The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 10032, in the name of Carol Mochan, on investing in alcohol services to reduce alcohol-related harm in Scotland. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request-to-speak buttons, and I call on Carol Mochan to open the debate around such minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is unfortunate that today's debate is required, but I am pleased to have the opportunity to bring it to the chamber. At the outset, I wish to thank alcohol-focused Scotland, SHAP and others for the briefings that they have provided members with ahead of today's debate. I am pleased that the minister is attending the debate and I am pleased to see some Government backbenchers attending as well. However, as of this morning, not a single SNP or Green MSP had actually signed the motion. In his speech on Tuesday delivering a programme for government, the First Minister did not mention recently released statistics regarding alcohol-specific deaths. Yet again, what we are promised is a review of strategy, a review of delivery, but action feels as far away as it ever has been. I offer those words to the minister. If our approach to investing in alcohol services to reduce alcohol-related harm does not include accepting where we have gone wrong in the past, where we are currently getting it not quite right, then we are doing a disservice to those who already are and will become dependent on alcohol, their families, their friends and their communities. It is important that I note that in total 1,276 deaths were attributed to alcohol-specific causes last year, 31 more than in 2021, the highest number since 2008. That is 1,276 individuals whose lives were lost before time, and their friends and families have lost a loved one. That is a public health emergency. I think that we do all accept that. However, I joined with key stakeholders today in asking why has the amount of alcohol-related harm and deaths not convinced this Government that it is worthy of an emergency response. We have had no ministerial statement, no debate in Government time, no real path to delivery from the First Minister or the Public Health Minister. We can do so much better. Those who are currently suffering due to alcohol-related harm deserve better, and so do the countless families, friends and communities who have seen too many lives lost to alcohol without the correct support in place. Taking a somewhat deeper look at the tragic announcement last week, there are further causes for concern. While male deaths continue to account for around two-thirds of alcohol-specific deaths, the number of female deaths increased by 31 in 2022. It is pivotal that we analyse this detail and do all that we can to ensure that the increasing number of female deaths does not repeat itself, as well as reducing the number of male deaths, of course, from alcohol. As we see in this motion, while deaths are the most extreme form of alcohol harm, they are likely to be accompanied by increases in other harms, including domestic abuse and violence, and we know that that can disproportionately impact women. I repeat that this is a public health emergency, and I highlight the importance of having a multi-layered response that addresses key factors, both in terms of causes, related harms and improving outcomes. I often take the opportunity in this chamber to call for the reduction in eradication of health inequalities. As this motion states, the risk of alcohol harm is already greater for the most disadvantaged in society, with people in Scotland's most deprived communities reported over five times as likely to die and six times as likely to be admitted to hospital because of alcohol than people in the wealthiest communities. That is a devastating reality, but it is one that our most deprived communities have to live with every day. I am very grateful to the member for taking the intervention. One of the stats that we have looked at this before is that binge drinking is less prolific in our most deprived communities than it is in our least deprived communities, so it must point surely to the fact that there are less services available to our less deprived communities because of the imbalance in deaths of alcohol. I wonder if she would agree with that. My view on that is that it is an extremely complex picture. I caught in a lot of our difficulties in the most deprived areas as they get much less access to services, but we also have a system that builds in inequalities, so we have to look right across the board at what we can do to support those communities. The impact of alcohol harm is very wide-ranging and can impact anyone, but in 2023, those harms are still felt so acutely in our most vulnerable communities as appalling. We need to ensure that an approach to tackle the public health emergency is underpinned by a desire to support those most in need. The approach needs to be preventative in its nature, tackling the root causes of alcohol harm, which perhaps comes back to the member's point. Being strong in our approach to advertising where we have the powers to do so, putting people before profits and, for those already dependent, having the right support services in place through investment in our ADPs to give people an offer of hope and an otherwise incredibly challenging time. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, this is not a debate that any of us want to be having, but it is one that the situation we find ourselves in is necessary to have this debate. It is a debate that we need to have on Government time so families and communities can see how seriously the Government is taking that issue. Alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland are at their highest levels in 15 years, while at the same time there are 40,000 more children living in poverty in Scotland than they were a decade ago. The link between alcohol harm and poverty is damaging, yet it is well established. We must do everything in our power to break that link. I once again pay tribute to the first-class organisation that research alcohol harm, which suggests that, through the emergency, those who provide services to those who are alcohol dependent and, of course, our great NHS staff always do their best to act when they are called upon. They are all part of the fight, but they are being let down. They need a change of approach, which shows urgency and tackles an emergency. So far, the Government has not stepped up to the mark, and I implore the minister to take this opportunity today to come along and feedback and tell us how they will tackle what an emergency is for our communities. I now call Stuart McMillan to be followed by Sandra Gohani. First of all, I thank the co-convenient of the cross-party group on drug and alcohol misuse, and the vice-chair of moving on in Berkeley local recovery charity. I want to thank Karen Watkins for securing this debate. Karen Watkins also spoke in the debate that he had on the 14th of June regarding liver cancer—the same issues that are relevant in that debate and also today. In recent years, there has been a greater focus given to tackling drug-related harm, which is welcome. However, many in the recovery sector have expressed concerns about the impact that has actually had on efforts to reduce alcohol-related harm. As for today's motion, I quote with the reported 22 per cent increase in alcohol-specific deaths in the last two years following the Covid-19 pandemic, I am sure that we would all agree that equal attention must be given to alcohol-related harm. Locally, Inverclyde, it sadly reported the highest rate of alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland between 2017 and 2021, the majority of which were caused by alcohol-related liver disease. In addition, more than one in four people who live in Greenock and Inverclyde drink above the chief medical officer's low-risk guidelines, placing them at the higher risk of developing alcohol-related liver disease. This worrying local trend sadly reflects an alarming national picture across Scotland, as the number of people in Scotland who's death was caused by alcohol has risen again to the highest level in 14 years. The motion before us today suggests that changes in drinking habits, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, have played a part in the recent spike in alcohol-related deaths. Through my involvement with moving on Inverclyde, I genuinely can attest to this. Having been a board member for over eight years, I've seen the organisation go through many changes in that time. The reasons for people seeking help has also varied. As we moved out of lockdown, moving on Inverclyde found that an increasing number of people were in need of support regarding alcohol misuse. That's a point that the minister heard when she visited moving on Inverclyde very recently over the summer recess. It's easy to see that being stuck in the house for long periods of time with little opportunity to interact with others, either at home or in public settings, could lead to people drinking more heavily. It was always considered that other harms could follow on from the restrictions, and the impact that they had on those with substance dependence is clear now. The National Record of Scotland figures show that 1,276 people died from alcohol-specific causes in 2022. That's three people dying every single day because of alcohol harm in Scotland. I'd like to thank the British Liver Trust for bringing its Love Your Liver Roadshow to Scotland earlier this year to help to raise national awareness of the risk factors of liver disease, including excess alcohol consumption. I hope to bring the Love Your Liver Roadshow to Inverclyde in the autumn so that people in my constituency can access non-invasive liver scans and learn more about improving their liver health. Fibrous scan technology is quick and easy. It's painless and could lead to my constituents learning whether they might have liver damage and being given a letter to take to the GPE for further investigation. That could actually help to reduce the risk factors and ultimately save their lives. I want to once again thank Carl Mawrkin for securing this debate, because I agree in terms of this is a hugely important issue facing the country and there is no quick fix if there was. Clearly that would have happened by now. The motion talks about a plan, but Carl Mawrkin in our contribution spoke about urgency and emergency. Urgency and emergency are absolutely accurate, but to get a plan, that takes a bit of time to ensure, as well as that wide discussion and dialogue that is absolutely critical so that we can get to where we all want to be, to have fewer people in Scotland dying with alcohol related harm. I declare my registered interests as a practising NHS GP and to congratulate Carl Mawrkin for securing time for this most important debate. We have a problem with alcohol, including binge drinking, seen up and down our towns at weekends. In my GP practice I see many patients who have issues with alcohol, drugs and their mental health deteriorating as a consequence. Many patients I speak to do not realise that drinking say two glasses of wine after work to relax and unwind equate to about 42 units a week minimum. With 14 units being what is recommended it shocks them and they naturally want to reduce their drinking. Speaking to DrinkAware, I support their coming campaign to make more people aware of how much they are drinking. The SNP has been responsible for health in Scotland since May 2017 and 1276 Scots died with families who are grieving. Alcohol