Professor John Robertson OBA
In the Telegraph today:
Police Scotland axes 12,000 investigations to reduce officer workload
Force uses controversial protocol to drop ‘minor’ offences in a move it describes as a ‘proportionate response to crime’ – But Liam Kerr, the Scottish Tories’ shadow justice secretary, told the Scottish Daily Mail: “We repeatedly warned at the time that this reckless scheme would confirm the SNP’s surrender to criminals. “The public will be appalled that soft-touch SNP justice has resulted in thousands of crimes being written off and offenders let off without any punishment.”
You’d think, back in the day, that an expensive, ‘serious’, ‘quality’ paper would report on the serious crime performance on convictions of Police Scotland.
Here it is.
Homicide:
Rape and other sexual convictions:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
If Police Scotland rather than the MET had investigated some of the VIP Covid contracts that the Tories handed out to their friends/relations then perhaps the Telegraph would be less inclined to distract the public with ridiculously trivial stories about ”crimes ” that pale into insignificance against the grand larceny that took place around Westminster .
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Quite why “Liar” by which Mr Kerr is commonly known to Scots is not paraded by Simon Johnson https://archive.ph/dkofH is difficult to say, but not so difficult to figure out…
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The Daily Torygraph is always a safe place for Tory politicians and also Labour ones too it seems…
Did you read Sir Keir Starmer’s last article in the Daily Torygraph….where he was trying to get his message out to his Tory voters in his UK .
As to Liam Kerr…
In 2016 and 2021 Liam Kerr stood as the Tory candidate in two separate Aberdeen constituencies in the Scottish elections and both times he lost to the SNP.
He did however come second, now his bitterness at always being the (political) Bridesmaid and never the (Political) Bride (List instead of constituency MSP) has driven him to carp at anything and everything SNP connected.
His role as the Tory Justice spokesperson involves him demanding that the Scottish government deliver justice to those that he and his party deem worthy of receiving this.
While his own party at Tory HQ , when they were formerly in power in the UK , they were happy to ride roughshod over anyone trying to get any justice , indeed they, Tory HQ, were more comfortable overseeing injustice being done to the “many” while ensuring that justice for the “Few” was always upheld , within their UK.
There was (and still is) no justice for Scotland within their UK when the Tories were in power as the previous UK government….and very much only injustice for poor people too ….just like Labour now really.
Both of them , Tories & Labour, are ‘Peas in a pod’, politically that is.
Projection is all that the Tories, Labour & also the Lib Dems have as a excuse to shout #SNPBAD.
The Torygraph is one (of many) that allows them to do it !
Liz S
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Talking of Labour, here’s an interesting wee tale of how one new Labour MP has now seemingly had a “change” of heart since becoming a Labour MP.
This is based on my looking at (researching) some of his historical tweets on Twitter that suggested he had some compassion for those on Benefits compared to his ‘changed’ position now , as a Labour MP and government minister, and it is really quite significant as a contrasted position.
New Labour MP, Torsten Bell , also now Parliamentary Secretary for the Treasury and also Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Pensions was interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight on Tuesday.
She managed to get him to admit that “some people will be worse off” .
This was after the UK Labour government (his party) announcing how it’s going to get more Benefit recipients into work”.
At the outset of the programme she explained that there will now be “lower Universal Credit for new claimants, stricter tests for Personal Independent payments, reduced incapacity benefits for under 22 year olds and the government says that will save 5 billion pounds”.
She told him that young people who fall ill in the future will lose support from a huge scaling back of incapacity benefits, so says the Resolution Foundation , which was a Think Tank that Torsten Bell himself was a part of before he became an MP.
The Resolution Foundation stated would then leave them with around £70 a week to live on, so Victoria then said that for ones who can’t receive PIP then that is what they will be living on.
She explained this to Torsten Bell , that with the intended Benefit cuts some young people were going to be living on round about £70 a week , but Torsten insisted the “system” had to “change” .
Which was not his position , on the “system” having to “change” , prior to him becoming a Labour MP, as in when the Tories were previously in power as the UK government he seemed to be against “Change” happening that impacted those on benefits.
She asked him “Could you live on £70 a week”
His response “Absolutely not”
She said so “To buy food , pay bills, £70 quid a week ? You’ve just told me you couldn’t live on that”.
His response “Well No, I have a Mortgage to pay”.
How do you say ‘Poverty is only to be suffered by poor people and not people like me , whose own life is one that is far more privileged and so far more comfortable’, without actually saying those exact words, well try responding just like Torsten Bell.
