Labour Baroness MSP blames SNP for drug deaths as gangs run children to drug houses in Scotland’s century-long Labour-run-down seaside towns like some she knows well, from places such as ‘Blackpool and Rhyl’

Baroness Clark of…..Saltcoats?
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Sometimes, not often I admit, you have to admire the openness of tabloids like the Sun. Yesterday, they told us

CRIMINAL gangs are exploiting kids as young as NINE to use as drug mules across Britain’s rail network. The youngsters are recruited — and often kept there by threats — as part of “county lines” ­operations, where drugs are transported from major cities to supply dealers in smaller towns across the country.

It was no surprise then to read:

The dossier also exposes the extent to which drug gangs have a grip on society, with 6,500 county lines operating across England, Scotland and Wales in that same year. Teens are being caught with zombie knives, swords and other weapons, often hidden down their trousers, as they run the gauntlet of police while carrying drug packages on trains across the UK.

but this did surprise me and made me think, of….Katy Clark, above :

The gangs involved all want these kids. They lure them in by giving them a sense of belonging to something, especially if they have a fractured family life. It breaks my heart when I see these youngsters who are just looking to belong and nobody else is giving them that.”

He added that run-down seaside towns, crippled by geographic isolation, poor transport links and the downturn of British tourism, are the worst-hit areas — with gangs running children to drug houses in Scotland from places such as Blackpool and Rhyl.

Rhyl, really? Blackpool? Without checking, I feel sure, Labour MPs, Labour councils for at least a century. Katy Clark’s North Ayrshire? Labour for living memory. Might they, with Labour in UK Government several times, have responsibility for places where the despairing turn to drugs?

Katy Clark, Labour Baroness and MSP, Ardossan and Saltcoats Herald, in February this year:

WEST Scotland Labour MSP Katy Clark has laid the blame for Ayrshire’s spiralling drug problem at the feet of the SNP government. She said: “For nearly two decades, the SNP has presided over a drugs epidemic that has wrecked lives. It’s now clear that it’s completely out of control.

“There has been a complete absence of leadership from John Swinney’s party in seeking to tackle this crisis. On the SNP’s watch deaths, overdoses and addiction rates in Ayrshire and elsewhere have surged.

Makes you wonder what the SNP could have done. I know fund and support the local health boards efforts to treat addicts?

What like this from not-so-SNP-friendly Audit Scotland?

Source: https://audit.scot/publications/the-202425-audit-of-nhs-ayrshire-and-arran

NHS Ayrshire and Arran treating 98% of drug and alcohol abusers within 3 weeks, above the national average of 93%.

As for the increase in drug use? Is it really the SNP to blame?

Or gangs from Rhyl and Blackpool?

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6 thoughts on “Labour Baroness MSP blames SNP for drug deaths as gangs run children to drug houses in Scotland’s century-long Labour-run-down seaside towns like some she knows well, from places such as ‘Blackpool and Rhyl’”

  2. “WEST Scotland Labour MSP Katy Clark has laid the blame for Ayrshire’s spiralling drug problem at the feet of the SNP government“.

    Of course she did, that’s Labour party policy.

    #SNPBAD……..on everything.

    Go for the jugular but then leaving yourself wide open to be outed as pig ignorant and hugely partisan , when it becomes clear that your main focus and your dirty tactics is just to play politics all to try to gain a political advantage.

    (The fine) details for Labour are inconsequential , such as any and indeed all of the efforts being made by the SNP to try to decrease drug deaths.

    “NHS Ayrshire and Arran treating 98% of drug and alcohol abusers within 3 weeks, above the national average of 93%“

    Labour, especially a Labour Baroness like Katy Clark, says , so what and so ignore that.

    Also county line gangs involvement in Scotland ?

    Well that is not something that the Labour party want to highlight as happening within Scotland that has both a huge effect and also a real impact upon the drug deaths happening here , as instead Labour only want the public to somehow believe that everything connected to drug deaths in Scotland is only 100% down to #SNPBAD.

    There is another Labour MSP Daniel Johnson also trying a similar tactic as Kate but upon a different subject, His, Daniel’s, mistake is that he has chosen to shout #SNPBAD in regards to Council Tax on behalf of an area in Edinburgh that is more affluent , and that has houses that are valued far more than some other areas within Edinburgh and also valued higher than in some poorer places within Scotland.