related deaths continue to remain the highest since 2008, with people in our more deprived communities suffering the most. With regard to alcohol the SNP has tried one flagship approach which frankly makes alcohol more expensive to those who are less well off and the trouble is we know that they are going without food instead. The minimum unit pricing policy has now been discredited by yourselves and it seems to be the only plan that the SNP have to tackle alcohol harms. So they put out a more convenient and positive spin on a Public Health Scotland report by shoehorning words like significant into the draft to claim a slam dunk success but there is no slam dunk success. There was also a humiliating climb down when accused of misrepresenting the analysis by spinning estimates as facts and they also implied the SNP also implied that resounding success was based on 40 studies this is not true. So yesterday in parliament cabinet secretary Michael Matheson argues that many leading experts have repeatedly said the MEP is making a positive impact in tackling the issue. What he failed to mention however is many evidence based experts who questioned the analysis and that's why the Scottish government and its spin doctors had to rewrite their public announcements. Furthermore and what is clear and crystal clear is that more people more people are suffering alcohol related deaths now than in 2018 when MEP was introduced. In fact men from deprived areas are drinking more with MEP in place and others are switching to spirits. MEP has abandoned dependent drinkers. If we are ever to get a grip on this crisis people suffering from dependence should have their right to access treatment and rehabilitation. This approach a right to recovery is backed by front-line experts. The evidence based suggests direct intervention actually works and improves outcome so let's concentrate on this. I now call Pauline McNeill to be followed by Alex Cole-Hamilton. I would like to thank my colleague Carol Mocken for bringing forward this time the debate to highlight the rising levels of alcohol harm in Scotland which is exacerbating health inequalities and adding to huge avoidable pressures facing our NHS at huge cost to our economy. Carol Mocken is right when she says that it is indeed a national crisis because the latest figures from the national records of Scotland show that nearly 1,300 people died from conditions caused by alcohol last year in Scotland and this figure has risen again to the highest levels in 14 years up to 2% from the previous year. So while we can also always use different reference points and use different figures what is clear is that the situation is getting more serious. Our most disadvantaged and marginalised communities are disproportionately impacted by alcohol harm. Shockingly people in Scotland's most deprived communities are reportedly over five times as likely to die and six times as likely to be admitted to hospital because of alcohol than people in the wealthiest communities. The crisis directly impacts my constituents and the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to health board area in my local health board. The largest in the country recorded the highest mortality for chronic liver disease in Scotland, so it is indeed a crisis. This is unacceptable and it highlights the need for urgent action to strengthen prevention and improve access to services. I want to mention in this debate the importance of facilities to help women offenders, a key focus for this Government and previous Governments. The question that was raised yesterday about the 218 centres is something that I know about because it was set up under a Labour Administration. A very, very important alternative to custody for many women but those who are alcohol dependent. It faces deep cuts and I just wonder how it really does fit with the strategy of women's offending and the crisis that we face. Six months ago, Justina Murray of Scottish Families, who is affected by alcohol and drugs, told the Criminal Justice Committee that one of the biggest barriers that prevents them from affecting change is their implementation. She said that, in Scotland, we are really good at writing down what we want to do. We have all the right things written in legislation, strategies and policies, but we do not implement what we say we will. We are good at saying what we are going to do but we are not so good at doing what we should be doing. It is not really accountability in the system. So there are still significant feelings of treatment, care and support services. Much more immediate work is required to reduce alcohol related harms and deaths. Long-term funding or relevant services is absolutely vital in tackling the rise of alcohol-related deaths. We need services throughout the country and the third sector needs to be funded appropriately in order to sustain those services for the foreseeable future. Nate Moe's mistake is a public health crisis that should be taken as seriously are drug-related deaths. 21 per cent more people died through alcohol than drugs in Scotland last year. We need to tackle both crises. That is clear, I think that Stuart McMill is making that point earlier on, and I agree with him. It is about time that we view alcohol as one of the biggest threats to population health. Every year, alcohol costs Glasgow, the region I represent, an estimated £365 million. It equates to £615 per person. Aside from the horrific impact of alcohol and people's lives that Karen Mawkin talked about, it does reflect a hugely detrimental impact of alcohol on economic growth and workforce productivity. Every life loss is a tragedy, so we must do more to ensure that vulnerable people have access to local community services and the resources to reduce alcohol abuse and alcohol-related deaths in Scotland. I want to make special mention of Alcoholics Anonymous, an organisation, a fellowship that has helped millions of people. It means a lot to me personally. The mentoring system and the 12-step programme has given me the opportunity to try to understand alcoholism and the complexity behind it, and I realise that there is no one simple answer to all of this. However, I think that it is an organisation that has something to offer in terms of the overall strategy. Sandra Gohani talked about issues across all communities and all classes, and how dangerous it is to focus on one policy. Is my personal experience talking to people who have been seriously dependent and almost risking their lives but being saved by services and being saved by Alcoholics Anonymous? That is the point that I agree with, Mr Gohani on, is that, for those groups, they will literally do anything in order to get access to alcohol because of their dependency on it. In conclusion, there cannot be a one-fits-all solution to this. We need to realise that it is a complex issue. I once again thank Carol Malkin for bringing in his important debate to the chamber. Thank you very much indeed, Presiding Officer. I would like to echo thanks to Carol Malkin for securing time for this important debate. It is important that we see Government time in the chamber made available to this vital topic. I would especially like to offer thanks to campaigners who have fought tirelessly to bring this conversation to the public debate, some of whom are watching from the public chamber in the gallery today. I hope that this debate can be the catalyst for more meaningful political action and, as I said at the start, Government time as well. We have heard that this is an emerging crisis, a hidden crisis, with over 1,200 people losing their lives last year alone to alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland. The highest figure in 15 years is something of note, as it is Macarb. Behind each of those deaths, we all agree, is an irreparable tear in countless families and communities. However, the statistic only scratches the surface of the harm that alcohol misuse is causing in our communities. I want to make it clear that, when we discuss alcohol misuse, we recognise that, like other forms of substance abuse, it is a sickness that is caused by a multiplicity of factors such as socio-economic ones, which I will come to later, such as trauma and even potentially genetics. It is essential that any action that is taken is driven by this understanding and, more importantly, that we do so with compassion. Long-term effects of alcohol misuse, including long-term health and addiction issues, can even impact future generations. At the beginning of this year, Scottish Liberal Democrat research revealed that more than 1,100 babies have been born dependent on substances, including alcohol, since 2017. Alcohol misuse has other ripple effects, including the intensification of domestic abuse, child neglect, family and relationship breakdown. I am grateful to Alex Cole-Hamill for listening to her talking about the impact on the unborn. We are also starting to recognise the impact of fecal, fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, as well, and about 170,000 people in Scotland could be suffering from that condition. Alex Cole-Hamill. I am grateful for Brian Whittle's excellent intervention. It is vital that we consider the impact that early days of life actually begin before birth and that what can happen in utero can lead to lifelong and life-altering consequences. It is something that I worked very closely with other colleagues on the baby in the bathwater coalition before I came to this place. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is something that we need to talk more about in this chamber, so I am grateful to Brian Whittle for that intervention. Here in Edinburgh it is estimated that alcohol misuse cost the city over £220 million a year. Within the last two years, there has been a reported 25 per cent increase in alcohol-related deaths, and, of course, in large part caused by the strictures of lockdown and the mental health impact of that. However, we cannot assume that, with the abatement of the pandemic, we will see those numbers of bait as well. That supports expert theories that the Covid-19 pandemic has had lasting changes in people's drinking habits, which has subsequently led to an increase in high-risk and harmful drinking. The fact that alcohol misuse appears to be worsening is just one reason why we need that urgent action. Although the Scottish Government has recognised alcohol harm as a public health emergency, there is yet to be an emergency response. We desperately need a strategy and effective policies. One such policy has been adopted, which we have just seen the impact of now is minimum unit pricing. My party supported its introduction to that policy. There is some promising data being produced, but we need to continue to monitor the efficacy of that, and when we are reviewing its potential renewal, which is something that will challenge all of us in the coming months. MUP, however, is just one tool that is by no means enough to tackle this issue. Alcohol services are still reeling from SNP-inflicted cuts. We remember in 2015 that the Government cuts funding to services in ADPs by nearly 25 per cent, which still receives no real-terms increase in funding according to Audit Scotland. As a result, it is struggling to maintain its service and the relationships that it provides and sustains, amid rising costs coupled with rapid increases in demand. That is why 36 charities and public health bodies, including the directors of Public Health Scotland, have called upon the Government to urgently provide increased and sustained investment in alcohol, recovery and support services. As I alluded to earlier, we cannot ignore the root causes of why people drink and why they harm themselves with alcohol use. People in the most deprived communities are five times more likely to die and six times more likely to be admitted to hospital due to alcohol-related causes. It is a health inequality and it is also attached to unresolved childhood trauma, as drug abuse is as well. That is why the Scottish Liberal Democrats would establish a new specialist family drug and alcohol commission, which would offer accessible wraparound services, taking a holistic, community-based trauma-informed approach to substance and alcohol misuse. The experts have been unequivocal in the extensive harm alcohol misuses inflicting upon us and their assessment of it. It is our duty then that we listen to them and we treat it with the attention and urgency and compassion that it deserves and is required. I now call Julian Mackay to be followed by Brian Whittle. