Nanny-state SNP should focus on poverty, not quasi-prohibition and lectures about calories – Susan Morrison

The Scottish Government wants to put calories on menus.

Oh, not just for the fast food joints like MaccyD’s and KFC, but on the menus of the posh places that list “Fèves au Lard sur Toast” as the chef’s special. To be paired, presumably with Infusion de Fer, 2023.

Now, here’s the thing. When I treat myself to something magnificently created by a superb chef, the one thing I don’t want is the spectre of some government minister finger-waving over the top of the menu, reminding me of my waistline. I have a pair of jeans that does that.

They’re also snooping about the booze industry. Well, they already have. We pay more for our drink up here than they do down south.

When in Portsmouth last year I gawped like a peasant outside a shop that was allowed to sell alcohol after 10 o'clock at night. We irresponsible Scots are like boozy Gremlins. We’re not allowed to buy plonk at, say, 10.05.

New government plans include the further curtailing of drink advertising, and hiding booze even further from view. We must be taught, and that right sharply, what is good for us. We must learn to embrace the joys of a rice cake and a bottle of sparkling water.

We are unhealthy. Yes, we are. We eat too much and we drink too much. We also, for those inclined to such tastes, take too many dodgy drugs and wind up dead.

So, here’s the thing. Why are people in Scotland drinking so much? Eating so much cheap, fatty food? Ingesting stuff that’s only one step away from Toilet Duck? Could it be despair?

Do we really want to know how many calories this meal contains? (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Our health service is cracking under the impact of a chronically understaffed social care sector, there’s a lack of decent housing and the education system is so underfunded it’s pushed teachers to strike.

It’s enough to drive anyone to drink, particularly the desperate, so stop tut-tutting about our rare treat dinners in nice restaurants and trying to introduce quasi-prohibition and get to the root of the problem and that’s poverty. And stay away from my menu choices.