The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland - a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson

In the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald, today but nowhere in Scotland’s MSM, not even on BBC Scotland’s Highlands & Islands latest news website:

Highland police ‘success’ tackling County Lines drug gangs from Liverpool behind 2023 violence after working with Merseyside cops to tackle the those dealing in the north – In the Strathspey and Badenoch Herald and Inverness Courtier but nowhere in Scotland’s MSM, not even on the BBC Scotland, Highlands and Islands website: Police Scotland’s Highlands and Islands division has expanded the team of “dedicated officers” with the “sole purpose” of tackling County Lines drug gangs – often from the Liverpool area.

County Lines is the now notorious Silk Road of drug trafficking from “major cities such as Birmingham, Derby, Liverpool and London” into rural areas across the UK that has led to misery for many. In his report to councillors Ch Supt Shepherd said: “North Division has also recently expanded its team of dedicated officers with the sole purpose of targeting County Line offenders, working in partnership with Partner agencies and protecting vulnerable persons”.

Those vulnerable people are frequently addicts whose homes are taken over for payment in drugs by those working County Lines routes in a practice known as “Cuckooing”.

https://www.strathspey-herald.co.uk/news/highland-police-success-tackling-county-lines-drug-gangs-f-372737/

Only two weeks ago, the same local newspaper had:

A 29-year-old Huyton man has been jailed for three years and nine months for drugs supply offences in Inverness after he was snared by a joint Police Scotland and Merseyside Police operation. Ryan Finlay pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine and possession of cannabis through what is called a County Line – a way of transporting illegal narcotics from cities to other parts of the UK.

What is the 2023 violence being referred to?

In Highland Region, from 2018 to 2022, as County Lines gangs have spread from English cities, all over Scotland, all forms of crime have almost trebled from 3 731 to 10 186 and crimes of violence from 88 to 326.

https://datamap-scotland.co.uk/scotland-reported-crime-data/highland-council-ward-crime-map/

In the same period, across Scotland and crucially including the larger cities where County lines gangs are not able to dominate local drug gangs, overall crime has fallen slightly and crimes of violence have only increased by 2.2%.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2023-24/documents/

Is this a one-way flow from England into Scotland?

See these extracts from Community Experiences of Serious Organised Crime in Scotland:

• Evidence from drug market research and policing suggests that the most common route for illicit commodities into Scotland is through the open border with England, with major drug supply routes entering the country by road and rail.
• The profitability of the heroin trade has however led to an increase in SOC groups from England penetrating markets in north and rural Scotland. These groups use road, train, and bus routes to create steady supply routes in these areas, effectively ‘bypassing’ the traditional groups in Scotland’s central belt and directly accessing other markets in rural areas. A police officer noted the regularity of the trade, with ‘young people or low-level patsies acting as couriers’.
• ‘There’s an awful lot of folk coming up from [city in north England] and they’ll target a house, they’ll basically just come into the house and, and they’ll take over the house while they’re dealing their drugs and giving that tenant what they need so they can use their house and that… The best explanation that I’ve heard is [in] our area, there’s not a firm, like, family that’s in control of the drugs. So they’re just coming up and taking advantage of that (Police Officer, National Diffuse).’
• They [OCGs in the local area] are linked to a group in the north [of England] … the group have not come up to supplant the indigenous group as there are no turf wars. Rather they co-operate with drug supply, but also collaborate on some other criminal activities… [they] had a guy living in the area. What the group added was increased capacity in terms of supply and sourcing drugs and increased flexibility in terms of moving drugs north (Police Officer, National Diffuse). https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2018/06/community-experiences-serious-organised-crime-scotland/documents/00536071-pdf/00536071-pdf/govscot%3Adocument/00536071.pdf

Why are Scotland’s MSM, especially the national broadcaster, BBC Scotland, not covering such topics?

These stories have all the essential features of a newsworthy story. Most journalists are familiar with the seven ‘news values’ held by news media gatekeepers – impact, timeliness, prominence, proximity, bizarreness, conflict, and currency.

‘English drug gangs terrorising locals’ has them all so there has to be some other powerful factor causing editors to turn away from it. Does it undermine the argument that we are better together in the UK in quite a visceral thus powerful way?