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I, too, would like to begin by thanking Carol Mawkin for bringing forward this debate and by offering my condolences to anyone who has lost a loved one to alcohol misuse. I also want to thank Alcohol Focus Scotland and Shack for their tireless efforts to tackle alcohol-related harm.  As elected representatives, we have a responsibility to act on this. Many others have covered recovery and treatment services. This afternoon, my contribution will focus on the other side of the issues of prevention and the specific actions that we need to take to address the alcohol death emergency. That will inevitably mean tackling alcohol marketing, which encourages people to start drinking and drink at higher levels. We know that exposure to alcohol marketing is a cause of youth drinking. Decades of research has concluded that alcohol marketing leads young people to start drinking earlier and to drink more. Allowing the industry to self-regulate is clearly not working. In a UK survey, 82 per cent of 11 to 17-year-olds reported having seen alcohol advertising in the last month. That obviously does not just affect young people. Alcohol marketing encourages consumption and risk-taking behaviour among heavier drinkers, causes higher craving levels and fosters positive alcohol-related thoughts. That can seriously impact people who are struggling with their alcohol use or those who are in recovery. Alcohol advertising makes drinking seem more attractive and encourages high consumption, and restricted alcohol marketing benefits everyone. In fact, it is recommended that the World Health Organization is one of the most effective ways of reducing consumption and the health and social harms that alcohol causes. Other European countries have already taken action. Ireland recently introduced legislation to ban alcohol advertising during sporting events and, crucially, events aimed at children. They are also restricting alcohol advertising on outdoor and on public transport and how and where alcohol can be displayed in shops and supermarkets. Scotland would do well to follow Ireland's lead and be bold in its efforts to tackle the proliferation of alcohol marketing. Measures that are recommended by the alcohol marketing expert network include restricting advertising outdoors and, in public places, sports and event sponsorship and retail display and promotion. Those measures should be brought forward as soon as they are practicable, and I look forward to hearing any updates that the minister has about timescales around upcoming consultations. I now wish to turn to the introduction of an alcohol levy. I have long believed that the polluter pays principle should be applied to the sale of alcohol. The alcohol industry makes huge profits from the sale of alcohol and should contribute towards mitigating the harm caused by the products that they sell. Retailers should not be allowed to keep the additional profits that they make from minimum unit pricing and should be invested back into prevention and treatment services. Alcohol-focused Scotland is also advocating for the introduction of an alcohol harm prevention levy. That would be raised through a supplement on non-domestic rates for retailers applied to premises licensed to sell alcohol for consumption of the premises. That is something that I have raised in the past and I would be grateful if the minister could update Parliament on the Government's current position and put and advise what consideration there is to bringing in such a levy. In conclusion, there are many actions that we can take to tackle alcohol-related harm. Now is not the time for timidity or hesitation. Too many lives and too many families are being destroyed. We must act and we must do it now. Thank you, Mr Mackay. I now call Brian Whittle to be followed by Stephen Kerr. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I thank Calomocom for bringing this debate to the chamber. As we get the welcome news that drug deaths have started to decline, which is excellent news, it will be that they are far too high within or hit with the news that alcohol deaths are rising. It is important to note that those who are caught in addiction, alcohol and drugs, are almost interchangeable. In fact, especially with drug addiction, there is usually an alcohol part element to that as well. In my intervention to Calomocom, I want to clarify that. My co-convening of the Health and Equality Committee we heard that I was surprised to hear that in the most deprived areas, they are more likely to abstain from alcohol than the least deprived, but the impact of alcohol abuse and alcohol consumption is much more catastrophic in the deprived areas. We talked about that inequality of access to services that Calomocom has spoken about. In the last term, we all agreed to the minimum unit pricing, albeit with a sunset clause. We need to understand why, with the introduction of that minimum unit pricing, why those figures are so stark and what impact the minimum unit pricing has had, because, even if it has had an impact and I hope it has, alcoholism will not be cured by increasing the price of alcohol alone. I am concerned that the approach of the Scottish Government has relied far too much on minimum unit pricing. Not enough is being done in things like in education, not just in direct education in the dangers of alcohol abuse, but also I talked about the alternatives that are being offered to our youngsters. You will not be surprised to hear that those in the quality of access to things such as sport, music and art and drama, increasing budgetary constraints on our third sector organisation, as Pauline McNeill discussed there, are those who have access to those most isolated in our communities. I would ask the minister to tell the chamber, if she could, to inform the chamber how she is working with her colleagues, because it will take work across portfolio, especially within the education cabinet secretary and the community's cabinet secretary, because, as I said, it is a very complex issue, and it will take much more than we are currently doing to tackle that particular problem. However, what the minister will understand is that, across the chamber, that is something that unifies us, and it is something that we all want. For taking the intervention, at the recent visit that the minister had at moving on in Berklyde, there was a point that was raised by a number of the service users of the organisation, and that was the amount of activities that were available within the local area, but prior to them being involved with addiction, whether it was in drugs or alcohol, they did not realise that there was so much to do in the local area. Your point regarding complex is absolutely accurate, but I think that trying to lay the blame that there has been a lack of funding for third sector organisations or within communities is not until accurate. Stuart McMillan for the intervention. I have to say that I am going to disagree with you on a specific point. Obviously, I have a specific interest around sport, and, as I have mentioned often in this chamber, the way in which we access sport is becoming, or sports becoming, the domain of the middle classes now, and the actual access to that sport, how we allow access to sport and many other activities in sport is something that we need to consider. I have talked about the school of state many times, and that is why I mentioned education environment, because that is a battleground where we need to tackle that, and we can engender a different interest. I do not think that we are at cross purposes here, but we are very much in the same vein. If we can enthuse our youngsters to do something else or make sure that there is something in offer other than the boredom that leads to much of that, perhaps that is part of the complex response that we need. As I said to the minister, if she could let us know how she is working with colleagues across other portfolios, especially in education communities, I would be very grateful. Once again, I thank Carl Mawrhan for bringing this really important debate back to the chamber. Can I congratulate Carl Mawrhan on sponsoring this debate and bringing it to the chamber? Can I agree with her that what the evidence of the last, I do not know how many minutes we have been in this debate now, 45 minutes, is that we need a proper chamber debate in Government time to discuss this very important issue? We all know that our country has a complex relationship with alcohol. This is not a recent discovery. This has been going on for generations. I completely agree with what Pauline McNeill read. I do not know who the quote was from. I did not write it down, but I was struck by it. We are so good at talking about the problem. We are so good at producing words, papers and strategies, but we are just not any good at delivering any change on this issue. It has gone on for far too long. Therefore, I absolutely echo Carl Mawrhan's comments about the need for a full debate in Government time with all of the parties putting forward their ideas on what we will do to change the trajectory of our country in relation to alcohol consumption and alcohol dependency. Enough is enough. People die. People are dying and anyone who has ever spent time supporting someone who is struggling with alcohol dependency, who is having to deal with all of the illnesses that are contingent to their addiction to alcohol, we all know that it is heartbreaking. With that one person's life, so many hearts are broken. I have never felt that it was my job as a politician to tell people how to lead their lives. I just do not think that that is what I see my role as, but I absolutely believe and agree with colleagues who have said that it is our duty as parliamentarians to work together to create public policy that makes a difference, that enables people to make better choices. Those who will put forward the argument that alcohol consumption is entirely a personal decision and it is nothing to do with the Government or public policy. I am afraid that that argument crumbles in the face of the gentlest of scrutiny and all of the evidence of our life experiences, because Sandesh Gulhane, in his remarks, talked about the nature of the impact of this problem on families and communities and society at large. We do not live our lives as isolated beings. Even though we have our own individual identities and our own preferences, we are woven together. I absolutely subscribe to the doctrine that we are our brothers and sisters keeper. That is why we have a solemn responsibility as