The Talking-up Scotland (Collective) – how to cope within it

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I’ve been really please to see the recent upsurge here of extensive and well-written comments under my often quite short posts.

There is a danger that these get less attention than they deserve due to the fact that only a few hundred of the thousands following and sharing TuS across X, FB and BlueSky actually come to the full post in the blog.

So, I do not hesitate to repost them and have renamed the blog accordingly.

However, there’s only me here and for that reason, I see no alternative to a dictatorial form of editing where I just decide which to repost and how to title and image them.

Inevitably some will wonder why I did not repost a comment they made, why I chose that title and why I chose that image. If you are unhappy with any of the preceding do not hesitate to email me at talkingupreminders@gmail.com and I will respond as soon as I can. As I age, my ego shrinks. I will not take offence.

OK?

Best wishes

John to you, Professor John Robertson OBA, to my and our enemies.

8 thoughts on “The Talking-up Scotland (Collective) – how to cope within it”

  2. John,being quite a bit older than you and I don’t do X, FB and BlueSky this is my first place to go and good to read all posts but maybe will try out these other places.

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  3. BBC Scotland and BBC2 are broadcasting a two part documentary on Michelle Mone that was made by Rogan Scotland production.

    The first part is on Monday 26 May and the second part is on Wednesday 28 May.

    These programmes are being shown on two separate channels , the 1st on Channel Scotland (channel 9) and the second is being broadcast on BBC2.

    The programme is called “The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone”.

    Looking at the online written preview of this programme on the BBC’s Media Centre it states:

    “This two-part documentary series tells the extraordinary story of Baroness Mone of Mayfair, the millionaire lingerie entrepreneur, who’s now embroiled in a PPE scandal which broke in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic”.

    “Embroiled” –  deeply involved in a problematic or difficult situation, often a conflict or dispute.

    To be embroiled is to be caught up in something negative or troublesome, but based on what we know so far and also what initially was denied by Ms Mone and then subsequently admitted by her , then is “embroiled” the best word to explain/describe her involvement in this situation , in what is a very much Tory party PPE scandal that she was implicated in due to her direct involvement in it with her instigating this contract being awarded to PPE Medpro ( set up as a company on the 12 May 2020 and who were then awarded their first Tory government PPE contract a month later that was worth £81 million).

    This two part documentary , where the initial part will cover her early life and her ascendency in the business world and then the second part will cover her elevation to the HOL, and also this online written preview in the BBC Media Centre page states it is to cover “her links to a business which was awarded a PPE contract through the so-called ‘VIP fast lane’ during the pandemic”

    “So-called” ?

    No , it was not just “so- called” it was actually known to be a Tory VIP Fast lane for PPE Contracts, where it was not only Mone who benefitted from this but many other Tory family members, friends of Tory politicians and also donors to Tory politicians who also all benefitted from this Tory scheme aka Tory scandal.

    However Ms Mone is on record as stating that she is to be made the “scapegoat” for this while other Tories, some who were government ministers , seem to be getting ignored or let off in this very much Tory scandal. (though let us see what the final outcome of the Police investigation establishes on this as to who is culpable and/or involved in this Tory scandal).

    One does wonder if the second part of this documentary will focus very long on the Tory party’s involvement in this, after all there would be no story on this had they, the Tories, not generated this PPE “VIP fast lane” system in them awarding contracts to those who were either politically involved with the Tory party or who were in some way linked to a Tory politician.

    I am not in any way making an excuse for Ms Mone as clearly , based on interviews she had previously given she initially misled people as to her connection with the company PPE Medpro.

    PPE Medpro , who as a company, were awarded £200 million in Tory government contracts and these PPE Tory government contracts were based on Mone being the “source of referral”.

    So years later she , Mone, then retracted her initial denial of being linked to this company as she admitted that she had lied about that very pertinent fact.

    She, Mone, also did not declare PPE Medpro in the House of Lords register of financial interests as “she had previously stated through her lawyers that she did not benefit financially and was not connected to PPE Medpro in any capacity”.

    However “The Guardian newspaper reported that an Isle of Man trust, of which Mone and her adult children are beneficiaries, had received £29 million originating from PPE Medpro via a series of offshore transactions involving her husband Barrowman”.

