Herald campaigns on behalf of private landlords desiring socialism for them but capitalism for you

As the Herald today, campaigns on behalf of private landlords desiring socialism (government-aid) for them but capitalism for their customers, here’s what the Scottish Government is doing, sensibly and ethically, with your taxes: Full text at: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=build+to+rent Continue reading Herald campaigns on behalf of private landlords desiring socialism for them but capitalism for you

Scotland subsidises its ferries far more than any other country, subsidises island life far more than any other part and the Mull service is 98% reliable for half empty vehicle decks!

The Scotsman today quotes a Labour MSP saying ‘Our islands have been let down, time and again, by the SNP.’ Readers will know that CalMac is almost certainly the best – cheapest, most frequent, most reliable, safest – in the world. How reliable, currently, has CalMac been for, say Mull? In February 2026, latest figures, in a winter month- 387 out of 392 scheduled sailings operating – 98.2%; 366 on time, 94.3%. All of the cancellations were for unsafe weather conditions. https://assets.calmac.co.uk/media/dkrpvvnm/mull.pdf Is the Scottish Government using our taxation to give the islanders a wee bit extra to try to stem … Continue reading Scotland subsidises its ferries far more than any other country, subsidises island life far more than any other part and the Mull service is 98% reliable for half empty vehicle decks!

The bacterial infections linked by media to cancer deaths at ‘troubled Glasgow super-hospital’ were due to Labour’s ‘astonishing’ decision to build it near a raw sewage works

Once more, many thanks to the several readers who have sent us ‘inside info‘ on this. Briefly, I should note a repeated claim by several readers that the unusual decision to locate next to a sewage works and to reject the Cowglen site, popular with campaigners, was due to Labour’s favouring of business interests, donors perhaps, who wanted to build houses and make a lot of money on the Cowglen site. AI can find no evidence for this. We have previously presented extracts from the expert witness Allan Bennett, initially shocked by the decision to locate the new Southern General … Continue reading The bacterial infections linked by media to cancer deaths at ‘troubled Glasgow super-hospital’ were due to Labour’s ‘astonishing’ decision to build it near a raw sewage works

No other major hospital in the UK is sited so close to a raw sewage processing plant that emits bioaerosols containing bacteria, fungi and viruses

More than one friend of Talking-up Scotland has joined in to feed me useful info on the at-first-sight disturbing and surprising location of the new QEUH approved by Labour-led Glasgow council in 2008. Some are posting as Anon, in email with names and sometimes telling not to mention those.. I’m mixed up so apologies if I don’t credit you but thanks all round. From Anon today: What Allan Bennett’s testimony [specialist scientific advisor on airborne infection risks and ventilation/biosafety matters] omits is that there are two sewage plants surrounding the QEUH / RHCG. The plant actually bordering the west boundary of the … Continue reading No other major hospital in the UK is sited so close to a raw sewage processing plant that emits bioaerosols containing bacteria, fungi and viruses

Let’s hope that Andy Pandering’s visit to Scotland is a tiny and so-very-fleeting part of his UK whistle–stop tour

By Liz S From James Foster on X regarding the announcement of Andy Burnham doing a UK cost of living Tour this week: “Why does @AndyBurnham need to tour the country to discover that the cost of living is too high, people are keeping less and less of their own money, high streets have been decimated, rents are through the roof, social housing is in desperately short supply, and inequality continues to grow?” “None of this is a revelation. These problems have been documented relentlessly for years by official statistics, councils, charities, economists, researchers and, most importantly, the people living through … Continue reading Let’s hope that Andy Pandering’s visit to Scotland is a tiny and so-very-fleeting part of his UK whistle–stop tour

The real purpose behind this so-called House of Lord’s ‘inquiry’ into Peter Murrell

