In 2003, as 1 million in London and 100 000 in Glasgow (me limping in at 99 990) marched against the US/UK plans to bomb and to invade Iraq, only one major party leader stood on the platform to denounce it – Alex Salmond, SNP leader at the time. One year later: Still with the courage he needed, in July 2016: Why do I say courage? He had the courage to oppose a war sanctioned by Parliament and dear to the US administration and then, as the horrors grew and the dishonesty of leaders like tony Blair became clear, to … Continue reading How Alex Salmond fought to prevent and to get justice for 600 000 war dead in Iraq while that apparently ‘nice’ Andy was 100% for the war

Above at 9.52pm last night, Police Scotland tell the bitter-for-some truth about the Cairngorm wildfire. Undeterred, 12 hours later, the schadenfreude lot in the newspapers reporting Scotland badly are still telling the news that’s no longer of any use to you, helping to remind you why they’re all going down a sheuch like the ones being dug around Nethy Bridge. Isn’t it not sad. The weather has rained on their parade Continue reading Scotland’s gutter press sink slowly into a sheuch like the ones being dug around Nethy Bridge

A Nethy Bridge local still at home (?) despite the looming ‘Apocalypse’, interviewed by Sky, perhaps minutes before Police Scotland said it was safe to return, makes one of the many OTT comments, harvested from 2 or 3 residents by Sky and BBC Scotland, to try to make Cairngorm wildfire into evidence, like that in France and Spain, of something deeply worrying. Ignoring the calm reassurances of the Minister, informed by Fire and Police chiefs, they have rather let locals blame the Scottish Government directly for perceived failures such as not having ‘our own’ aircraft or not calling in the … Continue reading Apocalypse Now?

Fresh from not being able to include Scotland in multiple youth stabbing and sex grooming panics, BBC Scotland can only find the above to illustrate Aberdeen after folk were warned to keep their windaes shut in case they choked from the Cairngorms wildfire which has ‘flared up’ in time for rain tomorrow. BBC Scotland are blowing frantically on the embers with big reports and photos from now 38 hours ago. They’ll have to work hard if they are going to keep up with this stuff from BBC UK, looking south to France and Spain where they know all about wildfires … Continue reading After failures on child grooming and stabbing Scotland seems unable to even run a decent wildfire as two Aberdeen women ignore it

Thanks to Dottie once more. From the Resolution Foundation, yesterday: In the last year just 12,000 social rent homes were built in England, a fifth of the ‘affordable’ total Britain’s new Prime Minister has put “council housing” at the heart of his programme for government. [1] The case for building more affordable homes is strong: near-record numbers of families in England are living in temporary accommodation today, and 1.3 million households are on local authority housing waiting lists. But whether Andy Burnham means building more homes for social rent, councils building more themselves or both, there is a price tag attached. https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/housing-outlook-q3-2026/ … Continue reading SNP Government builds more than four times as many per head homes for social rent than England as Burnham takes over – let’s see what happens?

In the Herald today, the above and: Warnings that Scotland is pricing itself out of the global tourism market have intensified after it emerged nearly two in three of Scotland’s 32 councils are introducing or considering controversial tourist taxes. Businesses say visitors are already turning to cheaper destinations overseas as councils press ahead with new overnight levies that will pile extra costs onto holidays. Evidence for the latter claim? The visitor levies have not yet been implemented so cannot yet be part of the above ‘combination.’ Just rubbish. What’s the actual evidence? Scotland’s planned 3–7% levies sit in the middle … Continue reading Scotland ‘priced out’ by UK VAT, Visa and ETA costs not its thoroughly average tourist tax

BBC Scotland repost a story from BBC Wales but don’t just repeat the wording. As you’ll see below, in Wales and in other parts of the UK unchanged, the wording is ‘Nine men in court over historical child sexual exploitation offences.’ BBC websites often share posts from across the UK but only BBC Scotland see it as an opportunity to talk Scotland down. ‘Two men from Scotland‘ they make sure we see but, do we know, are they ‘from Scotland?’ Here’s what BBC Wales tell us: Nine men have appeared in court charged with a total of 41 historical sexual … Continue reading Two men in court over child sex IN Wales now live IN Scotland but BBC Scotland change the wording to suggest they’re ‘FROM’ Scotland