Thus every kind their pleasure find
The savage and the tender
Some social join and leagues combine
Some solitary wander
Avaunt away! the cruel sway
Tyrannic man’s dominion
The sportsman’s joy, the murdering cry
The fluttering gory pinionNow Westlin’ Wins by Robert Burns, 1786
Robert Burns, 200 years ago, a farmer unavoidably pragmatic about his animals you have to assume, seems to have had no time for the unequal mass slaughter of birds by the gentry not doubt trampling his fields to get at their tiny prey.
Sadly, today, they’re still at it and indignant should we try to make them at least pay for their sickly tastes.
Only being reported in farming and hunting sources, yesterday and in the Countryside Alliance website, this:
Holyrood has been criticised by rural groups for unfairly stripping shoots and deer forests of rates relief. Shoots and deer forests with low enough rateable values (£20,000 or less) were eligible for the Small Business Bonus Scheme, providing relief for business rates bills, but the Scottish Government this week (13 January) made an unexpected announcement that this would no longer be the case, and that they are set to lose eligibility for the scheme as of April 1 2026.
The announcement, made as part of the 2026 Scottish Budget, came unexpectedly, and seemingly without either explanation or any form of consultation with rural groups and affected parties.
From April 1, affected businesses will be eligible for a transitional relief that will phase the loss of the benefit over three years, but it comes as little consolation to business owners who will see bills rise. Rate payers will pay 25% of the increase to their net bill in 2026/27, 50% in 2027/28 and 75% in 2028/29.
See that ‘rural’ groups? Have all the villagers had a say? Why is the MSM not reporting this SNP initiative in the run-up to the May Scottish election?
It’s popular. 60% of Scots explicitly oppose grouse shooting and only 13% support it.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23914731.majority-scots-grouse-moor-land-management/
Talking-up Scotland 
One of my favourite Burns songs, particularly Dick Gaughan’s rendition.
As for subsidies to landowners, if the general public knew how many millions are handed over every year there would be a revolution. It’s what the House of Lords is for. This largesse hasn’t changed since Norman times.
Largesse = Norman for thievery.
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Aww that brings on the tears…Dick Gaughan sings it on one of his albums..amazing, I didn’t know it was Burns poem.
I see there has been demos outside of Holyrood, and a petition to stop the ‘Guga cull’, one of the biggest to be sent to the Scottish parliament. The thing is, it’s an English guy who is really good in opposing fox hunting etc, however, the Guga cull (culling baby Gannets?)
much as it is VERY cruel and should be stopped, has been high profile as it should, and had an email about it the other day delighting that the BBC has covered the story, it was of course another SNP bad story. Has the BBC covered the Grouse shooting story? I have not heard anything about it via the anti Fox hunting, anti Guga cull activists either.
The rates relief for killing Grouse is a disgrace, and three years transitional funding, I just despair.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g3l1qn3pwo
Court throws out £50m claim over failed bottle return scheme
Maybe Diffa should sue the Torries and Jack
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Not touching a story you say .
However also minimising the significance of a story too.
Remember Sandie Peggie.
Post her tribunal outcome every front page headline in the newspapers within Scotland (and also in some English editions too) had her image on them,
As too did the BBC website , who had not just one article but two articles for a prolonged , as in an extended , period that was indeed well past the Tribunal’s outcome on her case.
Darlington Nurses Tribunal outcome ?
Well today it is only The English edition of The Daily Mail that has that story on their front page as all other newspapers in the English editions do not mention it on their front pages ?
The BBC article on the Darlington Nurses Tribunal is on the BBC UK main page and it was only added yesterday, 16 January, but already it is now the 12th story on that page.
The headline is:
“Hospital violated trans complaint nurses’ dignity, tribunal rules”
However it appears that in significance it is apparently not as significant a story as the Sandie Peggie story……..which BTW at the time was also on the BBC’s UK main page as a significant story.
Interestingly there is absolutely no story on the Darlington Nurses Tribunal outcome on the BBC’s English (UK) politics page but there was an article on the Scottish Politics page for Sandie Peggie‘s Tribunal outcome.
Same story but yet again in Scotland it is politicised and sensationalised while in England the Darlington Nurses case is largely ignored or downgraded as a minor story of little interest.
Amazingly on the BBC website in the English main page there is also no mention of the Darlington Nurses Tribunal outcome today. Was it on that page yesterday and now it has disappeared ?
It is on the BBC website on the English local news page for Tees and it is now the 4th article on that page ………..local news for local people so not significant national news for the whole Nation of England.
This is just yet another example of how unfairly Scotland is always treated by the media , both MSM and rogue elements.
If the Sandie Peggie case was so significant in Scotland (and the UK) as a story, then surely the Darlington Nurses story should also have been seen as being just as significant , both within England and also the rest of the UK.
BTW JK Rowling’s Twitter account has , as yet, not commented on the Darington Nurses Tribunal outcome yesterday, that’s a bit surprising considering she wrote what was one of four tweets upon the Sandie Peggie Tribunal outcome , with the first tweet being this
“This is plain disturbing. Judge Alexander Kemp, who presided over the Sandie Peggie tribunal, ‘has been urged… to withdraw his findings and consider his position after it emerged that his ruling was “riddled” with errors and inaccuracies”.
Oh aye this is all about women and not also about anything else.
Sure it is.
Surely for some there is also an ulterior motive and also an agenda, when so much is sensationalised about Sandie Peggie yet the Darlington Nurses sees a somewhat muted response from the usual suspects.
All part of the corrupt and politically compromised media that we have to endure within Scotland, where they are all , as a media, aided by some of the usual suspects constantly backing them up in them determining what is to be seen as important and what is less so. (in their biased opinion).
Liz S
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