND LIBYA?

A man in need of a good shave

Are there any lessons to be learnt for Scotland in the Libyan affair?

Well Gaddafi was obviously a bastard, we all knew that.  But, when he came to power he got rid of the previous administration who were seen as even bigger bastards at the time.  Whilst the Libyans welcomed his military coup, in Scotland in 1707, when the Scottish people were sold down the river by their 'betters', the nobility, who only had their own interests at heart and had been bribed by English money to push Scotland towards the Union, there were public protests in the streets.  But times change.  They have changed in Libya as they also have in Scotland, although it is obviously a shorter time span in the Arab country.

Some would say of course that the Union has been good for Scotland.  Since 1707, the UK economy and Empire grew exponentially, thanks to the enslavement of the common people who worked in the mills and factories to produce the wealth which flowed from their efforts.  The common soldier, convinced that he was fighting for the defence of Britain died in their millions to conquer the lands of other peoples, although they would say they were 'explorers' who brought enlightenment to the heathen.  It seems to me that we have failed in many ways to civilise those heathens if some of the facts we are fed by a biased media are to be believed.  That being the case, the enlightenment would appear to have been for the benefit of the power brokers who really reaped the rewards and whose children rarely appear in foreign fields to be shot at and killed.  How many of our MPs and even more importantly the PTB, have sons fighting for an pipeline in Afghanistan?

It struck me tonight when I heard an article on the news at the  EBC, that said that the future of the Libyan people was ensured because they had huge supplies of oil, that there was a huge similarity with Scotland.  I'm not saying that we have had a 'mad-dog' in charge for the last 30 years, although some in Scotland might say that Maggie was of a similar ilk, but I do believe that the time has come for Scotland to go it's own way and take control of it's own affairs.  The Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore, said today, with Unionist pride in his voice, that an independent Scotland would have been unable to intervene in another Libyan, like the UK has over the last ten months.  He completely misses the point.  No one in Scotland, or at least very few, people think we should be interfering in another country's politics.  What about Saudi Arabia or Bahrain?  Why aren't we carpet bombing their leaders?  We all know the answer to that!

No, let's remain friends with England, we have a shared history of sorts, but many in England think we are a drain on their economy, although that has been proved to be false many times and after all we wouldn't want to outstay our welcome!

THIS GUY IS A COMPULSIVE SPEAKER AS HE DEFENDS HIS ENGLAND.