Road deaths halve and offences fall by a third as ‘SNP’ Road Safety Framework achieves significant results with 5 years to go
In the Edinburgh Reporter February 2026 based on a Sunday Mail report: Scotland’s roads are becoming deadlier amid rising fatalities and surging traffic offences, latest figures reveal. Police Scotland say 92 people were killed in car, motorcycle and cycling collisions between April and September 2025 – nine more than the same period last year, an increase of almost 11%. They included one child and six cyclists. Motorcyclist deaths rose to the highest level for five years with 27 during the period. The news comes as reckless drivers are increasingly flouting the law, with significant rises in drink and drug driving, speeding, dangerous driving and … Continue reading Road deaths halve and offences fall by a third as ‘SNP’ Road Safety Framework achieves significant results with 5 years to go
‘It isn’t tax payers money, it’s the government’s money and the government chooses what is spent’
By rogercolkett You know that I support your untiring efforts to confront the lies obfuscations and omissions of the mainstream media that seek to show Scotland in as negative a way possible. And I share your annoyance at the waste of resources by the UK Government on projects that provide no benefit to Scotland, it’s part of the reason that I want Scotland to be an independent country. The main reason, though, is that I would like to live in a Scotland that wasn’t tied to the anti-social and spurious neo-liberal Ideology that dominates the cities of London and Westminster. … Continue reading ‘It isn’t tax payers money, it’s the government’s money and the government chooses what is spent’
HS2 is a testament to the massive transfer of money from the poor to the professional classes
By derekscott1953 HS2 is a testament to the massive transfer of money from the poor to the Professional classes – lawyers, land-owners, consultancies, NGOs, layer upon layer of takers, who, given the massive cost rises, late delivery and dubious benefits, are clearly ‘unprofessional’. £102 or 103 billion, up from £35 billion, all to shave minutes off the journey into London. History does not repeat itself but it often rhymes, said Mark Twain, and this rhymes with the banker crisis. Banker even rhymes with another word that has come to define those working in that lower ring of Dante’s inferno. That … Continue reading HS2 is a testament to the massive transfer of money from the poor to the professional classes
As pothole compensation claims surge in England they plummet in Scotland
From the Guardian today: Exactly how many holes there are in the country’s roads depends on who’s counting and how they define them, but the RAC reckons there are a million potholes in the UK’s residential, city centre and rural roads, or six every mile. Its data backs up anecdotal evidence that things are getting a lot worse, quickly: compensation claims for pothole damage against UK local authorities rose by 90% in the three years to 2024. More than three times as many drivers cited potholes as the cause of breakdowns in February 2025 than in the same month a year earlier. … Continue reading As pothole compensation claims surge in England they plummet in Scotland
As Ukraine and Iran wars mark the end of cheap oil and gas, Scotland transfers a record 21TWh of electricity in 2025, the highest ever and nearly 300TWh in total since 2000, to England, for no significant return
From Energy Statistics for Scotland – Q4 2025 published April 2026: Electricity transfers data show that Scotland exported 21.7 TWh of electricity and imported 0.9 TWh of electricity in 2025. This means that Scotland’s net exports of electricity (exports minus imports) in 2025 were 20.8 TWh. Scotland’s net electricity exports in 2025 had an indicative value of £1.7 billion based on the average wholesale day-ahead contracts price trend for 2025. https://www.gov.scot/publications/energy-statistics-for-scotland-q4-2025/pages/electricity-exports/ Looking back over the quarter century of electricity generated in Scotland then transferred to England to raise revenue the UK Treasury and the owners, none based in Scotland, the figures are huge. I … Continue reading As Ukraine and Iran wars mark the end of cheap oil and gas, Scotland transfers a record 21TWh of electricity in 2025, the highest ever and nearly 300TWh in total since 2000, to England, for no significant return
One Scottish member of an Afghan child sex grooming gang operating only in Norfolk changes nothing in Scotland’s review
In the Guardian today, the above and: As far as I can see the media operating in Scotland and opposition politicians have not yet spotted that reference to Scotland. That all the offences were committed in Norfolk will not stop them importing child sex grooming gangs into Scotland and calling for an immediate inquiry rather than the SNP Government’s 18-month timetable for a national review that would only then inform a decision on whether a full public inquiry is required. Here’s why a careful approach to a national review is required, reasons which were already in a response to Labour … Continue reading One Scottish member of an Afghan child sex grooming gang operating only in Norfolk changes nothing in Scotland’s review
Scotland rising above sea levels after only two years of SNP Government
The Guardian today, has: There is no great master plan’: anxiety as UK homes, roads and railways sink into the sea – Increasing coastal erosion has hit communities’ livelihoods and put lifestyles under threat There is no mention of any Scottish location. Here’s why: In October 2009, The Telegraph reported, the above and: England is sinking while Scotland rises above sea levels, according to new study England is sinking into the sea while Scotland is rising at such a rate it may counteract the effects of sea level rise due to climate change, according to a new geological map. The University … Continue reading Scotland rising above sea levels after only two years of SNP Government
Calls for cancellation of HS2 white elephant would mean Scots taxpayers saving more than £8 billion for a train service that stopped in England anyway
In the Guardian today, the above and: So it is official, as if that makes a difference. After a 15-month review by the new chief executive, the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, has revealed that HS2 will now cost up to £102.7bn and trains may not start until 2039. Alexander called the original design a “massively over-specced folly” and called the increase in time and costs “obscene”. Indeed it possibly ranks as the wildest white elephant in British history. In comparison, Donald Trump’s White House ballroom is a garden shed, and Dubai’s Burj Khalifa a mere sandcastle. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/21/hs2-white-elephant-british-history-sunk-cost-fallacy What is the current plan? … Continue reading Calls for cancellation of HS2 white elephant would mean Scots taxpayers saving more than £8 billion for a train service that stopped in England anyway
Hardworking Scots taxpayers lost more than £500 million just last year for ditched UK Government projects – worth 15 brand new secondary school buildings
In the Guardian today, the above, and: Cancelled government projects such as the Rwanda deportation scheme and the road tunnel under Stonehenge are wasting billions of pounds of taxpayer money a year, parliament’s spending watchdog has found. About £6.6bn was written off by government departments last year alone – state spending that did not achieve its intended objectives or create any value for the taxpayer, the public accounts committee said. The PAC said successive governments’ propensity to cancel projects after spending significant sums of public money was a “particularly egregious” example of poor value. The committee’s deputy chair, the Labour MP Clive Betts, said the high … Continue reading Hardworking Scots taxpayers lost more than £500 million just last year for ditched UK Government projects – worth 15 brand new secondary school buildings
Swinney need not apologise for Sinn Fein ‘links’ as IRA was not responsible for the deaths of any Scottish civilians in Scotland
I understand why the relatives of Scottish soldiers, often just boys at the time, will be upset by links with Sinn Fein but their anger would be better directed at the UK government and senior officers who sent them, ill-prepared, into a brutal civil war, in the first place. The UK has full diplomatic relationships with political parties of government in countries, from Ireland, through Kenya, to Israel and Malaysia, where similar young Scottish soldiers were sent, similarly ill-prepared, to die. Should we ask UK ministers to apologise? This is another media/opposition campaign, exploiting these parents and relatives in an … Continue reading Swinney need not apologise for Sinn Fein ‘links’ as IRA was not responsible for the deaths of any Scottish civilians in Scotland
Talking-up Scotland 