members of the Scottish Parliament to do something about alcohol addiction as it is impacting and harming individuals, families, communities and our country. Prioritising collective actions or blunt instruments over individual responses is not the answer. Again, Dr Gulhane was very clear about our position in relation to the minimum alcohol pricing policy. As well-intentioned as it is, it is not meeting the need because, frankly, picturing someone who has an addiction is easy for all of us. Facing higher prices, what does it do? It means that they do without in essential other areas and impacts other people in the process. Time is up shortly for me, so let me conclude by saying that we need a new course. We need to chart a new course for Scotland on this issue. Enough of the talking, enough of the strategies, enough of the reviews, let's do something. Let's invest, for example, in local rehabilitation centres across the country. Let's put help easily within the reach of every person that needs it, help within the reach of those who are trying, striving to support those who are struggling with the problem. Let's educate our young people, let's deal with the problem at root, let's create a better relationship between the people in our country and alcohol and let's deal with the behaviour issues that arise from the misuse or abuse of alcohol from binge drinking and other activities. Let's deal properly with the anti-social behaviour that arises because of the abuse of alcohol. Let's deal with the issues that my constituents, for example in Falkirk, talk of excessive noise, violence, graffiti, litter left in the wake of those who have been intoxicated and who have been disruptive in the street or the community. The failure to hold individuals accountable for their behaviour sends a destructive message, a dangerous message, about what behaviour is permissible. Failing to act, we are perpetuating a vicious cycle of harm. Therefore, I appeal to the minister to talk to her colleague, the Minister for Parliamentary Business, to see that there is a full debate on this issue as soon as is possible. I now call on the minister to respond. I would like to begin by thanking Carl Mawkin for tabling this really important motion and thank members for their considered contributions this afternoon. From the outset, I want the chamber to know that I do support her motion. We all agree that urgent action is needed to address the number of deaths from alcohol and to reduce alcohol-related harm. I offer my condolences to all the families impacted by alcohol deaths and restate my commitment to do everything in my power to tackle this public health emergency. As a family member who was affected by this very subject, it is also very personally important to me. As we have already heard several times today, the national records for Scotland reported a 2 per cent increase in the number of alcohol-specific deaths in 2022. Mortality rates in the most deprived areas are more than four times as high in the least deprived areas, and public health Scotland stats also show that admission to hospital was six times higher from the most deprived areas. Although those gaps are reducing over time, they are clearly still far too large, and tackling poverty must remain a clear focus for all of us. I am also particularly concerned in the reported rise in the mortality of women and in the Over 65s group. We need to ensure that our prevention policies and treatment services are addressing the specific needs of those groups and to tie them into the work across Government, which Brian Whittle and others have spoken about, and to respond to the health inequalities experience acutely by women but by other groups. Noting the increase that we saw this year in the deaths of women by suicide, we need to start to look at how all of these things tie together. As Alex Cole-Hamilton said, some of that comes out of the pandemic, whether that remains to be seen to be continued, and we really need to keep a close eye on it. The motion asks the Parliament to note its belief that a plan is needed to address this public health emergency. In response, I would like to set out the Government's plan for doing so, but I agree with everybody. I think that this is such a fulsome thing that we need to find time to bring it back in Government time to start looking at it. On pricing, we will soon be laying our report on the operation and effectiveness of minimum unit pricing in line with our commitments under the 2012 act. I look forward to discussing with Parliament the next steps for the flagship policy, as well as launching a public consultation on its future. It is not one single magic bullet, as some have alluded to. It is part of a suite of things that we are trying to do. Minimum unit pricing was a whole population attempt to look at driving down consumption. We know from the reports that we have seen a 3 per cent reduction in consumption overall, but I am acutely aware of how that impacts on people who are dependent drinkers. That is something that I will keep under huge consideration. I think that we will have a full debate on that when we get to it. Link to that work is the outcome of our alcohol marketing consultation that closed in April. We will be publishing the findings and our next steps in the coming months, including how we further engage on this critical issue. We also will continue to keep any proposals of a levy under consideration. On harm reduction, alcohol brief interventions can help clinicians and patients to identify harm reduction behaviours or the need for outside support and reducing alcohol intake. We have just completed a comprehensive review of ABIs, which will be published shortly. It will include recommendations, and we will provide Parliament with details of the actions that we will take in response to make improvements that help to reduce harm and can improve outcomes for people impacted by alcohol. The earlier that we can do that work to identify those who are drinking at harmful or hazardous levels, the better. I welcome the work that DrinkAware is undertaking in terms of helping people to self-identify whether there are issues. I look forward to seeing how that can work in tandem with that review of alcohol brief interventions. On increasing access to treatment, we have asked Public Health Scotland to investigate the reduction in the number of referrals to services. We need to make sure that referrals are made wherever appropriate and that there is capacity within services to meet people's needs. It is vital that we understand what is behind that data. I also want to understand, as Pauline McNeill spoke about earlier, where the gaps in data are, how do we understand how many people are engaged in fellowship organisations across the country? Those organisations are so vital and they help so many people. Brian Whittle? I am very grateful for the minister for intervention. As I used to question the minister, the drug minister said, if we can understand why Scotland has such a particular problem with drugs and alcohol, that would probably be very helpful in finding a solution to that. Is there any work being done with the Scottish Government to understand why we have a particular issue in Scotland? I think that we saw from the drug's task force the findings in terms of drugs. I think that some of that can be extrapolated in terms of alcohol harms as well, but as Carol Mawkin rightly pointed out, it is a very complex picture. I think that that is something that we need to continue to look at to try to understand what is driving that consumption within our communities. Some of it is to do with poverty and inequality, but a lot of it is to do with other things. We know that that increase in over 65s is particularly perturbing to me. Is there something round about retirement age where we actually start to see people's habits changed? So looking at that over time, I would assure Brian Whittle, is a key thing that I want to do. I have lots to get through, but if it can be—I can't, actually, sorry—I don't have enough time. There is just too much to talk about, and I think that is why we need a bigger, fulsome debate in here. We have also just commissioned Healthcare Improvement Scotland to take forward work to enable us to deliver our mental health and substance use plan, and the first part of that work is currently under way. As his work with stakeholders to develop an exemplar operational protocol to set out how mental health and substance use services should work together, it is vital that, given the number of alcohol-specific deaths that were caused due to mental or behavioural disorders, we cannot allow people to be bound to between services. We also know that workforce and recruitment in particular is a challenge across all the services at the moment. In the autumn, we will publish a workforce action plan on alcohol drug services to help to shape recruitment, retention and service design. That should help to create service capacity to make improvements, including establishing alcohol care teams in hospitals, to identify people with underlying alcohol problems earlier. I am meeting with the chair of that group this afternoon. I am also meeting with local leaders across the country to ensure that they are committing effort and resource to ensuring that services are in place, accessible and effective. I also wrote to ADPs recently to reassure them that utilising national mission resources to support services that offer treatment and support to those impacted by alcohol use alongside those impacted by drug use is welcome, and any concerns that they have should be flagged to my officials. To help to ensure that changes are delivered, the Government has already committed to developing treatment standards to offer people better access to support, a wider range of choice in treatment in line with what is available through the Medicusiness to Assisted Treatment Standards. The standards will be informed by the UK-wide clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment that will be launched in the coming months. The implementation of those guidelines and our proposed standards will provide the impetus to improving the identification and testing of patients who are at risk of liver disease and in primary care. As we have heard from Stuart McMillan, that is so welcome. On recovery services, we are encouraging specialist services to link more closely with recovery communities and we continue to provide funding to third sector recovery groups. We are also on track to increase our beds from 425 to reduce that shy of 600 across the Parliament, which is a 40 per cent increase. That is also about 1,000 publicly funded spaces, which is really important. Innovation, such as the Simon communities managed alcohol programme, really seeks to drive down harm reduction for those who are drinking at the most harmful levels. There is far too much in this that I cannot get through all of it, but in my conclusion, as Minister for Drugs and Alcohol, my role is to drive improvements and outcomes for both people who are impacted by alcohol, drugs and all the ways that we can help to tackle the twin public health emergencies. The Government will continue to work with statutory and third sector partners to deliver the plan to reduce alcohol harm and alcohol deaths. I will be working at pace to bring all of that together to ensure that our ambition is communicated effectively. I will seek to bring that back to Parliament. Y Llywodraeth Cymru


