You wait for ages for a big idea to come along, and suddenly two arrive at once. In the past week, the nationalists have had a brainstorm, breaking-off from their war with Westminster to produce a brace of bread-and-butter initiatives.

The first deals with alcohol abuse and is as controversial as the previous administration’s smoking ban, though so far a little less popular. While most people agree that Scotland’s booze culture is out of hand, and that its £2.25 billion annual cost to the state is too high, the SNP’s remedies are considered overly radical.

Raising the minimum age for off-licence sales from 18 to 21, banning three-for-the-price- of-two discounts, making some drinks more expensive and segregating liquor shoppers from grocery queues are all measures mooted by Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, and Nicola Sturgeon, the health minister. They have been widely condemned as too scatter-gun, hitting responsible drinkers (and we are many) without hurting feckless bingers. Minimum prices based on alcohol strength would see wines and spirits soaring in cost, while Buckfast and Bacardi Breezers — most beloved tipples of the teenage tearaway — would remain unchanged.

Separate supermarket checkouts for alcohol would humiliate the harassed young mother, for whom wine can sometimes be as necessary as the baby’s nappies, rather than deter the hardened headbanger. Scots, it seems, are not ready to stigmatise drink as do the Scandinavians, and carry clinking brown paper bags home from designated liquor stores.

Meanwhile, the move to ban off-sales to the under 21s would offend those upstanding youths who are allowed to vote, marry, become parents and be sent off to war. Surely it is not the Scottish government’s intention to alienate that impressionable age group, which helped put it in power, and which, on the whole, drinks in moderation or (at least) does so in private.

“Introducing a presumption of guilt for an entire generation of 18- to 20-year-olds will do nothing to improve relations between government and young people,” said the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Ross Finnie. Although everybody is affected by the scourge of excessive drinking, not everybody wants to be penalised for it. Scots may recognise a national curse when they see one, but they are understandably reluctant to do their bit for society if it means being inconvenienced.

There was a warmer response to the nationalists’ other proposed reforms, which aim to tighten the law on sex offences. Sending offensive e-mails and texts and spiking drinks with date-rape drugs will become crimes; Scots who commit underage sex offences abroad can be brought to book by Scottish justice; and the definition of rape will be widened.

The Sexual Offences (Scotland) Bill, as the justice minister says, sets out to create “a clear legal framework that more accurately reflects the values of modern society”. There’s just one snag, though — it’s unenforceable. And that is also the main flaw in the draconian new anti-booze legislation. There just aren’t enough police officers in Scotland to meet public expectations of law enforcement. Despite what ministers, chief constables and police federation spokesmen tell us about recruitment figures, we know this is true, because the evidence is there to see (or not to see) with our own eyes.

In fact, the SNP itself acknowledged the shortage by pledging in its manifesto last year to put 1,000 extra bobbies on the beat — a pledge that has become a political hot potato. The bobbies are not there yet and whether we ever get them will rest largely on the ability of police boards to, firstly, dissuade ageing officers from retiring early and, secondly, redeploy desk-bound officers who are quite happy where they are.

At the moment, fewer than 10% of Scotland’s police officers are available for frontline duties at any one time. These officers are in huge demand to enforce the existing laws, a task that is apparently defeating them, as anybody who has had their car repeatedly vandalised or their neighbourhood terrorised will testify. There will, therefore, be plenty of work for the 1,000 extra bobbies to do without having them mooch about in nightclubs trying to catch drink-spikers, or patrol offices to intercept the millions of innocent e-mails exchanged daily, in the hope of trapping just one sleazebag.

Even if special snoopers were despatched to snare sex offenders, the cases would still have to be collated by the police. Even with the current checks and balances in place, sex crimes far more heinous than suggestive text messages go undetected and unpunished through a dearth of police resources.

When our law enforcement agencies can’t keep tabs on dozens of often dangerous offenders at home, how are they going to find the manpower to pursue villains abroad?

Better enforcement of current laws would also negate the need for stringent new drink controls. There are already measures to prohibit the sale of alcohol to the under 18s but they are enforced half-heartedly. Only 30 licences to sell alcohol were suspended in 2005/06, and only half of these were for off-sales.

What is the point of changing the rules in relation to off-licence sales when retailers already disregard the present ones? The purveyors of strong drink (pubs, corner shops, off-licences, supermarkets) are admittedly in a difficult position of having to weigh profit motive against social duty. Tougher policing and tougher fines might steer their consciences in the right direction.

Alcohol abuse results in antisocial behaviour, it is a factor in one in three divorces, and in 40% of violent crimes. Alcohol-related admissions to Scottish hospitals have increased by nearly 50% in a decade and alcohol-related deaths have more than doubled. Alcohol consumption is also linked to risk-taking among the young, which makes them more likely to commit a crime or become the victim of crime, and that includes sex crimes.

Clearly, we have a problem. Perhaps prevention, through the changing of attitudes, is the long-term solution, but that also requires high-visibility policing. Successful pilot projects in Armadale, West Lothian, and in England, to combat underage drinking, have relied on enforcement as much as on education, local police liaising with licensing authorities, shops and pubs to target the availability and affordability of alcohol. If the SNP wants to follow its predecessors in government and go down the nanny-state road, it first needs to have enough nannies.