    Alas for Daniel this has hugely backfired and exposed him and his party as both foolish and pathetic…..but also worse still it has shown Labour (and Daniel) as being on the side of the wealthy home owners within Edinburgh.

    So bad was Daniel’s intervention that even Paul Hutcheon from The Daily Record posted this about him:

    “A “Labour” politician complaining about a council tax revaluation of the most expensive houses in Edinburgh. Dismal”.

    What did Daniel say that irked Paul.

    Well he did a video and also a post online.

    His post stated this “The SNP are plotting a brutal tax raid on Edinburgh. This tax would disproportionately affect our city with no guarantee that the money would be spent locally. They call this a ‘mansion tax’ but here in Edinburgh, it will have the biggest impact on family homes. Let’s reject the SNPs Edinburgh tax and let’s reject a third decade of SNP incompetence on 7th May”

    The video was him on camera , where he said this:

    “Council tax is a notoriously unfair tax. It was introduced in a rush, and your house is taxed on the basis of a valuation done back in 1991. But what the SNP are now proposing to do is just as unfair. They want to revalue every house that’s rated in band G or H and tax it more. That’s going ton have a disproportionate impact on houses here in Edinburgh. Now South Edinburgh is a great place to live. And yes houses are nice, but the SNP are calling this a Mansion Tax. But we’re talking about Bungalows , three or maybe four bedroom houses, terraced houses , nice houses, but not mansions. And what this will be is a tax , an extra tax on those sorts of houses that is then taken in centrally and spent in other parts of Scotland, not here in Edinburgh. So yes, we have to reform council tax. We have to change it. But you don’t make an unfair tax fair by making it more unfair for some people. So I say we have to reject this , this tax raid on Edinburgh and come up with something better, because once upon a time the SNP used to argue for replacing Council tax. So let’s say no to the tax on Edinburgh and let’s say no to a third decade of the SNP in charge of Scotland”.

    (Problem is though this is not a tax on the whole of Edinburgh Daniel, but as Paul Hutcheon says , this is a tax increase on the “most expensive houses in Edinburgh” ).

    Also the former Labour MSP Neil Findlay posted this in response to Daniel’s post and video:

    “Could someone inform this guy that it is called redistribution – something the Labour Party used to believe in” ?

    Indeed Neil, but then Labour have now moved way way over to the right in politics in them defending the wealthy while demonising and targeting the poor, so Daniel is simply adhering to Labour’s new direction, their change of party policy, and their party reset , all post Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of them in the past, a new party policy which has now apparently changed to being “For the Few not the Many”.

    Liz S

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    1. Thanks Liz.
      Ah yes the rich folk of Scotland and Edinburgh especially are apoplectic that they are to pay a tiny bit more tax on their massively expensive hooses most people could only dream of. Edinburgh is full of houses that are worth millions, and mostly take up more land they have huge gardens, in fact many in places like the new town have really huge ‘private’ gated gardens that only the rich can access by paying a yearly fee. Now why is that land available only for their private use anyway? Who really owns it and how did they get it?

      The Labour/Tory coalition incompetent griftiers running the council, don’t give a damn about housing the poorer folk, they should be forced to use the extra funds from the SNP gov for housing etc, Instead, it’s roadworks galore, barriers galore with roads and pavements blocked, it must be costing an absolute fortune for the city, and mostly, far as we can see is mostly not essential if needed at all. However try crossing the road and you’re likely to trip over a huge pothole, it’s a total mess, anyone would think this was a third world poor as heck country.

      LabCons are wrecking the capital city, and it’s not because they don’t have the funds either. It’s reflects badly on the city and Scotland, and of course they hope, can be seen as SNP being to blame.

      Why would a council run by political parties headquartered next country, want to look after the cities that they control, or rather in coalition have taken control of…imagine councils being controlled by the SNP in England, folks wouldn’t like it at all…even though it would actually be to their advantage in fact.

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      1. Indeed ArtyHetty.

        I live in Edinburgh so I know exactly where all of the big hooses are.

        I think if you , as a Labour politician, start to be criticised in this kind of way by Paul Hutcheon from The Daily Record, then you should perhaps check out your own personal Labour red rosette to see if it has turned Tory blue.

        Red Tories indeed….or at least that seems to be the message that Daniel J , Labour MSP, wishes to convey to us the voters in Scotland.