By Liz S According to the not so ‘Scottish’ Daily Mail “The Peter Murrell scandal is set to be investigated by peers in the House of Lords, the Mail can reveal”. That’s an investigation by Peers who are not members of the SNP party, who are all mostly non Scottish Peers or House Jocks and so are, by a majority , pro UK Peers and so then they all are (except the 2 Green Peers) anti Scottish independence unelected bureaucrats within the HOL’s. So what or rather who prompted this ? Well Jack McConnell had initially called for a joint inquiry between a Scottish Parliament committee and its counterpart in Westminster. So I suspect that he is (heavily) involved in … Continue reading The real purpose behind this so-called House of Lord’s ‘inquiry’ into Peter Murrell

Scottish students not facing ‘ticking timebomb’ of debt

In the Guardian today, the above and: The government is piling mountains of debt and higher tax rates on young people heading to university, according to analysis into the “ticking timebomb” of costs faced by future students. Hundreds of thousands of sixth formers will receive their A-level results on Thursday, with many expecting to continue on to higher education courses. But Toby Whelton, author of the analysis for the Intergenerational Foundation, a thinktank, says those in England will face more extreme financial penalties than previous graduates. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/aug/10/government-piling-debt-on-to-future-graduates-in-england-analysis-finds Now Richard there, above, is ‘Education editor!’ I bet he’ll be thinking ‘Must compare … Continue reading Scottish students not facing ‘ticking timebomb’ of debt

Not one of seven major new hospitals in England has been built in an industrial setting next to a major sewage works but Scottish Labour thought that was good enough for its loyal voters

Thanks again now to several readers for this link. I see little media coverage of the shocking evidence that emerges in this. Glasgow City Council approved the location for the new QEUH on 16 January 2008, with a 45 to 22 majority over the SNP, 9 years before the SNP became the administration in 2017. Labour had run the city council, uninterrupted, since 1996 and the Glasgow District Council since 1975 Allan Bennett is a massively published specialist scientific advisor on airborne infection risks and ventilation/biosafety matters, who wrote the above. His publications cv is at: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3T9W4bwAAAAJ&hl=en He begins with: … Continue reading Not one of seven major new hospitals in England has been built in an industrial setting next to a major sewage works but Scottish Labour thought that was good enough for its loyal voters

When crime is falling, is declining trust in police force due just to fewer arrests or ‘treating Nicola Sturgeon like Fred West’

What’s the basis for the above warning? This: Are fewer arrests in one year good evidence of why trust in the police might be falling? Might there be another reason for falling arrests, such as reducing crime? See this: From Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2025-26 https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2025-26/documents/ The table from which I’ve extracted the above is huge. I’ll be accused of selective bias but I feel sure my selection, leaving in increases in sexual assaults and rape, concentrates on the offences that most disturb us, including serious violence. One-year variations, though loved by journalists and, sometimes by senior police officers, naturally … Continue reading When crime is falling, is declining trust in police force due just to fewer arrests or ‘treating Nicola Sturgeon like Fred West’

12 years after Erin Brockovich, Labour councillors approved massive nearby waste incinerator with a chimney barely taller and a plume containing deadly chromium hexavalent, lead and arsenic which the prevailing winds will send to the windows of wards of immunocompromised patients, WHILE QEUH was already being built

Thanks to reader Joe Murray for alerting us to this. As the media operating in Scotland desperately struggle to blame the SNP for a problem in the QEUH water supply and drainage, signed off by a Labour dominated health board in a Labour-led authority, in 2015, two years before the SNP victory, another problem for them emerges. Surely, they’d seen Erin Brockovich (2 000) and would have known about the deadly chromium hexavalent, if they did some reading? In 2012, Glasgow City Council granted planning permission for the South Clyde Energy Centre (an energy-from-waste/incinerator facility) at Bogmoor Road, North Cardonald … Continue reading 12 years after Erin Brockovich, Labour councillors approved massive nearby waste incinerator with a chimney barely taller and a plume containing deadly chromium hexavalent, lead and arsenic which the prevailing winds will send to the windows of wards of immunocompromised patients, WHILE QEUH was already being built