Health is the priority

Published 7 Sep 2010 09:30

I NOTE that Jackie Baillie MSP, Labour’s Health spokeswoman, claims that a minimum price of 45p per unit of alcohol will punish pensioners and people on low incomes.

The same could no doubt have been said if we were now licensing alcohol production for the first time.

We look to our MSPs to show leadership in their communities.

The Labour Party in Dumbarton and the Vale presided over the emasculation of hospital services until Nicola Sturgeon stopped the rot.

Generations of Labour hegemony in Dumbarton and the Vale have delivered the second worst health and mortality rates of anywhere in Scotland.

It was not always the case.

Surely you would expect your MSP to prioritise healthy living in her constituency, which has an ingrained and almost hopeless love affair with alcohol?

Even if the cost to those on low incomes may increase that is no price to pay if it might just help to reduce one person’s intake and saves a life.

How do her own Party’s proposals not punish pensioners and people on low incomes?

We really have reached a nadir in political opportunism when the worth of a human life is a couple of quid.

Graeme McCormick,

Arden

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This letter appeared in Dumbarton & Vale of Leven Reporter 07 Sep 10

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