First of all, can you hear me at the back? Hands up at the back? Excellent. I'm very glad to see what Mallory would have called a goodly fellowship here today. And since this is an Arthurian talk, we will imitate Merlin in The Once and Future King. And time, at least to start with, will run backwards. So we begin at the end of the Middle Ages, in the year of 1478, in William Caxton's printing shop in Westminster. His revolutionary machine can produce multiple copies very quickly. And although he doesn't know it, he has just become England's first publisher. Scribes would use manuscripts one at a time to order. Now Caxton needed to know, or rather guess, what his customers wanted and how many copies he should print. At first he had played safe with historical biographies and books of philosophy. Today a group of gentlemen have come to see the new machine. And one of them has just asked him why he hasn't done a book on Arthur. Caxton says he's not in the business of printing fiction. Fiction? Arthur's no fiction. First you can see his tomb at Glastonbury, where his body was found and later transferred to the High Altar. Then Geoffrey of Monmouth has written about his life. And in many places in England you can see reminders of him and of his nights. At Westminster there is an impression of his seal in red wax. At Dover you will find Gawain's skull and Craddock's mantle. At Winchester there is the round table. Elsewhere there are large slot swords and many other things. Caxton claims that it was this conversation which he may well have invented himself that convinced him to print a book about Arthur. The relic showed him that Arthur was real enough, at least in popular imagination, for such a book to have a place on his list. But what was he to print? He only found it a year or two later when somebody brought him a manuscript of Sir Thomas Mallory's Mort Arthur. A work which, written in English and which unlike most books on Arthur, told the whole of his story. This only surviving copy was in his workshop at some point but as there are faint impressions of his type on some of the pages. Caxton's Mort Arthur was a huge success and launched Arthur into the world of the printed book. So the relics of Arthur's existence may have been hugely influential in ensuring that the Arthurian stories continue to be popular at the crucial changeover from manuscript to print. But what were these supposed relics? Did they really exist? Who created them? And why did they take the trouble to fake them? Our next scene is at Oxford Castle three-and-a-half centuries earlier. We'll follow normal time rules from now on. At the moment when Arthur's fame really begins, the date is around 1135 AD at the end of the reign of Henry I. In this castle was a chapel served by the cannons of the College of St George. Their provost Archdeacon Walter of Oxford was a man known for his great learning and had probably studied in Paris. The cannons were scholars and one of them was a Welshman, Geoffrey Arthur or Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was deeply interested in the history of Wales. This was a time of nationalist histories and heroes. The French celebrated the deeds of Charlemagne and traced their ancestry back to the Trojans. While the English had beads great work on the history of the English church, which praised the Anglo-Saxon kings and their nation, Geoffrey wanted to find material for a similar history of the Welsh nation that was at a loss to find a good source. One day Walter came into Geoffrey's room and gave him a very old book in the British town which set out in excellent style a continuous narrative of all their deeds from the first king of the Britons. Now this book no longer exists and most scholars believe that it very probably did not exist in the way Geoffrey describes it. What he found was a book which furnished scraps of Welsh history and Geoffrey's fertile imagination used these scraps to create a new narrative of the Welsh past with Arthur as its hero. If you like, Geoffrey ffaked Arthur in spineless. Geoffrey wrote with seeming authority. He placed Arthur in the nebulous historical context of the period between the Roman withdrawal and the Saxon invasions. He recorded how Arthur had conquered his rival British kings and had united the island, culminating in a splendid crown-wearing ceremony at his capital, Carlyon. He then goes on to tell how the Romans sent an embassy demanding that Arthur do homage because Britain belonged to the Roman Empire. Arthur refused to do so, invaded the Roman Empire, conquered France and threatened Rome itself. At this point he was forced to turn back by trechery at home where his nephew, Mordred, had seized his crown and his Queen Guinevere. Mordred was slain in a great battle. Arthur himself was mortally wounded and taken to the Isle of Avalon. When Geoffrey's manuscript was circulated, his fellow historians were at first startled and then later not amused. Henry of Huntingdon, who had written a fine history of the English, was asked by a friend if he knew of anything similar on the Welsh. He answered that he had not come across anything of the sword until to his stupor faction he was shown Geoffrey's book at the Abbey of Beck in Normandy by a fellow historian. He was so struck by this that he summarised most of the book in his letter in reply because Geoffrey had created a hugely successful forgery and it lies at the heart of the story of Arthur. Historians might be dubious but there was a ready audience for Arthur among readers. As early as 1150 the author of an abridged version of Geoffrey's book prefaced it by saying everyone was talking about the tales of the history of the Britons and those who did not know them were regarded as country bumpkins. Not everyone accepted them at face value. A fellow writer, Gerald of Wales at the end of the 12th century tells a good tale about a madman who was seen to be possessed, surrounded by a cloud of devils. When the Bible was laid on his chest they fled but when it was replaced by Geoffrey's book they returned more numerous than ever. But from the 13th century onwards until the Renaissance most historians accepted Geoffrey's work as genuine. Now one Welsh tradition about Arthur and an important one is not included in Geoffrey's history. Geoffrey tells us flatly that Arthur was mortally wounded but there was already a well-known tradition that Arthur would one day return. Even English historians wrote about it and the return of Arthur became a political rallying cry for the Welsh in their wars against Henry II. Henry himself was aware of it according to Gerald of Wales who knew him quite well and we shall see that this legend of the returning hero may have helped to shape the first physical relic on our list. Our next scene is at Messina in 1190. Richard I is on his way on crusade to Palestine and has stopped at the great seaport of Messina. Here he has come to be the guest or not unexpected guest of King Tancred, the Norman King of Sicily and he is in the company of Philip II of France. When he first arrived he rapidly came to an agreement with Tancred that Tancred's daughter should marry his nephew, the three-year-old Arthur, Count of Brittany. Arthur was the posthumous son of Richard's brother Geoffrey and Richard now named Arthur as his heir. This looked like a useful alliance but in the following turbulent six months Richard managed to quarrel both with Tancred and with Philip II of France who was his partner in the crusading venture. But at the end of the winter anxious to be on his way he patched up both quarrels for the time being. After Philip's fleet sailed in the first week of March 1191 he and Tancred exchanged gifts. In return for the gold and silver vessels and bolts of silk which Tancred gave him Richard presented the Sicilian King with one thing, the finest sword of Arthur once the noble king of Britain which the Britons call Excalibur. Geoffrey of Monmouth lists Caliburnas as Arthur's sword, an excellent blade forged in the Isle of Avalon and Arthur uses it in his victories over the Saxons and the Romans. Why should the precious weapon be given to Tancred of Sicil. Excalibur was deeply symbolic and was probably intended to be passed on to the young Arthur in due course when he came of age as a sword of his great namesake. A further twist was that the Plantagenuts seemed to have thought that by producing a living Arthur they might destroy the Welsh use of his story as a rallying cry. Their argument was that Arthur had once been king of Britain Arthur of Britain would be the Arthur who would return as a Plantagenut king of all Britain. Richard who was said to know the Arthurian legend well one writer said that he was particularly fond of an episode in the story of the Grail would have impressed the significance of all this on Tancred. We return home again for our next sight, the one you may well be expecting Glastonbury Abbey. News of Richard's nomination of Arthur as his heir had reached England at the latest by the end of 1190. It is a few months later and at Glastonbury the oldest monastery in England there has just been a spectacular discovery. The monks have unearthed the tomb of King Arthur. We do not have an exact date but it was definitely after word came from Sicily that Arthur was to be Richard's heir. Glastonbury was one of the richest of the English monasteries and it claimed a history which went back at least to the 6th century. The visible proof of this had been a very ancient church built of wattles that the Tusta Ecclesia revered as the oldest Christian building in the land. But in May 1184 a huge fire had destroyed most of the monastery including disasterously the ancient church itself. The abbot had died some months previously and no successor had yet been appointed. During the interregnum the abbey and its revenue was in the king's hands. Henry II's response to the news of the fire was massive and immediate. The revenues from the abbey which were being paid into his exchequer were to be paid direct to Glastonbury and when these were not sufficient Henry himself provided funds. Within two years plans for a great new church had been prepared. Then a double disaster struck the administrator of the abbey the king's chamber in Wraithford Stephen and the king himself died in 1189. When Richard came to the throne his desperate need for money for the crusade meant that the abbey revenues were diverted back to the exchequer. What happened in the spring of 1191 according to the abbey chronicle was this. In the old cemetery to the newly built church there were two ancient pyramids with an illegible inscription a monk had especially requested that he should be buried between them. When they came to dig the grave they surrounded the place with curtains. First they found a coffin containing a woman's body. They removed this and found a further coffin with a man's bones below which was a third coffin. On this was a lead cross inscribed here lies the noble King Arthur the renowned King Arthur buried in the Isle of Avalon note buried in the Isle of Avalon. Newsletters were sent out in which the bodies were identified as those of Gwynevere, Mordred and Arthur. Glastonbury's unique selling point if you like was its antiquity and without the visible evidence of the old church the monks needed to secure their place in history by discovering the burial place of Arthur the monks provided a new proof that the monastery was very ancient to take the place of their lost ancient church. Further more from now on they now presented Arthur as their founder. To this end two or three years later when the writer general of Wales visited Glastonbury he seems to have been commissioned to