Mohammed Ameen Mirza, 58, filed bogus declarations for his store in Glasgow’s Gorbals and another in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, in April 2014. There was a £4 million difference in sales, which meant he did not pay £725,000 of VAT. Mirza, an influential businessman, has been photographed in the past alongside Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, and Mohammad Sarwar, the ex-Labour MP…and his son!. Jack McConnell with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Prestwick Airport in 2005  But worst of all this: Anus, sorry Anas! You are my special boy in Scotland. Continue reading The company Scottish Labour leaders keep

So, that’s around 3 000 incidents, many merely verbal, in each year? There are 173 sites with patients and staff in NHS Scotland. There are nearly 182 000 staff in NHS Scotland. So 1 in 60 may witness an assault in any one year? There are nearly 600 000 patients admitted to Scottish hospitals on any one year. So, 1 in 200 may have been ‘assaulted in any one year?’ Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hospitals_in_Scotland chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://turasdata.nes.nhs.scot/media/j0vdmiul/workforce-report-june-2022-formatted.pdf https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual-annual-year-ending-31-march-2022/ Continue reading 1 in 200 assaulted in Scottish wards

From Scotland’s Chief Statistician on 1 August 2023, published statistics on Police Officer Quarterly Strength, which gives the number of full-time equivalent police officers employed by Police Scotland: The key findings of the statistics are: there were 16,600 full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers in Scotland on 30 June 2023 police officer numbers decreased by 15 FTE officers (-0.1%) in the last quarter from 31 March 2023 police officer numbers decreased by 11 FTE officers (-0.1%) in the last year from 30 June 2022 this is an increase of 366 FTE police officers (+2.3%) from the 16,234 FTE police officers recorded … Continue reading SNP ensures hundreds more police officers than under Labour even as crime plummets

Alasdair Galloway Interesting article on the BBC website by Nick McPheat – “Why a non-Old Firm title win is now a near impossible task” https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66359978). It is very difficult to disagree with the conclusion particularly as the manager of the last non-OF club to be Scottish Champions was Sir Alex Ferguson. There are though, one or two things McPheat has not considered, but more than anything I have problems with his tendency to be accepting passively of the factors that lie behind this annual procession. Then again, it is the BBC! Why? Well football is an unusual service product. There … Continue reading Why a non-Old Firm title win is now a near impossible task

In the Herald today: £70 million over nearly 10 years is a fortune? In the year ending 31 December 2021, the Electoral Commission reported these income data: Conservatives – £31 744 000 Labour £45 564 000 Lib Dems £5 733 339 SNP £4 510 460 https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/media-centre/uk-political-parties-accounts-published-0 Note how small the SNP ‘fortune’ really is and how the ‘clever money’ from those keen to avoid paying their taxes is flowing toward Labour. The SNP revenue comes from its mass support. That’s democratic. The others get their money from private investors who expect something, including private health corporations. Continue reading Tom Gordon’s desperate attempt to hide the democratic dignity of the SNP’s modest finances

By cuckooshoe The UK “Inbound visitor statistics for Q4 2022” published in May 2023 [above] show how well Scotland does compared to the other nations and regions of the UK and [below] increases: Scotland set new Q4 records for both visits and spend in Q4 2022. There were 850,000 visits between October – December 2022 spending a total of £680 million (up 1% and 19% respectively on the same period of 2019). In 2022, 3.2 million inbound visits were made to Scotland – 7% fewer than in 2019. Though visit numbers were down in 2022 (compared to 2019), visitor spending … Continue reading Post-Brexit only Scotland sees increased tourism spending

Barely afloat, holed below the water line, in the Herald today: Shocking! Fiji goes for Scot’s shipbuilding revolution after ScotGov ‘rejection’ The Scots entrepreneur behind the sunk £800m scheme to create a Clyde shipbuilding revolution – has got the nod from Fiji’s prime minister to take his plans there, the Herald on Sunday can reveal. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23702921.fiji-goes-scots-shipbuilding-revolution-scotgov-rejection/?ref=ebln&nid=1220&u=54f15f1382a35160f5f9fbd9de82faff&date=060823 First, that rejection. I’m guessing the experts at ScotGov, or hired by them, had good reasons to reject but are too polite to tell us. Are catamaran ferries of the size proposed not safe in the high winds so regular on the Scottish island routes? Second, … Continue reading The Herald flogging a dead ferry deal in a three car ferry island chain in an economy one fiftieth of Scotland’s

Against the background of reports claiming that Scotland needs to monitor more of its storm drains, the above news from NE England is striking. In the Guardian this morning but not being covered by BBC England, nor BBC Tees nor BBC Tyne & Wear: At least 57 people fell ill with sickness and diarrhoea after competing in sea swimming events at the World Triathlon Championship Series in Sunderland, health officials confirmed this weekend. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/05/investigation-after-57-world-triathlon-championship-swimmers-fall-sick-and-get-diarrhoea-in-sunderland-race I wondered then, why no comparable stories from Scotland’s media? I searched for ‘sewage‘ on the BBC website and went back to 1 June 2023. There were 40 … Continue reading ’57 swimmers fall sick and get diarrhoea in Sunderland’ but Scotland’s media can find none here!

Note this is not about a so-called ‘leading’ academic like Prof Patterson on Radio 4 to dismiss his own folk for a English audience, but about the real thing. In the Herald today, a piece on Maureen McKenna, once Director of Education for Glasgow, who will now be advising London schools on truanting and exclusion. When I saw her name I was prompted to do a quick search and repost something from 2 years a go when supposed SNP failings in schools were headline stories day after day. The data are, of course, 2 years old now: Scotland’s ‘struggling schools’ … Continue reading Really Leading Scottish educationist who dismissed myth of Scotland’s ‘struggling schools’ to advise London schools