BuckfastThe SNP’s minimum pricing legislation is back, and this time it will pass, of course. The opposition of Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems to this proposal last time round made it look like they didn’t understand the scale of Scotland’s drink problem, or weren’t prepared to act. Petty, too, by the Coalition parties.

Because it’s an issue the public get, the credible suggestion is that this inability to be constructive cost them dear in the election, although only the Lib Dems have twigged. In September last year, Ross Finnie said minimum pricing “impacts heavily on the low paid, has a marginal effect on hazardous drinkers and gives a windfall to retailers”. Now he may be relieved not to be at Holyrood to hear Alison McInnes say, without the reverse ferret even being noted by the BBC, that it’s “a positive and confident step towards changing the culture of excessive drinking in Scotland”. Fair play to them. It’s the right thing to do, even if it’s unlikely to be the first of the twelve steps to recovery in the polls. The Green MSPs will support the measures (boom boom), just like they did in the last session.

However, and however, Labour are also right. In the last session their intransigence over the pricing issue obscured SNP intransigence over a Labour proposal – to limit the amount of caffeine per litre in booze sold in Scotland.

Billed as the Buckfast Ban, it would also have picked up some Red Bull type alcopops. There can be little doubt that it’s a dangerous mix. As the alcohol makes the drinker less predictable, the caffeine gives them the energy for bad behaviour. The cops and the neuroscientists alike will tell you that. A restaurant that served a diner their fifth Irish coffee would see the same effect. But the SNP rejected it, despite Nicola’s commitment at the time to consider “sensible, evidence-based amendments”.

A whole round of other ideas were on the table too, last time, including Green ones, which were designed to support positive and well-adjusted side to our alcohol culture too. Scotland makes fantastic beers (I’m thinking more Tempest or Brewdog, less what Kenny Macaskill called cooking lager), whisky, gin and other spirits. We also have the same social problem as the rest of the UK with the decline of the rural pub. Shouldn’t we be looking at how the market could be designed to offer better support to small and responsible domestic businesses?

But as Greens and Labour observed yesterday, to quote Richard Simpson, this is a “narrowly-defined bill – designed to shut down debate”, and as framed, these amendments won’t even be considered. The SNP promised to govern consensually. They have a thin legislative programme designed not to startle the horses before the referendum, so they have the time to spare. This is a chance to take longer, to be more reflective, more open, and to let Parliament do what it can more widely on the issue. They deserved and got credit for being prepared to push minimum pricing last time round, and they will get whatever Act they want through, now the opposition have been voted out of the way. But they’d get louder cheers for being consensual rather than merely talking about being consensual, and the end result would serve Scotland better.