First, they came for the smokers; now it's the turn of the drinkers...

When does a commendable desire to improve public health tip over into a 'we know best' authoritarianism? Ian Bell in The Herald seems to think that the Executive's expected proposals go too far (here):

"The smoking ban is simple and unambiguous. Is there a feasible equivalent for alcohol? Not if the heavily-trailed executive strategy is anything to go by. Don't feel obliged to buy a round; don't drink in front of children; do remember that livers are hard to come by: sensible advice, obviously, but hardly sensational. Banning booze logos from replica football jerseys sold to the young might, meanwhile, end a piece of hypocrisy, but it is hardly the same as a ban on alcohol sponsorship in sport. As for creating separate check-outs in supermarkets, the better to segregate drinkers, who knows? Few consumers are likely to be dissuaded, but some among us might begin to understand just how much drinking these days takes place at home, unacknowledged, beyond the gaze of researchers and politicians. That raises the fundamental question: is government entitled to intrude on the private sphere, to invade that essential privacy, even if, as some suggest, the real and growing alcohol problem lies behind closed doors? And if smoking and alcohol are dealt with, what next? Compulsory jogging? Bans on burgers?

I think not. All governments hate the idea, but sometimes being told what is good for us just isn't good for us."

Freedom and Whisky (here) foresees the end of pubs in Scotland, which is surely pushing the envelope a bit far. My own suspicion is that public health is only an excuse; what really matters to the new puritans is that people are behaving badly and must be brought to book. Scotland has long been plagued by the unfortunate habit of a substantial proportion of the population to dismiss another substantial proportion as unjustified sinners. I fear that we are being driven back to the early 20th century, when pubs were harsh and brutish places, without comfortable seating and with frosted glass in the windows so that decent passers-by could not see the deplorable practices of drinking which went on therein. The good people of the world were taught that pubs were sinful places to be avoided at all costs. Thus will the presbyterian spirit of rectitude be reborn in the unlikely vessel of Jack McConnell. And, as Ian Bell points out, where will it all end? How long before mutton pies are banned?

Postcript: A minor point for the politicians. If the Executive takes action as suggested and is supported by the Parliament, thus demonising drinkers, how long will the Parliament be able to keep its in-house bar? Or is it one rule for the parliamentarians and another for the peasants? Similarly, will the First Minister insist that it is necessary to keep more than £2000 worth of booze in Bute House (see here)? Or is it only the lower orders who should be drinking less?