BTW it was not just what he said as a response to this , but it was how he said it, which was in such an arrogant and dismissive manner. (Think Tory, to then imagine his tone and manner).
Torsten exposed the true face of Keir Starmer’s new Toryfied Labour party, the same one that Anas, Jackie B, Ian Murray and many others within Labour try to obscure from the public, but in private they too are just like Torsten Bell in what they support as bad policies and cruel decisions being made by Labour UK.
Here is Labour MP Torsten Bell’s tweets prior to becoming a new Labour MP in 2024.
He tweeted this on 23 March 2022 when the Tories were in power:
“I really can’t believe this package does next to nothing for those getting hardest hit by rising prices – those who are disabled and not working just got told they are on their own (after losing £1000 income in the Autumn)”
Here’s another Torsten Bell tweet on 29 Sept 2022:
“If we seriously end up cutting benefits to fund tax cuts for the top in the most unequal large country in Europe then we’ve lost the plot”
5 October 2021
“I didn’t think the government would press ahead with the biggest overnight cut to benefits in history. I was wrong”.
Then in response to a video showing Suella Braverman being interviewed by Christopher Hope, where she stated this:
“She said that she was clear in her leadership campaign that she wanted to cut welfare spending, as she thinks we have far too many people in this country fit for work, able to work and should be working. The choose to top up their salaries with tax credits or the Benefits street kind of culture” .
(If you were to close your eyes and listen to this , it would then seem almost as if you were listening to a Labour minister now who was currently also saying this about those who are on Benefits)
So on the 4 October 2022 Torsten Bell linked that video of her saying this to Christopher Hope (Daily Torygraph interview) and he, Torsten bell, tweeted this :
“terrified by how swiftly we’ve gone from “we reluctantly have to cut benefits to pay for our essential tax cuts” to “we actively want to cut benefits to punish the work-shy”.
BTW Torsten Bell , is a new Labour MP from the 2024 UK GE, he was another Labour candidate who was drafted in by Labour HQ as a candidate for an area that he did not live in.
He was the candidate for Swansea West, where his selection as candidate was met with criticism from some local members as he had “no connection” to the area and “no Welsh connection” .
It Seems that no one in that area really cared though, as he won the seat.
Think Michael Shanks MP, in Rutherglen & Hamilton West, as he too was Labour HQ’s choice as a candidate in 2023 for that constituency , which also , as an action, received some opposition and criticism from local members there too.
However it also seemed that no one in that area really cared as well, as he too won the seat.
Perhaps even a Donkey with a red rosette, now with a blue tint, could have also won certain constituency seats , irrespective of the local Labour members objecting.
Just as some other Labour MP’s (36 of them) who also won in Scotland in 2024, as well as Michael Shanks (the 37th one) , have now all proven that they too are right Donkeys as well.
Torsten once said in a tweet in 2022 that he was “terrified” by how “swiftly” the Tory UK government in 2022 went, in order for them to “actively want to cut benefits to punish the work shy”.
So now with his own party doing the exact same, actually doing worse, and he himself going to great lengths in justifying this heinous action, I am now imagining that he, Torsten , must be even “more terrified” maybe even ‘Petrified’ , ‘Horrified’ and ever so ‘fearful’ , at his own party as the new UK government.
But NO he is not, as he is okay with it now , as he has a Mortgage to pay, so someone has to suffer, and as long as it’s not him then that is fine with Torsten , and it seems it is also fine too with many others in the Labour party as well !
But Hey, thinks Torsten, maybe Suella was right.
Torsten Bell said to Victoria Derbyshire in that interview “People who are defending the status quo are defending a system that is writing off millions as too sick to work where many of them want to work”
No , Mr Bell that is not what people are defending.
People are defending those who are vulnerable and so have needs which should be met by a government that cared for their welfare , but who Labour, as the new UK government, are demanding that they must now look for work or they will potentially lose their Benefits, which as an action, is only being done to make savings for this new UK government.
The same government who are determined not to try to find more money, that they insist is needed, in them applying a wealth tax to the rich or indeed making any “change” that will have any impact upon the rich.
An anonymous quote:
“Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor but because we can never satisfy the rich” .
Satisfying the rich seems to be both the Tory party and the Labour party’s only purpose as UK governments, while feeding the poor , not so much.
Vote SNP in 2026 as a first step to making it all stop.
Liz S
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