write up the finding of the grave in a fulsome literary style. Now the monks had already refined their find with Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of Arthur's End by the curious inscription on the cross buried in the Isle of Avalon. If you were standing at Avalon you didn't need to be told you were there so it's very odd to have that place name on the cross. Glastonbury contrary to many modern scholars was only identified with Avalon after the cross was found. Geoffrey had said that Arthur had gone to Avalon mortally wounded. The cross was evidence both that the body was Arthur's and that the place was Arthur and that Arthur was dead. Soon after the supposed discovery of Arthur's grave in the old cemetery a splendid new black marble tomb was erected near the high altar in the body of the church in which the king was remarried with Gryff Gwynevere. Today visitors come to Glastonbury in search of King Arthur but all you can see in the Abbey ruins are two standard mid 20th century ministry of works cast down plaques. One marks the site of the monks discovery in 1191 in the old cemetery to the old church and the others a spot where the 13th century tomb stood until its destruction in 1539 after the Reformation. The whole of this elaborate exercise was not as modern writers myself included have suggested a ploy to attract more pilgrims and visitors. Rather it was aimed at recovering the royal sponsorship they had so recently lost. Arthur was dead and therefore hopefully the Welsh idea that he would return would die down particularly since Richard could now present his nephew Arthur as the new incarnation of the hero. Indeed there is very little evidence that ordinary visitors came to see Glastonbury to see the tomb of Arthur at Glastonbury. We have a late medieval history mounted on boards which was kept in the church and used by the monks to guide pilgrims around the site. In it Arthur gets the barest of mentions even though he was by now supposedly the founder of the Abbey. If ordinary visitors weren't interested the English royal family was very definitely interested. In 1278 Edward I fresh from his victory over the Welsh came to the Abbey and had the remains of Arthur and Guinevere uncovered and the tomb moved to the central point of the church before the high altar. Edward III came to Glastonbury with Queen Philippa in December 1331 as part of a series of journeys through his kingdom after he'd thrown off the tutelage of his mother Isabella. He stayed at South Cadbury later reputed to have been the site of Camelot. The lead cross from the original tomb was kept out after the 1278 reburial and was shown to distinguished visitors. It was still in the Abbey when John Leland saw it in the 1530s but there is no firm evidence that it survived the dissolution of the monasteries. The engraving that we have was taken by William Camden from what he calls rather curiously the first original and in the Latin version of his history implies that it could mean that all he saw was actually a drawing from a Glastonbury manuscript rather than the cross itself and there is no record of firm record of the cross after the dissolution although there are rumours that it existed as late as the 18th century. We now turn from the sacred to the profane. Copies of Geoffrey of Monmouth's work multiplied until it became one of the most widely known of medieval histories. At the same time stories of Arthur and his knights dominated a new form of literature which we know as medieval romance. It is in the 12th century a time of massive intellectual change that we find for the first time writers of fictional stories centred on individuals. These replaced the old heroic poems which were standard fare at court poems which had celebrated warriors and kings and their deeds in battle. The new stories were based on the ideas which we now call courtly love. This chart shows the rise of the Arthurian romances and the very rapid given the time that it took to copy and distribute manuscripts distribution and fame of Arthur. By the 1170s we have the first versions of the stories of Arthurian Tristan and Ivan and Lancelot. By 1190 these romances included the story of the Grail. Several of the authors were collected with a Plantagenot court. By 1220 there were dozens if not hundreds of manuscripts on Arthur and his court and their adventures and the stories from which Mallory retold his version were more or less complete. Arthur was the best seller of the age both in fiction and history. Now we come to a slightly different aspect. Our next visit is to the wardrobe at Wallingford Castle. Wardrobe comes from the French word Garderobe a place where robe was kept. The original meaning of robe in 12th century French was booty robber in German or possessions. Soon after the word first appeared in French it took on the more limited meaning of robes in the sense of clothes. So in the wardrobe both treasure and dress were kept including lord's personal weapons. What we are interested in for the moment is swords. Swords were undoubtedly passed on and treasured. Particularly those said to have belonged to famous heroes. As early as 1012 Athelston, the son of Ethel read the second, left to his brother in his will the sword of offer the great king of Mercia who had died in 796. Excalibur handed by Richard I to Tancred was no longer in the Plantagenate Armory. But there were other weapons belonging to the new Arthurian heroes. It is no surprise to find that in 1207 a list of swords in the possession of King John includes the sword of Tristram. This was part of the English Royal Regalia and as such it has a remarkable history. The hero Odia de Dain from the French story of the song of Roland was reputed to have inherited a sword from Tristram called Cotana or shortened because its point was broken. Cotana next formed part of the regalia of Henry III and was used in the coronation of his queen Eleanor of Provence in 1236. Remarkably Cotana is still part of the English coronation regalia known as a sword of mercy because its point is blunted. I hasten to add that the sword itself has been replaced probably more than once since the 13th century. This is a 17th century drawing of Cotana as it then existed. The next Plantagenate Arthurian sword is certainly the least known but here a splendid example of scholarly serendipity came into play. I was at a gathering in honour of Toshit Akamir a Japanese fellow of this society at Cambridge a fortnight ago and happened to mention to Richard Beedle a professor of English literature there that I was interested in a curious record of Gawain's sword in a 14th century manuscript which quoted the inscription on its blade. Ah, he said you obviously haven't read my article in Toshit's first script which you published a couple of years ago. My partner in publishing Derek Brough once said we only publish books, we don't read them. And there to my delight I found a much fuller record of the Gawain's sword including remarkably its measurements. Three manuscripts from Canterbury, Barry St Edmonds and Coventry mention the sword and the Coventry writer tells us that it was kept at Wallingford. The armoury there was evidently well known. In the contemporary romance The Death of Arthur recently translated by Simon Armitage Arthur laments that it has looted a sword belonging to him called Clarent. That was Arthur's own and was the youth of his father which was held in high honour in the wardrobe at Wallingford. And it is with this sword that Arthur is mortally wounded. The measurements of Gawain's sword were carefully recorded in the Barry St Edmonds manuscript. It had a blade 53 inches long a hilt 11.5 inches by 5 inches and was 66.5 inches overall. This makes it a great war sword or two handed sword almost as large as the sword of Edward III preserved in the Garter Chapel at Windsor which measures 76 inches overall. I've put the knight in for scale so you can see how very large it was and for the conusente it's oak shot type 13a. And these swords were relatively common in the late 15th century. Earlier examples are rare. The next extraordinary aspect of it is the inscription on the blade. It is the only instance I know where Norse and Arthurian myth cross. Weyland was the legendary Saxon Smith who had fashioned Beowulf's chainmail and the inscription reads I am strong, sharp and hard. Weyland made me with great care. It was 14 years after Jesus Christ when Weyland tempered me and made me an extraordinary cross reference which has yet to be explored. Wallingford was a royal castle from Anglo-Saxon times and in the 13th century was the almost palatial residence as we saw in the first side of Henry III's brother Richard of Cornwall. It passed to the black prince in 1337 and to his widow Joan before reverting to Richard II on her death in 1386. So although we have no description of the contents of the castle it would have been the perfect place to house such an important rally. None of these swords is in fact in Caxton's list though he does cover himself by saying there are many other things elsewhere. He does cite Lancelot sword and this is listed in an inventory of the Armory of the Kings of France at Ombois in 1499 14 years after Caxton printed his edition of Mallory. If it was indeed the sword which Caxton or his informant had in mind it says quite a lot for the fame of relics of this kind that a sword kept in France should be known in London. We move on our erratic time track back to 1285 to Winchester Castle. Here we will find the one relic named by Caxton that still survives Arthur's Round Table probably a familiar image. Its history was long in doubt but we now know with reasonable certainty when it was made by whom and for what purpose. We're back to Edward I. In September 1285 he convened a great chivalric gathering at Winchester Castle with 7 out of the 10 English Earls present and almost all the laymen of any consequence. He made 44 nights there including Lord such as Edmund Mortimer, his nephew John of Brittany and two future Earls. We have no record that the Round Table was made specifically for this occasion but it ties in with the dates from the tree rings in the timber used to make it and indeed the timber analysis on the Winchester Round Table was at the very early days of dendro chronology which we now take absolutely for granted. A great chivalric gathering is also exactly the right kind of festival for such an object. Furthermore Edward had just held a kind of tournament at Neffin in Snowdonia to celebrate his Welsh victory. The Winchester Festival seems to have been a reprise of this triumph for the benefit of the court. The physical table was preserved as a relic in the castle. For the first 50 years of its existence it may simply have been an enormous piece of furniture 18 feet in diameter made of solid oak and weighing about one and a quarter tonnes. When it was first used it was probably covered with a cloth there is nothing to suggest it was painted when it was first made. It seems likely that it was hung on the wall in 1350 when the great hall was revamped as a lower court and the space was needed on the floor. It was taken down and repaired for the first time in 1516 and the present painting was almost certainly applied then with a portrait of Henry VIII as Arthur. Edward I is also said to have possessed Arthur's crown which he acquired after the defeat of Llewellyn the second in 1283. It was one of three relics acquired then but the crown of Arthur once the famous King of the Britons was surrendered with other jewels to Edward. Now this is very probably the same as a