Donald Macleod: Send in the marines! Cheap supermarket booze costs us dear

THE Ministry of Defence have announced the first of eight Type 26 frigates being built on the Clyde will be named HMS Glasgow.

Quite an honour for the city, and a fitting recognition of its once world-leading, now very fragile shipbuilding industry.

Given HMS Glasgow will slide into the Clyde fully battle-ready – which can’t be said about the mega-billion-pound aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, two useless hunks of floating salvage as they don’t have any planes – it can immediately be put to good use.

Yes, its first mission should be to protect the holidaymakers and sleepy citizens of Troon.

An invasion this week of more than 6000 sun-soaked steamers, saw the town’s sands soiled and its streets turned into battle grounds.

The horde, who had arranged to meet through social media, drank, threw up on the beach, fought and threw bottles at the police.

Even with mounted officers in support, the cops were almost completely overwhelmed.

So maybe an offshore presence of the Royal Navy and the threat of a marine intervention would make these Neanderthal morons think twice about the chaos and carnage they were causing on the Clyde.

Then again, they would need to have a functioning brain, or at least a couple of brain cells, to work that out.

The grey matter they did have had been turned to gloop by booze and then fried in the sun.

And being so fired up I wouldn’t have put it past them to “taps aff” charge and “square go” any landing force of Viking marauders, let alone marines.

Joking apart, there are serious questions to be asked.

Where did these roasters get their skip loads of cheap, high-strength booze? Who sold it to them?

Well I think we all know the answer – supermarkets!

Scotland has massive health issues and problems associated with alcohol, especially with alcohol-fuelled violence, yet it is almost universally available!

And it’s the supermarkets who are the biggest sellers and drive the price down.

And it is the irresponsible supermarkets who are responsible for calling time on our pubs and clubs.

If the government is serious about removing our “ sick man of Europe” tag then they must bring in meaningful measures to address the problem.

A problem that is not of licensed trade’s making and which pubs and clubs have really nothing to do with.

They should immediately restrict the number of retailers and supermarkets allowed to sell alcohol. I would halve the number and divide it by 10!

I would certainly stop filling stations, newsagents and corner shops from selling it. I would hammer the big boys and remove their licences for discounting its sale.

Bring in, as they have done in Europe and America, separate regulated areas and aisles or, even better alcohol-only shops.

And I would stop the off trade using forms of inducement such as TV and newspaper ads, as they have already done with the on trade.

Only then will we see a drop in alcohol availability, the violence associated with its over consumption and, of course, with it we will see a welcome boost to our over-regulated, very depressed but very responsible pub and club trade.