Slainte George!

At last - a budget for savers! About time too! There is something perverse about a society which rewards those who are up to their necks in debt while punishing the prudent (and by prudent, Calton means those who behave responsibly and put something by for their future, not the Gordon Brown "boom and bust" definition of prudent). There is no point in having an economic recovery if it is based on debt-fuelled consumer spending. We've been there and done that and, while it felt nice at the time, it didn't last. We need a recovery based on more manufacturing and greater exports and Calton is pleased to see that heavily energy-dependent industries are to be given a helping hand. Scrapping the planned fuel duty rise will benefit not just families but businesses and is also a welcome decision. All in all, Calton sees very little to complain about this year and a lot to be happy about, including the fact that there is no extra tax on his favourite malt. Slainte George!

Alex Neil - right on symptoms, wrong on cause and treatment

Calton has some sympathy with beleaguered SNP Health Secretary Alex Neil, who is being lambasted on twitter for blaming Scotland's drink problems on Maggie Thatcher. There is some truth in him saying that the loss of jobs for men in traditional heavy industry left them turning to the bottle. Where Neil goes wrong, and loses Calton's sympathy, is in blaming Thatcher for a) the demise of the coal and steel industries and b) not providing decent replacement jobs. Thatcher may have hammered the last nail in the coffin of coal and steel but the corpse was already dead and embalmed - the industries were uncompetitive, uneconomical and hampered by unions like Unite who, unlike Unite, could not see the writing on the wall and adapt to save jobs. There is a limit to how far any government can go in propping up ailing industries with taxpayers' money just to keep a few people employed. Similarly, there is a limit to how much government can do to provide new jobs. How many times have sweeteners been offered to firms to locate in Scotland, only for them to pull out the minute the money runs dry or penalties no longer apply? How much public money was spent on the infrastructure for a semiconductor plant at Halbeath, Dunfermline which never opened and has now been demolished? We need to create an attractive tax and infrastructure environment for businesses to operate in Scotland, yes, but sweeteners are bad for Scotland's economic health.

Alex Neil is also in trouble for saying that checkout jobs in shops or working for McDonald's are not "good jobs". Well it depends on how you define a "good job". Working at a supermarket checkout is better than being unemployed but it will never make you rich. It might not even pay the bills, given that some retailers do not offer staff full-time contracts. McDonald's does have training schemes which could lead to a better job however many of the chain's UK workers are on zero-hours contracts. Perhaps Neil could have phrased his comment somewhat better but, the truth is, if you want to have any hope of achieving at least the national average wage of £25k and have some prospect of advancement, you do generally need to have "training, education and a qualification" as Neil said, otherwise a McJob may be all that is open to you.

Calling time on the EU

Calton is not very confident that the SNP's assertions about our position in the EU post-independence will hold water when it transpires that their minimum pricing for alcohol policy is now being questioned by the EU, in spite of assurances from the SNP that it would be allowed. Why the SNP are still so fond of Europe when the feeling is hardly reciprocated is anybody's guess. Calton thinks that they should tell Brussels where to go and proceed with the minimum pricing policy a tout vitesse. As for David Cameron's tease about a referendum on EU membership - all Calton can say is "bring it on Dave".

PS. If you still think it's a good idea for us to join the Euro, read this article by Cranmer.

Fat chance Alex

If Calton were Alex Salmond he would not be quite so quick to rubbish the idea that an independent Scotland would not be able to afford current levels of welfare without raising taxes. On a recent visit to a hospital, Calton was shocked at the number of obese people he saw as he sat in the reception area, and that was just the staff. Add to that Scotland's drink problem, our failed methadone program, the number of people who still smoke plus an aging population and high unemployment and you don't need a maths degree to work out that a dwindling healthy workforce is paying for an increasing number of welfare claimants. The cost of caring for the elderly is soaring and the NHS is quite literally buckling under the weight of fat patients. If the SNP wants to keep its flagship policy of free personal care it will have to raise taxes sooner or later unless it can persuade the people of Scotland to adopt a more healthy lifestyle (fat chance). The First Minister's comments today may well come back to haunt him.

Decaff buckie

Calton is pleased to see that the Scottish Government's Minimum Alcohol Pricing bill has passed its first hurdle without opposition. What a difference an election and a couple of new party leaders makes. It would now be good if the SNP were to include Labour's idea of limiting the amount of caffeine allowed in alcoholic beverages because if there's one thing worse than a drunk, it's a caffeinated drunk.

The buckie stops here

There is so much going on in the news at the moment that Calton hardly knows where to start, however he is pleased to see that the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson have decided to support the minimum alcohol pricing bill. As he said in an earlier post, anything that deters people getting tanked up on cheap booze has to be a good thing.

It has also been good, albeit rather depressing, to see some up-to-date economic figures this week. Good, because it stops the SNP hiding behind 4-year old data, depressing because it confirms that Scotland is spending more than she earns, even taking oil and gas income into account. That means that the SNP policy of continuing to spend during the recession is looking even more threadbare. It's very convenient for Alex Salmond to blame Westminster cuts when put on the spot at FMQs - what's he going to do if he does succeed in becoming the leader of an independent nation? Who's he going to blame when the buck stops with him?

Saving Cat's delicatessen

Calton is pleased to see that a last-minute Tory attempt to scrap the Scottish Government's so-called 'Tesco tax' has been unsuccessful. The levy is part of measures to try and improve the health of this nation by taxing supermarkets and larger shops which sell alcohol and tobacco. Hopefully it will also help small shop owners who are being forced out of business by the large concerns - Calton notes that there is a stushie in Bruntsfield at the moment over a new Sainsburys and its likely effect on local businesses. The unregulated retail free-for-all so beloved of the Tories is not healthy for either the population or small shops - some regulation is necessary if our high streets are not to become boarded-up wildernesses. How will Alexander McCall Smith cope if Cat's deli is forced to close?

Too many young lives lost

Calton is sure he is not the only one concerned about the number of reports of knifings and shootings in Scotland over the festive period. It has been nothing less than shocking - a very real indictment on our society. There is no easy answer to this however two things are clear - firstly, that those convicted of violent acts are back out on our streets all too soon, and without having been rehabilitated. Daryn Maxwell, who has been convicted recently of murdering Reamonn Gormley, is a case in point. Secondly, the link between violence and alcohol abuse is proven beyond all doubt. Calton therefore fully supports the minimum pricing for alcohol bill, a bill which would have been on the statute books long ago had it not been for the opposition parties in the last parliament, because anything that deters people getting tanked up on cheap booze has to be a good thing. He would also like to see much tougher sentences for anyone caught carrying a knife and far more rigorous parole conditions for those convicted of violent crime. We need to rid our streets of violent thugs and make them safe again.