certain girl crown which belonged to Llewellyn Prince of Wales which was presented by the 12-year-old Alfonso Edward's eldest son at the shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey in 1284. The fact that it was no longer labelled even then as Arthur's crown indicates that even somebody as enthusiastic about Arthur as Edward I was not convinced that it was a genuine relic. And finally to dover castle. At dover you will find Gawain's skull and Craddock's mantle. In the romances Gawain was killed on the beach at Dover when Arthur landed there on his return to England and was attacked by Mordred and his men. This explains the suppose present of a Gawain's skull which again no longer exists. Craddock's mantle however may be the product of a very curious episode in the summer of 1328 involving Edward III who was still under the tutelage of his mother Isabella. She was having a notorious affair with Roger Mortimer her co-conspirator her co-conspirator in the overthrow of Edward II. That summer the accounts tell us that Edward III had tunics made for himself 12 knights and their squires for the game of the fellowship of Craddock. Craddock appears in the Arthurian stories as the owner of a beautiful but magical mantle which tested the chastity of ladies. It covered decently those who were faithful but those who had strayed were revealed as in various states of nakedness depending on the severity of their misdemeanors. When Craddock produced the mantle at Arthur's Court he severely embarrassed Gwynevere who delighted with its beauty insisted on trying the mantle on even though she was having an affair with Lancelot we need to go no further. So it's very possible that Edward's game may have been a pointed satire on his mother's affair which was to lead to her downfall two years later. Now one of the knights in Edward's entourage at this time was William Clinton who was also constable of Dover Castle so and it's only a possibility he may have brought one of the costumes for the Society of Craddock to Dover it could easily have been one of the short mantles made for the squires when the rest of the story was forgotten it was kept as Craddock's mantle. Finally, a small diversion. Even in the 15th century new historical claims were being made about Arthur. The University of Cambridge wishing to rival Oxford whose legendary founder was Alfred seized on Arthur to claim seniority and copied into their records a charter from the Royal Patron King Arthur issued by him in London in 531. It granted exemption from all royal taxes and extended his protection to the community of scholars at Cambridge. The charter was conveyed to Cynot rector of the University by Sir Gawain. It was duly copied into the privileges of the University about 1600 with this particularly fine portrait of the King himself. In all this there is a common thread which I hope you have been able to follow through the historical and literary maze. Almost all the relics quoted by Caxton owe their origin to the desire of the Plantation at Kings of England to connect themselves with the figure of Arthur. There were two reasons why they were keen to appear as as to his traditions. Arthur was accepted by historians as the first great unifier of the British Isles and he was also remembered as the ruler of wide continental domains which the Plantagenets continued to try to recuperate until the middle of the 15th century. As such he was the ideal model for their kingly ambitions. And so, my friends, I cease. Thank you.


Welcome to Jalassette News to get top stories and cryptocurrency Jalassettes and break them out of bite-sized pieces today. That's a pretty good stuff. First up, how will the U.S. presidential election affect the price of Bitcoin? The real question is here is how is it going to affect the short term and long term? Also billionaire Jeffrey Gunlach says Bitcoin is a lie and I think the problem here is not that Bitcoin is a lie, but a lack of understanding. We're going to go through some of the things that this gentleman should learn about Bitcoin and maybe how you can also educate your family and friends with a Bitcoin elevator pitch. Also Tyler Winklevoss says institutional tsunami coming to Bitcoin after Square buys 50 million in BTC and this is a story that I didn't really cover yesterday because I really thought to myself what's the big deal? Jack Dorsey has already been a Bitcoin bull for the longest time, but there's a wrinkle in the story. And lastly, Brave is now the top-rated browser on Google Play Store and the question really is asked how long before the masses understand just how great Brave is and the basic attention token which is cryptocurrency. So we're getting all that, but first let's get into the markets. Plus I wanted to go over a quick poll that I put out where I talked about that I was going to be on Alex Massioli's show today and we're going to be talking to Ave founder Stani Kulichov. And the questions that I got, the majority was is when will Ave support mortgages and will Ave support longer term loans plus why the deposit rate is so low? So he answered those and a couple more questions over at the Alex Massioli show which I'll link at the very end. And I have to tell you after listening to Stani about what's going on, this guy essentially invented DeFi. I might actually be a convert to the Ave token, but hey, let's talk about the market. So today is Friday, October 9th that is about 1 p.m. Texas time. So let's see what's happening. So Bitcoin is up over 11,000. I like to see that 1.5 with 24 hour and 4% for 7 day and that is massive. Where goes Bitcoin? So does the rest of the market. Ethereum up at 363 and I was on Alex's show and there's two traders there. And they're the few traders that I actually listened to. It is CJ and Monty and they were the ones that had predicted Chainlink to go down to 1050 and this was when I was 18. I thought I was going to the moon and they're like, nope, going to 1050.  Guess what? Totally right. And they're talking about their prediction for Ethereum and I got to believe them. So jump over there. They just tell you it's going to go to 380 and there's a lot more room for it to run, but the technicals, if you're a TA person, it's pretty fascinating. I honestly don't understand it, but I just like to hear when TA people say what I think is going to happen and that's always good. And yeah, Tether's Tether with a whopping $15 billion. Tether's pegged the US dollar, XRP pegged the quarter apparently because it's out of 25 cents. I'm just kidding. It's just XRP. Watch out. Bitcoin cash 1% at 236, not too bad and everything's up and also Chainlink is up above $10. Almost 10% gains, 6.2 for the week. I like to see that. Polkadot above $4. Fantastic. 3.5% for Cardano, Bitcoin SV.  So if you're holding coins, congratulations. If you didn't get shaken out, congratulations. Or if you did even the bonus round, which was buy things down the dip, congratulations on that. It's all about strong hands. I think I know where the market's going. I think it's going to change the world and I see great things. It's just to hold on and see the actual results. But as far as like the gains today, nothing's really too fantastic. Ave up 6%. And I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you, Sonny the smart guy. And what he was talking about, again, I might actually invest into Ave itself. Uniswap above $1.329, whatever. 60% for UMA. Wow. Your old UMA, congratulations. That thing was falling like a stone. And that's pretty much about it. Let's jump into today's big articles. So first up, this is a question I get quite a lot actually. So I want to answer it. How will the US presidential election affect the price of Bitcoin? This is a pretty good one. So if you don't know, the US presidential election is between President Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden. And that's going to happen in November when everybody votes. Now, will there actually be a clear cut winner? Who knows, especially with the ballots being mailed out, late registrations, all those types of things. Don't know. Unless it is a huge landslide, it might be a little bit of a put off as far as when they actually announced the winner. But we will see. So the big question is what's going to happen with the market? So this is actually from Big Cheds, Trader Big Cheds.  It's like this is almost, at one point, cryptocurrency was almost a trillion market. And we're quoting people like Big Cheds and Potato Foot and just, you know, doggy trader. It just sounds a weird. I mean, that's just me. But Big Cheds says, he's a trader, he says, if we have a clear winner and an easy transition of power, I did not see much of an impact in the price per coin. On the other hand, if we have a close and or contested election, we should see a bounce and risk off assets like gold and Bitcoin. And nothing against Big Cheds. I'm sure he's a smart guy. This is a well thought out sentence. That's just the name is hilarious. But here's how I see it. And I actually covered this in a couple of episodes previously, where they looked at all the different presidential elections and what happened afterwards. And it's always pretty much the same thing. There's either a little bit of a dip or a bump, and it goes right back to normal. So in this situation, this is what I think Donald J. Trump, if he gets reelected, there will be a bump in the traditional market plus will be a bump in cryptocurrency because there's a little bit of a correlation if you haven't seen it. However, it will go down after that initial bump because there's a lot of problems going on, not just in America, but in the global economy.  They are not coming back. We're looking at 20%. The quantitative easing, there's so much money being printed, you cannot print that much money without repercussions. There are people that are waiting for a stimulus check that will not get passed before the election and aim to have the election. Who knows when it's going to actually be passed. The GDP is falling. There are different problems with employment. It is a mess. And the only way to really get back is just going to take time. But over time, to get to that recovery, it's not going to be a V shape recovery. It's going to take a lot of time. And that's when the market is going to go down. However, the market, in my opinion, is just rich people's feelings because a lot of people aren't investing in the market. They're just average Joe's and they just need relief. So this is going to get to what crypto windy. She's another Twitter, Twitter trader. She says with an event like COVID, one would assume that Bitcoin would pump due to financial market uncertainty. However, we are not seeing that she said. So that's the same thing, right? You're going to have all these people, they're going to need money. They're not going to really get these types of relief, especially they're losing their jobs. So that's on the side of Donald J. Trump. If he gets elected, if Joe Biden gets elected, here's what'll happen. There'll be a dip initially because the markets are fearful of what Joe will do. And Joe will probably raise taxes because he has to. And he's going to cut the Trump tax cuts. And what that means is that a lot of rich people are going to have to pay more taxes. They don't like that. So what's going to happen? You're going to see a slump in the market. It may be an initial rise after that, but it's all going to be the same. It's all going to go down. It doesn't really matter.  