JOHN Swinney’s plans to introduce a price cap on food essentials have been subjected to “unfair” press coverage which casts the SNP as a “nanny state” government, a media expert has said.
Dr Michael Higgins, a senior lecturer in media and journalism based at the University of Strathclyde, said there is a “lazy” press narrative that has developed under the SNP since they introduced minimum unit pricing on alcohol in 2018 that they “interfere in retail matters they don’t understand”.
Higgins said he had been surprised to find what he would consider progressive papers rallying against the policy given similar measures are in place across Europe and Asia.
Another expert in nutrition told the Sunday National there was a pervading culture in the UK of rallying against governments who interfere in food policy.
It comes amid a swathe of negative coverage after the Scottish Government launched a consultation last week on capping the cost of essential food and drink items in supermarkets across Scotland, which ministers plan to introduce under public health powers.
A lot of media coverage of the policy has leaned on a letter from 23 industry groups calling on the First Minister to U-turn on the cap, claiming it is “unnecessary, ineffective and likely to deliver significant adverse consequences”.
BBC Radio Scotland was heavily condemned last week for asking Swinney “the most crass question ever”. Presenter Laura Maciver said: “Who likes this idea, apart from you and people who are obviously interested in solving poverty, in making food more affordable to people?”
Three guests who opposed the policy were also lined up on the programme, with only Swinney himself championing the policy.
Higgins told the Sunday National: “If you’re not a media organisation that’s particularly well inclined towards the SNP Government, you have to hook on one [policy from the Programme for Government] that’s not popular.
“Bus fare caps – they’re not going to get far with that. The misogyny bill – good luck arguing against that one. [Merging of] NHS boards – we’ve been complaining about the administration of the NHS for years so they can hardly criticise that.
“So the open goal really is the, as yet, not fully formulated price caps, but it’s a genuinely progressive policy, and I’m surprised to find what I would consider to be progressively minded newspapers and journalists arguing against it.
“There is an underlying narrative of the nanny state that’s developed under the SNP and a lot of this comes from the minimum unit pricing policy, so it’s easy to cast the SNP as interfering and sticking their noses into retail matters that they don’t understand enough about, and I don’t think that is fair at all and I think it’s a narrative that is lazy.”
Nutritional epidemiology expert Professor Lindsay Jaacks, based at the University of Edinburgh, also said there is a pervading culture in the UK of people not liking it when governments are seen to interfere in food policy.
Asked about the negative coverage of the proposal, she said: “We've seen it right across the board for decades in the UK going back to [Margaret] Thatcher that people really don’t like government messing with food markets.
“But it’s not a free market; 40% of farmers’ profitability in Scotland is from government payments, so we are intervening. This is basically one more lever the Government is trying to pull to make food more affordable.
“People often think of forced collectivisation and instances where government has had strong intervention in food, and it’s resulted in adverse consequences. Food has been used as a political weapon by the state to cause famines, such as the Great Famine in Ireland.
“I think there is this instinctive fear that if the Government gets involved in food, bad things happen.”
Jaacks, based at the University of Edinburgh, added that it was not unusual to introduce a food price cap, with multiple countries across Asia having them in place, as well as European countries like Croatia.
“There are loads of countries [in Asia] that have price caps on staples – India being one example,” she said.
“There was a paper published a couple of years back that looked at all of East Asia, and there are at least 10 or 15 countries that have price caps, so it’s not unusual to do a consumer-facing intervention in food prices.”
Asked about the BBC Radio Scotland coverage and the attention given to the industry letter, Higgins criticised a culture of “attack” in political journalism in the country.
“There’s an overall culture of attack in political journalism and where a letter like that is phrased in a way that enables and provides the material for that attack, particularly broadcast media will pick up on that,” he said.
“I do think the BBC should reflect on that and be better. I don’t think this attack journalism is especially productive in terms of improving political policy or holding politicians to account in any meaningful way.”
Higgins also speculated some major newspapers were subconsciously inclined to speak against the policy because of it being aimed at large supermarkets that are key advertisers.
The draft bill states that the price caps will have to be brought in by any business that employs more than 250 people, has an annual turnover of more than £250 million, and more than 50% of its turnover related to grocery sales. It also covers online retailers.
“I don’t think there is a conscious [decision to say] we better not annoy Morrisons or Tesco here, but there is inevitably an eye to the interests of advertisers,” he said.
