Consumers in the UK buy 15 per cent of all the whisky produced in Scotland but that figure is likely to

Consumers in the UK buy 15 per cent of all the whisky produced in Scotland, but that figure is likely to fall this year with consumers cutting back spending on whisky and other spirits.Sales of Scotch in supermarkets, off-licences and other retailers could well be heading for a 10 to 15 per cent decline this year.The sharp drop in releases from bond highlights the troubles retailers are having in shifting stocks built up before the duty increased was imposed in January.More than 2.5 million litres of pure alcohol from distilleries in Scotland were cleared for consumption in the UK in the month before the extra tax was levied, against 994,400 litres in the same month in 1994.Drinks analysts have argued for the past couple of years that the Government had exhausted the laws of diminishing returns regarding tax on spirits. And there are signs that the decline in the amount of stocks coming out of bond is continuing."There is a hole, but it's a hole of the Government's making. According to the Treasury's tax ready-reckoner, the higher tax on all spirits should have yielded an extra pounds 30m of revenue in fiscal 1995/96. Figures from Customs & Excise to the Scotch Whisky Association show the amount of whisky released from bond, the stage at which tax is levied, fell 26 per cent in the first three months of 1995.Tony Tucker, of the association, said the drop from 5.5 million to 4.07 million litres of pure alcohol released from bond had cost the Treasury pounds 25m in lost revenue. Later, in Boston, she was spotted at a trade show demonstrating running-shoes designed by her Russian-immigrant boyfriend, Gregor Lekhtman. Hence her new label as shoe saleswoman.The Campbell career is not over, however. It is rumoured that she is being considered as the next ambassador to Moscow.HUGH WINSOR. The emergency 4 per cent increase in taxes on Scotch whisky in the wake of last November's fiasco over the Government's failure to increase VAT on fuel is poised to cost the Treasury more than pounds 100m in lost revenue this year.

She said she read Tolstoy in Russian, played Bach on the cello and could cross legal swords with Supreme Court justices She had a quick wit and the cameras were kind But a disastrous campaign revealed her inexperience. Ms Campbell could not even hold her own seat, and six weeks after the election she stepped down. Now 48, Ms Campbell had been involved in federal politics for less than five years when she declared her candidacy to succeed Brian Mulroney. There were about half a dozen other candidates, but Ms Campbell's campaign hit the ground running with such momentum that all but one of them, the current Conservative leader, Jean Charest, dropped out within days.She initially appeared as a fresh alternative to the men in suits who had dominated Canadian politics since confederation. But it is under-employed compared to two years ago, when the Progressive Conservative Party's national convention chose her as leader.How the Conservative Party lost its comfortable majority - 200 seats out of a chamber of 295 seats - that Ms Campbell inherited to end with just two seats in four months, between her swearing-in as Prime Minister and the election in October 1993, is still debated.Ms Campbell blames the economy, public mood, her predecessor, the media and her campaign organisers for the debacle, but not herself. Kim Campbell From political-science teacher and lawyer to prime minister and then shoe saleswoman in less than a decade.

It has been a meteoric rise and fall for Avril Phaedra "" Campbell.But it is the stuff of great autobiography, Ms Campbell promises from Vancouver, where she is finishing a book for publication in spring. She occasionally shows up in Ottawa to attend those ceremonies to which all ex-prime ministers are invited, and is entitled to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police security escort. They settled for a dozen Russian journalists.I admire the courage of those who agreed to go They got as close as you can get to a story. I am also pleased to see they made it, after long delays, hours at roadblocks and several very close calls, to Chechnya and back in one piece I am also very glad I stayed behind. That night they served champagne in the house where I was staying Their daughter- in-law was free.. If you get there there is no story; if you don't get there you are dead." Another colleague suggested we try to negotiate a better deal: the press should have its own separate bus at the end of the Chechen cavalcade The plan was a non-starter.

The Chechens needed human shields, not spectators.The gunmen initially insisted on 60 local and foreign journalists. For a few nervous minutes it seemed as if the reluctance of the international press corps to embrace the risk of collective suicide might scupper everything The Chechens relented. "Journalistically, it is a no-win situation," pronounced the correspondent from ITN "You sit in a bus for 14 hours or more ... We would all have to sign a waiver form, releasing the Russian government from all responsibility for our security.I've never seen such unanimity among a group of normally gung-ho foreign journalists For some the decision was made easy.