So it's going to have to be taxes or something else. So the market is going to go down because we, what just happened before is going to play out later on. What do I see with cryptocurrency? Same type of thing. I do not care what happens tomorrow in a week, in a month. What I care about is where this whole train is going in the next one, two, five, 20 years. And I can see that cryptocurrency has a very bright future. Hey, I'll continue on. And as soon as we finish up, Wendio says markets need money coming in to flourish.  So that's true and false. Well, it's totally true that people hold another capital because they don't know where their next check is coming from. People are getting laid off left and right and the stimulus package isn't coming in. So what are they going to do? They're going to hold their money. But that's not the thing. Again, the markets, the traditional markets, the S&P 500, the Dow, that's not by like, you know, Sally Jo who works at Walmart, she's not propping up that whole system. Who's proud of the whole system is a lot of rich people. And again, the market is rich people's feelings. The market is not indicative of the economy. However, you can only slump so much until the actual market starts to slump along with it. So again, here's what I'm going to do. It's the same thing I've been doing since, well, since I figured it all out, which was dollar cost average. I'm not going to drop all my money into it. I'm going to just sit in the back. I'm going to put my little, my little amounts of money into my positions and then just dollar cost average in. If Ethereum goes down, if Bitcoin goes down, if chain links goes down, great, I get to get it. I get to buy it for cheap. If it goes up, hey, I made some gains. That's really all there is to it. I'm looking forward to see how it all plays out. Let me know what you think of the comment section. Let's move on. Next up, Bitcoin's a lie. Okay, billionaire Jeffrey Gundlach. I think it's Gundlach, I don't know. But before I read this whole thing, this guy is not a hater. He's already talked about Bitcoin, how it can go up to the moon. But in this situation, he's like, I just don't get it. And I understand because this is a very complex situation or complex market to understand. You just need a little education and we'll get to that in a second. So American investor, Jeffrey Gundlach, whose net worth is about 2.2 billion, hey, good for him, has expressed his aversion to Bitcoin calling on a lie in a recent interview. He mainly takes issue with Bitcoin's lack of anonymity or anonymousness, or however you want to say it, being anonymous. Even though it masks the identity of its users, all transactions are permanently stored on a blockchain and can be traced by anyone. So that's just it. If corporations get into it and they have a cryptocurrency account and they have one wallet, which would be pretty ridiculous. But let's just say, for example, that they have one wallet for all their Bitcoin, and you know that wallet, what it is, belongs to MicroStrategy or whatever. You can track all the different income, the outflows of every type of Bitcoin that goes in and out. And you can see it. So I always think like this, like if Enron was able to do that with, let's say they wanted to prove to their investors that they have a ton of cryptocurrency coming in and they are liquid and flush and everything else. They could say, look, here is our Bitcoin wallet. You can track how much is going in and out, and you can see that we're actually flush with cash. Unfortunately, I think you couldn't do that. Same thing with Tracy or Tracy with Bernie Madoff. Bernie, he was saying that there was all these different things coming in and it wasn't. So you could attract that very easily. However, the problem with these types of things is he's correct. Unless you know the wallet, who it belongs to, all you're just looking at is numbers. But you can track wallets. You can see the ins and outs and you can see the flows. So maybe, I mean, if you're super rich, maybe you don't want to have people track it. Just saying. But he states, I don't believe in Bitcoin. I think it's a lie. I think that it's very tracked, traceable. I don't think it's anonymous. And again, unless you know the Bitcoin wallet, you don't know who it belongs to. And again, Gunlunch is not a hater. He actually said that Bitcoin could sort of 15,000 this year because the dollar's weakness. So this is the thing. And he talks about how he believes that a good store of value would be like his art, his paintings, which he's right. It is a great store of value to have a very expensive painting because it retains its value. However, it's the same thing with Bitcoin. If you don't know about it, because to other people, when I explain to him like, wait, wait, it doesn't exist in reality. It's just on a blockchain. It's just on these nodes, all these different computers. Well, how is that value? Because I can't touch it. I can't feel it. So how does it actually have value? And I always say the same thing. I always hold up a dollar bill. What gives this value? Well, the full faith of the US government. Well, guess what? The purchasing power has been decreasing since 1913. On top of that, what gives gold value? It's because we give it value because people give it value. And it's the same thing with Bitcoin. I always give my elevator speech. I go, look, Bitcoin is digital gold. Unlike gold, it is truly finite at only 21 million. With gold, we keep finding more. I can send Bitcoin to anyone, anywhere in the world, for next to nothing. And it's, it happens within 30 minutes. It's the best performing asset class of the decade. It used to cost a nickel, and now it costs almost $11,000. And that's why I'm heavily invested. Just by saying those things, people are like, all right, tell me more. And I think these types of things could help out people with education and just to know what exactly it is.  There's a video I'll link at the end. It's called the Bitcoin elevator pitch. I'll have you watch it. That's it. Let me understand the comment section. Let's move on. Next up, Tyler Winklevoss says institutional tsunami coming to Bitcoin after Square buys 50 million in Bitcoin. And if you noticed, I did not highlight anything because here's the whole story. The whole story is this. And this is something that people said, why didn't you cover this yesterday? Because, you know, Square, Jack Dorsey, Twitter, same guy, they invested $50 million into Bitcoin. I was like, that's really a story. I mean, good for them. But Jack Dorsey is a huge Bitcoin bull. Jack Dorsey's Twitter handle has one word, Bitcoin. Jack Dorsey's company Square, half of their revenue came from Bitcoin. Why wouldn't they invest into Bitcoin? That only makes sense. Now to us, this is not a big story. And that's really the big thing. People on the outside, I mean, if they hear these stories, they're just like, okay, 50 million in Bitcoin. All right. It's going to take multiple people, multiple CEOs, multiple corporations to get into it. And to me, I just didn't think it was that big of a thing. Now, when you string all these things together, Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy CEO, investing half a billion into Bitcoin, Paul Tudor Jones, again, investing one or two percent in the futures. It is futures, but Paul Tudor Jones is one of those guys, also other companies that are investing into it, which aren't that many. When Bill Gates comes out for Microsoft and says, you know what? We're investing half a billion dollars into Bitcoin. That's when I'll cover that story because that's a big story. It's not just Bill Gates and it's not just us that will be impressed by that. It's everybody else. We need to get everybody else out there. And when you see these different CEOs and companies start to fomo in, that is when things get big. And they're only going to because what do you think is going to happen with Bitcoin? Is it going to go down to 5,000? Yeah, maybe, but I gotta tell you, over the time, over years, it's going to increase.  Our money's on fire. There is too much inflation because of the quantitative easing. We're going to take our treasury and put it into Bitcoin. These are the people that are going to be looked at as visionaries. The ones who made their stockholders so happy because they invested into Bitcoin. And the other ones that don't, these stockholders, these CEOs, these CTOs, CFOs, they're going to look at like, why didn't you buy Bitcoin when it was $11,000?  That was at 2020 in the late parts. Look at 2022. And now Bitcoin's worth $150,000. You could have made us so much money. You failed.  Well, it might not be that bad, but you understand what I'm saying. A lot of the companies will get into it. And when it's just one, then it comes two. And from two, then it comes four. And all of a sudden, now you have a FOMO situation. And I think that is what is going to happen. So great for Jack Dorsey. I totally expected this to happen. Let's see what happens with the other corporations. Let's move on. And last up, Brave is now the top rate of browser on Google Play Store. This is fantastic. And why is this fantastic? Because it leads to mass adoption. And those are my stories. So I just had this section just to make my point. Brave has soared past competitors on the Google Play Store, become the top rated browser and leading Google's own Chrome in the dust. Now, just so you know, it's the highest rated browser, not the most downloaded, but the top rated browser. So it's got a rating of 4.8 out of five from over 238,000 total reviews. That's pretty good. So they have a competitive edging of Chrome, Firefox, and all the other different browsers. But again, this is going to lead to mass adoption. Because when people start to figure it out, as far as Brave, and first of all, if you don't know, in the description of every one of my videos, there's a link to download Brave, super simple. And Brave is great. It's actually what I use when I pull up articles. And I'm recording for digital asset news, because guess what?  And Brave, I don't deal with that nonsense, which is awesome. Also, I get paid in, and that is the attention token, which is a cryptocurrency.  And I can cash out or I can tip people and do all these different things with it. Well, sign me up. It's only going to take a little bit of time. And then that's just a gateway crypto, just like Bitcoin is a gateway crypto, into all the other fantastic products that are out there. So let me know what you think in that article or in the comment section. I think this is a fantastic one for cryptocurrency and digital assets. And that is it for today. So thanks for sticking with me through the whole video. I really appreciate it. If you don't know, I got a second channel. It's called Digital Asset News Clips. And because I talk too much sometimes, I like to break down my clips and put them in here. So I've made this channel for two reasons. One is because time is money. And if I break down the clips, it's easier for you. And second, it's a backup in case YouTube wants to ban me. So I do this nice little digital asset news clips and you can check that out. There's a link in the description of every one of my videos. You can check that out and go over there. Also, if you got time, there's the Ave founder and he's going to talk about everything that we, that all the questions that we had as far as the mortgage, the fixed rates and what's going on with Ave. It was a pretty good one. I'm on there. And of course, everybody else who is smarter than me is on there. So check that out. I'll link at the very end. And that's it for today. Thanks so much. See you tomorrow.