        Liz S

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  3. Baroness Katy Clark , Dame Jackie Baillie …. Labour apparatchiks , ‘honoured’ by the UK state . For what ?

    Services to Scotland ? LoL !

    Services to the UK ? Goes without saying !

    Services to The Labour Party ( of whatever hue ) ? Three bags full , sir !

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  4. As well as this site, TUS, being a good source for rebuttals against Labour lies (as well as a rebuttal on all of the other lies via other political and individual parties and their media).

    Check out blue sky account ‘Meidas Scotland’ they posted this online today:

    “On 8 March 2026, a major fire gutted a B-listed Victorian building on Glasgow’s Union Street near Central Station”

    “English Labour’s Branch Manager Anas Sarwar claimed at First Minister’s Questions that SNP cuts …had left the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) under-equipped, stating both of Glasgow’s high-reach appliances (HRAs) were unavailable due to inspection and that one had to be called from Edinburgh”.

    “He alleged this showed negligence and demanded …an immediate investigation into any impact on response times.”

    “SFRS Assistant Chief Officer David Farries (Director of Operational Delivery) strongly refuted the claims as “inaccurate and alarmist”.

    “He confirmed the local HRAs were unavailable but clarified the nearest appliance …… arrived on scene within 19 minutes (not required for external operations until nearly two hours later)”

    “Significant resources — including three HRAs and 15 other appliances from across Scotland — were committed immediately”.

    “The fire was brought under control safely with no injuries, protecting firefighters and the public. Farries insisted “we did not [lack] the necessary resource” and praised the “exemplary” response”.

    Indeed, but that is always Labour’s way.

    Insensitive, inappropriate timing and so then failing to wait until either an official Inquiry or a full investigation has determined the exact cause and so then who is to blame, if anyone, as instead Labour’s automatic and instinctive (bad) reaction is to always just blame the SNP.

    While we hear Anas Sarwar constantly accusing the SNP of “always blaming others” while he himself and his party do the exact same thing time and time again.

    Labour HQ (and Sarwar) blame the Tories for leaving a financial shortfall.

    Sarwar blames the SNP constantly for everything and anything , as do many other members of his branch office also do that as well .

    I mean how bloody lonely must it be for Labour in Scotland as they stand aloft on their self appointed higher moral ground.

    A Labour party who constantly critique the SNP as being those who Labour declare as being supposedly (but not) hugely deficient in transparency, leadership, morality, decency, competency and also supposedly (but not) in the SNP never accepting accountability and responsibility .

    Then we even heard that certain Labour HQ Cabinet members also referred to the SNP as being a “National security threat”, something that David Lammy (Deputy PM of the UK) stated was justified and defended as an accusation.

    Of course the SNP are also labelled as “divisive” and as “Separatists” while apparently Labour HQ’s support for Brexit and also for their cruel and harsh new changes to the UK Immigration policy makes them what

    Inclusive and diverse ?

    I think not.

    Labour really need to look in a Mirror, then reflect upon how most of the things that they accuse the SNP of doing and being , are actually the very things that we, as voters, have identified as being connected to and with the Labour party.

    Labour finally widely exposed (as Charlatans) throughout the whole UK since winning the 2024 UK GE, prior to then they were content to just keep on carping from the side-lines, safe in the assumed knowledge that they would not be politically attacked or challenged (even in Wales where Labour were and still are the devolved government)………..

    Now that they , Labour HQ, have proven that they are totally incapable of governing the UK ( to duplicate how bad they have governed within Wales for many years).

    Then one has to ask why the H would Labour here in Scotland , or indeed Labour at HQ , ever think that we, the voters in Scotland , would ever, ever, ever trust them again……..that is in us , as a majority of voters, being overly eager , so very impatient for and so then determined to now want to elect the Labour branch office to govern us as our next Scottish government ??????

    All of the hype from the BBC does little to convince us to vote for the Labour party in Scotland in May’s elections, or rather they , the BBC, are unable to keep conning all of us as voters here in Scotland , that somehow , we are all to believe that Labour would ever be far better as a Scottish government than the SNP have been, and still would be, if we elected them, the SNP, again in May to govern us.

    The computer says NO on us having a Labour Scottish government after May’s elections ………..as hopefully the people who live here in Scotland also will say too….Ha Ha

    Liz S

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