    The fact that she and her husband were understood to have gained millions from these Tory contracts to PPE Medpro is also something that sticks in the craw for many of us. Also the fact that there was no due diligence done by the Tory government in awarding these contracts, via Tory referrals, to companies like PPE Medpro based simply on connections to members of the Tory party also sticks in the craw.

    However what really sticks in the craw is that so far no other Tory politician is being implicated in this VIP lane PPE contract fiasco and scandal and they should be IMO, as when one looks at who was given these PPE contracts and how they were linked to the Tory party, then surely that should be the basis of this as the real scandal in this PPE matter.

    So to all of those who were so quick to make snide and derogatory remarks on what was promoted as being the “SNP police investigation” , where the over the top use of “blue tents” were used by the Police outside Ms Sturgeon’s home and so were shown in various TV news broadcasts and on front pages of newspapers around the UK , all to try and convey that this was extremely serious and not just bad but #SNPBAD as a ‘political’ matter.

    Well I say ‘Nuts to you all’, as it, as a matter, pales into insignificance compared to what was blatant cronyism by the Tories in their VIP fast lane PPE ‘schemes’ of awarding contracts to those connected to Tories and where millions was spent on these contracts , then where much of the PPE, via these contracts, were then established as being unusable and so they had to be destroyed.

    Also let us not forget another Tory peer , Dido Harding, who was in charge of what was regarded to be a failed NHS Test and Trace system in England where it was said the budget that the budget that was set aside for it was approx £37 billion.

    One of the criticisms of that English Test and Trace system was an “over-use of consultants” where part of the critique was in a observation that it had to “wean itself off its persistent reliance on consultants” which were costing an average of £1,100 a day each and some of whom had been paid more than £6,600 a day“.

    “The complexity of the system was also laid bare with news that it had involved more than 400 contracts being signed with 217 different suppliers. Some 70% of the value of those contracts were directly awarded rather than being put out to tender“.

    Of course the real irony in this is that it was not an actual NHS system but it was actually a system that was ran by a private company called Serco, whose chief executive from 2014 to 2023 was Rupert Soames , who is the brother of Nicholas Soames , once a Tory MP and now a Tory Baron.

    “On 21 September 2020 , a paper submitted to and endorsed by Sage, described the English test, trace and isolate system as “having a marginal impact on transmission at the moment”, owing to relatively low levels of engagement with the system, testing delays and likely poor rates of adherence with self-isolation”.

    It was also reported in May 2021 that “Failures in England’s Test and Trace system are partly responsible for a surge in the Indian variant in one of the worst affected parts of the country, a report as seen by the BBC “.

    Ultimately the consensus was that the English Test and Trace system swallowed up “unimaginable amounts of tax payers money” with “no measurable evidence to the progress of the pandemic” .

    #Failed-And-Flawed-And-Very-Expensive-Tory-Scheme-Via-A-Private-Company

    However the media are consumed with only concerned in trying to bring down the SNP as a party, while with any scandals that are linked to other political parties they only seek a ‘scapegoat’, aka a sacrificial lamb (who is also culpable but not only culpable) , as opposed to the media identifying and so highlighting the involvement of many others in this scandal that are also connected to that other political ‘party’.

    #No-Blue-Tents-For-The-Tory-Part-yPPE-Scandal

    Vote SNP via a majority in 2026 or allow the British establishment to ignore the (many) scandals linked to other parties, like the Tory party, that extends to more than just one individual within the party, while simultanously they focus upon and only target the SNP , as a whole party, all to try to stop Scottish independence.

    Liz S

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    1. *where it was said the budget that the budget that was set aside for it was approx £37 billion.

      ‘where it was said that the budget that was set aside for it was approx £37 billion’.

      Also

      *However the media are consumed with only concerned in trying to bring down the SNP as a party

      ‘However the media are consumed with and also only concerned in trying to bring down the SNP as a party’

      Sorry long comment again and so I missed my mistakes again, written in a rush and I am not a bleedin writer by any stretch of the imagination so ‘Gie’s a break (poor excuse again Ha Ha).

      Liz S

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