Kenny Farquharson: SNP leaves us with booze ban hangover

Under the scheme, the McAverages will have to find another £500 a year

FIVE hundred pounds. A lot of money by anybody's standards. The price of a summer holiday, a fancy telly or a new settee. Latest figures show it's the weekly disposable income for the average British household, after tax and national insurance have been deducted. It's also the amount the average Scottish family will be worse off every year if the SNP's Kenny MacAskill gets his way in his one-man crusade against the demon drink.

MacAskill, Justice Secretary in the Scottish Government, wants to crack down on cheap alcohol, banning heavy discounts in supermarkets and especially the popular three-for-two offers. This is necessary, he says, to tackle binge-drinking and Scotland's booze culture. Whenever he mentions this plan, other politicians and experts in public health nod their heads sagely and agree. So it looks like MacAskill will get his way.

Yet I wonder if MacAskill's boss, Alex Salmond, has paused to consider what this will mean in practical terms for the average Scottish family. I doubt that anyone on the First Minister's office has taken the time to do the maths. Because if they had, alarm bells would be ringing all over Bute House.

Let's take the example of Mr and Mrs McAverage, a Scots couple of modest means who enjoy modest pleasures, such as the occasional drink. Aware of the dangers of alcohol, they make sure their intake is well within the Government's recommended weekly limits. They are paragons of virtue. They share one bottle of wine a night with their evening meal, but they make sure they have one drink-free day every week. Each January, they also give up drink entirely for a fortnight, to detox.

As sensible model citizens, this is the sum total of their drinking. No bingeing at the weekends; no beers with the boys while watching football on TV; no girly nights in, demolishing a few bottles of sauvignon blanc. Aren't they good?

Now, you might have thought this couple's saintly lifestyle would meet with MacAskill's approval. After all, they typify exactly the kind of sensible, moderate behaviour he is trying to encourage. Apparently not. Under MacAskill's plan, the McAverages will have to find another £500 a year to sustain their current standard of living.

Let's do some mental arithmetic – don't worry, we'll keep it simple. If the McAverage's typical bottle of wine costs £5, and they usually get a three-for-two deal at the local supermarket, they will have to pay for an extra two bottles of wine a week if MacAskill gets his way and such offers are banned. That means they will have to find an extra £10 a week, or £500 a year. As we've already established, that's a fair whack of money. In fact, it's more than ten times the amount of cash the McAverages will save as a result of the SNP's flagship policy of freezing the council tax.

Will the McAverages accept this in good grace? Will they say to themselves: "Yes, Mr MacAskill, we'd be delighted to pay this extra cash. We accept that although we are entirely blameless, we must pay the price for other people's lack of discipline and social inadequacy. That seems entirely fair. We don't really need an Easter holiday anyway. Thank you, SNP – you can count on our vote at the next election." I think not.

If MacAskill isn't careful, his anti-drink crusade is going to be the SNP's very own version of the poll tax – inherently unfair, universally unpopular and politically disastrous. He seems to be seeking a policy that will have as big a political impact as the ban on smoking in public places introduced by the last administration. Something historic. A policy with the 'wow' factor. What he seems incapable of realising is that drinking can't be treated in the same way as smoking. It's a classic example of category error. Cigarettes are inherently bad for you. Alcohol isn't. We all know that moderate drinking is actually beneficial to your mental and physical health. Trying to price it out of people's reach is like making cars more expensive to cut down on road accidents, when what's actually needed is a way to make people drive more safely.

Some of what I learned doing Higher economics at school is still with me, and I accept that the laws of the market dictate that a price hike is likely to lead to a small reduction in the amount of money we as a society spend on booze. But in the households where alcohol is a serious problem, or in groups of teenagers where a bottle of vodka is the social lubricant of choice on a Friday night, will this policy really have an effect that justifies the dent it will put in every Scottish household's weekly budget? Are alcohol-abusers really going to cut back, or will they simply switch to cheaper – or illegal – ways of finding the oblivion they seek?

Of course, our binge-drinking culture must be curbed. Last week's comments from the widow of Garry Newlove, the 47-year-old father stamped to death by a drunken gang outside his Cheshire home, were heartbreaking. She spoke of a light going out in the lives of her and her three daughters. On cue, government ministers in England began making comments about alcohol pricing that echoed MacAskill.

There is no quick fix. Our booze culture needs to be addressed through a range of small, subtle, clever methods aimed at influencing attitudes. This takes time and seldom makes headlines. Ambitious politicians will always prefer the big, blunt, headline-grabbing policy, no matter how wrong-headed and counter-productive. The question is whether we should let them.