Help Talking-up Scotland keep going
Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going
Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421
Headlining on BBC Scotland‘s inserts to BBC Breakfast every 30 minutes this morning, making it onto the national UK broadcasts, illegal tobacco products and vapes in Inverness.
Inverness isn’t the sort of place where you’d expect organised crime, but the increase in illicit tobacco there demonstrates the long arms of the gangs involved.
Trading Standards and HMRC recently raided a shop there suspected of selling illicit tobacco. It was the 11th time Trading Standards had been at the premises since 2024 and the ninth time they’d found or been sold illicit tobacco.
Despite this, the shop remains open. The officer in charge on the day, who wants to remain anonymous, said: “We’re doing as much as we can, but it’s very disappointing.
and of course:
David MacKenzie, chair of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute and head of Trading Standards at Highland Council, says stopping traders in illicit nicotine could be easier if the Scottish government gave them powers comparable to those available south of the border. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg820ndrgno
Are these newly discovered organised crime gangs? No, it’s the same County Lines drug gangs from large cities in England, diversifying their trade but still, today, BBC Scotland will still not say the words.
Here is who they are:
Help Talking-up Scotland keep going
Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going
Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421
Discover more from Scotland's First and biggest Rebuttal Service -Talking-up Scotland
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You write “Blaming the Scottish Government” and it is again an accusation that is promoted by the BBC .
Though it’s not just on “the plague of English organised crime gangs”.
As Jackie Baillie was interviewed by the BBC radio in Scotland in a softly softly interview that was mostly, as per, an opportunity for her to have yet another public platform to scream #SNPBAD via the BBC in Scotland.
Yet here is what I found online in the ‘Scottish’ Labour manifesto for the 2026 Scottish elections.
30 April 2026 “100 Days of Change”
This was on the ‘Scottish’ Labour website:
“If international instability continues, deliver £100 million of emergency support including help for struggling households, support for businesses, bulk buying fuel to bring down prices at the pumps, and action with supermarkets to keep down the cost of staple items”.
So “action with supermarkets to keep down the cost of staple items” ?
A Labour branch office pre 2026 Scottish election manifesto pledge.
One that we would assume that Jackie Baillie was aware of . (in her role as Deputy leader of the branch office of Labour in Scotland)
Yet now Labour in Scotland’s Jackie Baillie is apparently pretending that the above action point by her party in “100 days of change” did not exist as MSM Monitor posted this today on ‘X’:
“Jackie Baillie was on Radio BritNat Breakfast”
“She was asked three questions”
1. What do you welcome in the FM’s programme for Govt?
2. What’s your view of freezing the cost of essential items?
3. Is Scottish Labour nasty?
“That was it. Baillie gave the usual replies”.
“1. Attacked the SNP. 2. Policy won’t work. 3. No. The interview had no depth”.
“There was no evidence of any research. Lucy Whyte didn’t appear to know that freezing the cost of supermarket staples was a Scottish Labour manifesto pledge”
“There was zero exploration of the Marra v Fagan leadership contest and how Baillie’s party got there”
“No interest in exploring what new powers Scotland might benefit from from Westminster after Burnham’s speech yesterday. It was a token chat”.
Indeed MSM Monitor is correct in that the BBC have form in playing nice when it is any party but the SNP.
However in this instance the BBC presenter was either being (wilfully) neglectful , ignorant or acting as a co-conspirator ( or all three) in her not highlighting that if , as asserted by Ms Baillie, this Scottish government’s supermarket price policy “won’t work” then why did Labour also tout a very similar policy in their Scottish election manifesto in 2026 ?
That is in their “100 days of change” in a part that stated they would implement an “action with supermarkets to keep down the cost of staple items”.
Also did they , Labour in Scotland, first check with supermarkets if this was feasible and so then agreeable to the supermarkets before adding this “action” onto their Labour in Scotland manifesto for the 2026 Scottish elections ?
In this instance we have (yet again) the Devils and their lack of detail , as it’s always the detail that both the BBC and the Labour party always seeks to avoid/ignore , especially when the BBC and Labour can find a way to protect the Labour party and so then also damage the SNP.
