Will Scotland ban Guinness glasses?

While British prime minister Keir Starmer is trying hard to ban fun, the Scottish National Party is hot on his heels. Now it transpires that, er, pint glasses with logos are proving too offensive for the Nats — with a possible crackdown on the horizon. Priorities, priorities…

The SNP government has, it emerged, ordered experts to investigate the impact of a ban on branded pint glasses, t-shirts and umbrellas in an attempt to get a handle on alcohol-related deaths — which in Scotland rose to a fifteen-year high of 1,277 mortalities in 2023. In a bid to cut the figures, SNP health secretary Neil Gray informed parliamentarians that public health Scotland will examine the effect, um, alcohol marketing has on the development of dangerous drinking habits. Not that employment prospects, a flailing healthcare system or, say, deprivation have anything to do with it…

In a rather curious twist, this could see the distinctively-branded Tennent’s lager glasses (amongst others) phased out in order to tackle the country’s drink death problem — and, as a result, Gray’s proposal hasn’t quite enthused everyone. Expert Dr. Peter Rice remarked that “the only thing that will improve the health and wellbeing of people in Scotland is the translation of evidence into action,” while Scottish Beer & Pub Association boss Emma McClarkin simply labelled the call “surprising.” And social media hasn’t been kind to the news either, with one X user stating the SNP government has “lost the plot.” Heavens…

It’s one of a number of measures the Scottish government has considered in its efforts to curb the rise of alcohol-related deaths, with former first minister hapless Humza Yousaf in talks at the start of the year to bring back the unpopular alcohol advertising ban. The country already faces the woes of minimum unit pricing, which doesn’t seem to have much helped the matter. And on whether wiping out Guinness glasses is the solution that has long evaded the SNP, Cockburn is rather skeptical…

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.