News that the UK Supreme Court has rejected the appeal by Imperial Tobacco against the Scottish Parliament's legislation to ban tobacco product displays at point of sale is welcome to me and for the health of Scots.
It does, however, fit a drama that is oft repeated as it is played out around the world every time a sovereign legislature, more often than not democratically elected, enacts laws and regulations to curb the sale of a product that is known by all, including those who manufacture and sell it, to be strongly addictive and shorten the lives of those who use it. The result of these courtroom palavers is to delay the implementation of the regulations and to cost both the shareholders, on whose behalf and for whose benefit the tobacco companies will claim they are acting, and the taxpayers of this and many other countries lots of money. Only lawyers benefit from such tactics.
In recent times we have seen large multinational companies shamed publicly on moral and ethical grounds by their tax minimisation schemes. Our once-respected and honoured banks and bankers are still being censured for not just illegal activities but often simply on moral grounds for behaviour that take from individual as well as public purses. The tobacco companies may well and justifiably acknowledge that they have no longer any moral standing so there is no point in even considering the public ethics of their actions. On the other hand, their shareholders might want now to consider seriously how much their boards have squandered their money while they also give thought to the deleterious effect these time and money-wasting court actions have on what remains of their public image and then take a moral stand to say enough is enough.
Sadly, I would predict now that in a few years' time we shall see the same courts of Scotland and then the UK Supreme Court wasting even more time and money on appeals against plain packaging legislation.
Dr Alan Rodger,
8 Clairmont Gardens,
Kelvingrove, Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article