We heard yesterday, from the Wee Ginger Dug in the National:

Susan Aitken (above), the leader of Glasgow Council, has warned that the UK Government wants to house an asylum barge in Glasgow. Possibly this is because they think that Glasgow is as remote as Ascension Island. The council leader has revealed that the British Government is seeking consent form Glasgow City Council for an asylum barge to be “sited in the city”. She wrote on the social media platform that we are all still calling Twitter: “The UK Government wants Glasgow City Council to give consent to an asylum barge being sited in the city. We will not give it. Glasgow’s communities are proud to be beacons of support and integration for asylum seekers and refugees. This is the polar opposite of that.”

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23707049.tories-scope-somewhere-remote-ship-refugees—like-glasgow/?ref=eb&nid=1898&u=373de6c7573215d01eab2a2993b269b0&date=070823

Today in the Herald:

Glasgow’s Susan Aitken ‘a hypocrite’ on Home Office barges

Who says she’s a hypocrite?

This Annie Wells?

MSPs have backed calls for a change in the law to allow for the introduction of a ‘safe’ injection room in Glasgow.

Glasgow City Council believes the move would help to tackle an increase in street injecting and HIV in the city. Aileen Campbell, Minister for Public Health and Sport, said: “We have seen the results from safe consumption rooms in countries such as Australia and Denmark, and the UK Government’s own drug policy advisers have found that they reduce drug-related deaths and reduce the transfer of blood-borne viruses, improve access to primary care and intensive drug treatment, and do not cause rises in drug use or local crime.”

However, some MSPs remain unconvinced. John Mason, SNP MSP for Glasgow Shettleston, says he has concerns about the supply of drugs and says that this model will build crime into the system. Annie Wells, Conservative MSP for Glasgow said that she fundamentally does not support the creation of safe injection facilities and called for a whole sector led drug strategy review and an open discussion on what the drawbacks of a safe injection facility would be.

https://rcpolitics.org/msps-back-safe-injection-rooms-in-scotland/

You know why prison barges are acceptable to Tories but not drug injection rooms?

The barge will be moored somewhere well away from Con-voting areas with buses into free facilities they don’t use, while the drug injection rooms, at least some of them, will not.

Finally, the barges and ferries, same thing?

Well, one they weren’t ferries. They were cruise ships with onboard facilities including restaurants, children’s play areas with toys and books, shops, a laundry, support services and Wi-Fi access.

The barge will require an hourly bus service to any facilities from what is essentially a prison barge, the modern equivalent of a Victorian ‘hulk.’

There was a shortage of prison accommodation in the Victorian era, so long-term prisoners were transferred to provincial prisons, or to the dreaded hulks. The hulks were decommissioned warships anchored in the mud off Woolwich.

https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item102904.html#:~:text=There%20was%20a%20shortage%20of,few%20prisoners%20managed%20to%20escape.