An intoxicating debate

Tavish Scott got a bit of a roasting from Newsnicht's Gordon Brewer yesterday on Lib Dem flip-flopping at both Westminster and Holyrood, but at least the party's Scottish leader demonstrated a bit of backbone during Sunday's stairheid rammy, aka the BBC's Politics Show (Scottish bittie).

On the issue of alcohol Mr Scott pointed out the almost universal lack of enforcement of the prohibition against liquor licensees selling booze to the already intoxicated, while the other party leaders concentrated on distractions like minimum pricing, which of course has the modest aim of reducing an alcoholic's or binge drinker's consumption by something like a nip and a half pint a week.

By coincidence a Herald 'news' article the next day highlighted the widespread abuse of the prohibition during recent Old Firm matches, with no prosecutions arising at all. Naturally Strathclyde Police refused to comment, as of course do the politicians normally, perhaps because highlighting the issue would in turn underline decades of creeping neglect from police and licensing councillors.

And the word 'news' above in relation to the Herald article is in inverted commas because this should hardly be news to anyone, although of course the newspaper should be commended for actually highlighting the issue.

A related issue is police accountability, or at least the almost complete lack thereof in relation to scrutiny from councillors on local police boards. Which is slightly ironic, because the Lib Dems are making a big play about the issue of accountability in their opposition to the proposals to centralise police forces in Scotland, which is indeed doubly ironic because of Tavish Scott's supine parroting of the chief constables' claim that the plan would cost 3,000 front line officers, by which they probably mean a few dozen desk bound senior officers would lose their jobs.

And here's a good recent example of what probably passes for accountability on Planet Lib Dem Councillor, this on community policing from one of Mr Scott's north east Fife colleagues: "I wanted to give a balanced view of community policing, but I couldn’t think of anything negative to say, which is wonderful."

Well perhaps it is all wonderful, but why do I get the impression that if Fife Constabulary said they couldn't care less about community policing and that the whole thing was little better than a PR exercise then the good councillor would be waxing lyrical about how realistic, frank and honest these amazingly, wondrously stupendous police officers are, what with their incredibly shiny buttons, huge big batons and all their other magnificence.

Indeed it was the good councillor's neck of the woods where I was blanked by a couple of these remarkable and awesome officers recently when complaining to them about someone's abusive and threatening behaviour, as mentioned almost ad nauseum on here before. ('Engaging with the community is police priority' my backside!)

And indeed the authorities in that part of Fife are equally indifferent to the widespread abuse of the liquor licensing provisions mentioned at the outset, even pandering to some of the worst offenders by providing them with a monopoly on extended drinking hours (although in the Lib Dems' defence I think these matters are now controlled from Glenrothes rather than by the party's stronghold of the old area licensing board in Cupar, thus it would perhaps be more appropriate to blame the SNP).

And the other elephant in the room as regards the alcohol problem is the hands off approach of police to drunk and disorderly behaviour, again by coincidence highlighted by the Sun in an article published on the same day as the Herald's piece mentioned at the outset.

And although the Sun's article relates to south of the border, there's nothing to suggest any fundamental difference in approach up here, with no doubt the main difference in the last few years being 1,000 extra pairs of blind eyes being turned.