I mean “playing politics” is Jackie Baillie’s forte and the BBC allow both her and her Labour colleagues to to do this time and time and time again.
The BBC – that’s their job in Scotland (It is a service that they provide to all opponents of the SNP– where they, the BBC, are also actually very much the opponents of the SNP as well).
Liz S
LikeLiked by 1 person
Talking of Jackie Baillie here’s another example of her “playing politics”
Jackie Baillie posted this on X on 20 August (based on a BBC article that had a headline “John Swinney defends £45,000 business-class flights to World Cup”).
“Such luxury in a cost-of-living crisis is not the lived experience of most Scots. Perhaps the FM should have considered the expectations of taxpayers before spending our money. It’s not the first time the SNP have been cavalier with the company card”.
Meanwhile I am sure that the same Jackie Baillie was not so ‘concerned’ at these stories:
“Sir Keir Starmer spent £60,130 of taxpayer money on a private government jet trip to watch the Lionesses win the Women’s Euros final in 2025”.
And then there was also this :
“Government data showed earlier travel to the men’s Euro 2024 final in Berlin cost more than £41,000 in flights alone” (also there was Lisa Nandy, the UK culture Secretary and Prince William aka the Prince of Wales, as they too both only favour England so then they too only support their own national side, which is England).
So Sir Keir Starmer used the official government plane to go off on this jolly to support both the English Men’s and the English women’s national football teams , as in the only ones that he , as the former UK PM, always only wanted to support and so then only did support , that is the Lions and the Lionesses.
You only to had to read Starmer’s too many posts on ‘X’ that were both encouraging and also congratulating only the Men and Women’s English football teams to know where Starmer’s true allegiance was, that is as far as UK national football teams were concerned.
Indeed Scotland’s men’s national football team never got any encouragement by the so called UK PM, Keir Starmer , during their time in the 2026 World cup tournament, not even a post by him on ‘X’ commiserating with them when they were sadly eliminated from the competition.
However he, Starmer, did state was that he would “very much encourage Scotland fans to get behind and support England in their World Cup semi-final clash against Argentina”.
So now back to the hypocrisy of the BBC and Jackie Baillie re the FM going to see Scotland in the 2026 World cup , where The National newspaper had a front page headline that highlighted this double standard by the BBC , their front page headline stated this:
“BBC quizzed over lack of reporting into ex PM’s Euro trip”.
So according to Dame Jackie Baillie the FM of Scotland has no right to support Scotland in a major football tournament if tax payers money is used , as apparently what ? –
He, the FM of Scotland, should use his own money to support the country that he is FM of in him travelling to any sporting world tournament that Scotland are competing in ?
BTW didn’t Andy Burnham use the government plane when he flew from London to Glasgow for the opening of the Commonwealth games in Glasgow , I will concede that was in his role as the UK PM.
However Burnham also used it to then fly from Glasgow to Manchester – at the taxpayer’s expense .
It was estimated that “Andy Burnham’s 38-minute private jet flight from Glasgow to Manchester cost taxpayers around £3,000” – also what about the environmental impact ?
This particular visit from Glasgow to Manchester was reported to be his first ‘official’ day at No 10 in the North, so then nothing so urgent that needed such an expense for the tax payers ?
However it seems there is always less condemnation via Dame Jackie Baillie whenever any Labour UK PM uses tax payers money for their convenience, as it is then a case of costs and environment be damned.
Where it is always assumed that the position of UK PM then ‘allows’ or rather ‘expects’ the use of tax payers money to be spent to enable and so then support what they as UK PM’s want to do?
More hypocrisy and double standards in what is clearly an unequal UK State.
(Unequal for all nations outwith England, with the main exception always being the leading political role within England that is the UK PM ).
Liz S
LikeLiked by 1 person
bar bbc Scotland from Scotland they never ever reported anything positive about Scotland so what’s the point of them having a licence to report anything at all from Scotland.
LikeLike