Driven to Drink



We are always hearing tales about the public finances being squeezed, but here's a report from The Sunday Times which confirms what everyone knows already - that these funds are not always wisely spent.

Sadly, I know quite a few people who have died through an addiction to alcohol and they were all hardworking, decent people, often in really good jobs who were fighting their own terrible, personal demons of one kind or another.  

And one thing they all had in common is that they would have laughed in your face, if anyone suggested that their all too obvious problems with drinking were caused by Margaret Hilda Thatcher.

The Iron Lady gets blamed for many things though I think we can safely say that Scotland's poor relationship with alcohol isn't one of them.

What a old of old tosh.

Thatcher ‘drove us to drink’


By Marc Horne - The Sunday Times
The de-industrialisation of Scottish industry has been blamed for the increase in unemployed men drinking themselves into an early grave

MARGARET THATCHER is to blame for Scotland’s destructive relationship with alcohol, a new study has suggested.

Research published in the respected European Journal of Public Health indicates that the “Thatcher effect” may have fuelled a surge in drink-related deaths north of the border.

Dr Deborah Shipton, who led the study, believes the rapid de-industrialisation of the 1980s hit Scottish communities disproportionately — leading to large numbers of unemployed men and their families drinking themselves into an early grave.
The closure of the Linwood car factory in Renfrewshire in 1981 lead to the loss of nearly 5,000 jobs The research, which was carried out by the Scottish government-funded Glasgow Centre for Population Health and NHS Health Scotland, states: “Neoliberal policies implemented from 1979 onwards across the UK (ie Thatcher) disproportionately affected the Scottish population. The results of the research are compatible with the idea that policies carried out in the 1980s and 1990s have driven differences in alcohol-related deaths in Scotland compared with England.”

Shipton, a public health research specialist, said: “From the early 1950s to the 1970s Scotland had one of the lowest levels of liver cirrhosis.

“Then for a few years it developed the highest rate of liver cirrhosis in Europe. It was a huge deviation and we wanted to see where this came from.”
Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal policies have been blamed for Scotland’s alcoholism in a new report

A team led by Shipton analysed drink-related deaths on both sides of the border and found that Scottish men, who were aged between 40 and 60 in the 1980s, were disproportionately vulnerable when compared with their English counterparts.

“From the 1970s onwards we’ve seen much higher alcohol consumption driven by decreased pricing and increased availability.

“That happened across the whole of the UK and could not explain why we were seeing a greater proportion of deaths in Scotland.

“What we do know is that Scotland had higher levels of public housing stock, particularly in communities where heavy industries were based.

“If you dismantle those industries and greatly reduce the public housing stock, as happened in the 1980s, it will hit those areas.”

She said: “There are plausible reasons why neoliberal policies result in poor health outcomes and plausible pathways as to why it had a disproportionate impact in Scotland.”

Before the miners strike, Scotland had one of the lowest levels of cirrosis of the liver

During the Thatcher era Scotland’s heavy industries experienced sharp decline, with steelworks, car manufacturing and mining among the worst hit — the closure of the Linwood car factory in Renfrewshire in 1981 leading to the loss of nearly 5,000 jobs.

Dr Gerry McCartney, the head of the public health observatory division at NHS Scotland, also believes that industrial policies of the Thatcher era may have had an adversely impact on the nation’s wellbeing.

The public health consultant, who contributed to the study, said: “If you are in a former mining community, which has lost its pit and all of its jobs over a short period of time, the people most badly affected were those who weren’t able to find anything else and turned to substance misuse as a way of coping.

“The are lots of qualitative studies that describe that. The disproportionate impact of neoliberal policies in Scotland, as illustrated by the mining villages, might have had some kind of effect.”

“The research is compatible with such a thesis, but there is a whole raft of work ongoing at the moment to try to analyse that in more detail.”

The study mirrors comments made earlier this year by the then health secretary Alex Neil, who pointed the finger at Thatcher for a spike in drink-related deaths.

He said: “Since 1980 there has, among working-age men primarily in the west of Scotland, been an increase in the mortality rate during their working years of 60%.

“Four conditions — alcohol abuse, drug abuse, violence and suicide — are responsible between them for 60% of the 60% increase in mortality in working men since Thatcher took power in 1979.”

However, the idea that Thatcherism drove Scots to drink has been strongly rejected by the Conservatives.

Health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: “Figures demonstrate that the deterioration in Scotland’s record with alcohol began almost to the day Margaret Thatcher left office — make of that what you will.

“But what you can’t do is relate it to Thatcher herself. Subsequent governments allowed alcohol to become more affordable and it remains a critical problem in Scotland today.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie claimed it was “too easy” to blame the former premier for Scotland’s problems, stating: “There is evidence to show the reckless de-industrialisation of the 1980s is a contributory factor. However, it is cheap alcohol that has led to increasing levels of consumption which has resulted in greater harm to health, including death.”

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