I have an alert for ‘County Lines’ and every day I see reports from BBC UK, BBC England and from BBC regions across the country – BBC Devon (today), BBC Cumbria (last week).
I never, ever, see anything from BBC Scotland despite regular reports in the ‘Scottish’ tabloids and on regional news media websites.
In October 2019, pushing 5 years ago, BBC Scotland’s Connor Gillies reported under the explicit headline ‘County lines’: Aberdeenshire, Perthshire and Highlands targeted by drugs gangs, this:
Rural communities in the Highlands, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire are being targeted by gangs using school children to sell class A drugs.
Dealers based mainly in London and Merseyside use youngsters to move heroin and crack cocaine from major cities to smaller locations.
Police Scotland say there are more than 20 active routes north of the border known as “county lines”.
Children? That’ll be a story that will run and run? Later exposures of extreme violence, XL Bully dogs, people trafficking and sexual abuse in the homes of ‘cuckooed’ vulnerable locals; turned ‘County Lines’ gangs into headline stuff everywhere.
Police Scotland estimate around 50 to 60 locations including the Ayrshire village of Auchinleck where locals drove the Bradford-based gang out of town in November 2023 but BBC Scotland failed to mention the gang and portrayed it simply as a riot by unruly locals.
The National Crime Agency first identified ‘County Lines’ gangs in 2015, 9 years ago, and everywhere across the BBC other than in Scotland, this has become a major theme for reporting and for TV drama.
BBC Scotland did, once, in May 2021, have on their website, ‘Drugs seized in crackdown on county lines gangs’ and referring to Dingwall of all places, but did not identify the English cities where the gangs were based.
Then more than three years of silence.
Given the enormous, disturbing and newsworthy nature of this plague, BBC Scotland’s aversion to reporting on it can only be deliberate policy at editorial level and above.
Bias by omission of the most clear form.
Connor Gillies moved to Sky TV in 2022.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
bbc ARE NOW COMPLETELY CORRUPT AND SHOULD BE CLOSED DOWN
NOT REPRESENTING “ANY” SCOTS CITIZENS
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Now , if County Lines Gangs were working FROM Scotland into England , then that SNpeee would be feeling the full force of the anger of BBCScorchedland !
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O/T albeit on the theme of ‘selective’ reporting by BBC Scotland.
The BBC News website has this headline on its Scotland and Scotland Politics pages: ‘Labour rules out GB Energy HQ announcement in King’s Speech’. We get insights into Labour’s current plans or absence of plans – from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden. He shares a few things with us via the BBC article and it’s notable which one BBC Scotland chooses to amplify in a headline!
We’re told that further details about GB Energy, including the location of its HQ would be confirmed in “due course”. The BBC journalist gives us this: ‘Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has pledged the firm will drive the transition to clean energy bring a “huge number” of skilled jobs to Scotland’ but then later tells us that:
‘In 2022, Labour said GB Energy would be a “publicly-owned clean energy generation company”, which would operate like Sweden’s Vattenfall or Denmark’s Orsted. But in subsequent interviews, Sir Keir it would actually be “an investment vehicle” rather than an energy production firm ‘Unions have called for more clarity about the plans.’
Firstly, the BBC must surely know that more than just ‘unions’ have called for clarity! Even at the most basic level, how many people within the incorporated entity, will GB Energy actually employ? How many of the jobs (net additional jobs) in Scotland that MAY over time be attributable to greater of lesser extent to the activities and outputs of GB Energy – i.e. employment outside GB Energy – will actually be dependent on where the company is headquartered as district where energy can be generated, where an expert workforce is located, where relevant supply chain companies are located?
The Labour minister’s remarks on the issue of the ‘two-child benefit cap’ are also reported:
‘Another issue that is not expected to be addressed in the King’s Speech is the two-child benefit cap. The cap, introduced as part of austerity measures under the Conservative government in 2017, prevents parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third child, with a few exemptions.
‘The Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland said that abolishing the cap, which it estimated would cost £1.3bn, would lift 250,000 children in the UK out of poverty, including up to 15,000 in Scotland.’
The we get a big reveal: ‘Asked repeatedly if he agreed that the cap caused harm, Mr McFadden said it was “open to debate”.’
Now obviously BBC Scotland could not publish a headline that amplifies that last remark, could it? Mr McFadden is implying here that it’s NOT about affordability for Labour but about doubting the harms that so many have identified?
This is SURELY a significant insight. For BBC Scotland, better by far to focus on the location of a ‘bauble’ for Scotland!
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one has to ask if the BBC do not report it who told them not to report and what are they protecting.
Are darker forces pushing drugs to Scotland being protected to create the drug crisis. Dies anyone at police scotland know about this are they part of it
The chief constable is english and a good number are ulster prods. All good unionists and one is part if the security services.
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ALWAYS WERE ITS THEIR ‘BREEDING GROUND’
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