Nine SNP initiatives to tackle child poverty all unique to Scotland and all of them not news for you apparently

From: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan: Progress Report 2025-26 published yesterday to the above MSM response: Steps taken in the past year to further strengthen the support available to families include: Launching the £3 million Bright Start Breakfasts fund, awarding funding to 490 breakfast clubs including 142 new clubs. This has created almost 9,000 breakfast club places, supporting up to 20,000 primary and special school children. Tackling the cost of transport by abolishing peak fares on Scotrail services, delivering free foot passenger travel on inter-island ferries for under 22 year old islanders, extending the national concessionary ferry scheme, and introducing a £2 bus fare … Continue reading Nine SNP initiatives to tackle child poverty all unique to Scotland and all of them not news for you apparently

Hiding the SNP Government’s massive funding of projects in Tory areas

stewartb The Scotland section of the BBC News website has from time to time provided ‘good news’ stories about local initiatives in rural Scotland. You know the kind of projects – the ones that have received Levelling Up funding from the Westminster government.  As an example, back in 25 October 2023, the BBC News website made much of a local project under the headline ‘Proposals for new Moray bridge take a step forward’. This was about repairing the Cloddach Bridge in the constituency of Douglas Ross MP/MSP. The BBC told us : ‘Mr Ross said in March he had directly … Continue reading Hiding the SNP Government’s massive funding of projects in Tory areas

Community by-out projects increase by nearly 800% after SNP boost but are stalled in Tory England

In the Guardian today: Local communities, often in deprived neighbourhoods, are buying up derelict and unused property for village shops, play parks, community centres and, in one case, a film set for war movies, using buyout powers introduced by the Scottish parliament since its foundation in 1999. The land reform debate is often overshadowed by the buyouts of islands or totemic Highland estates. Yet those sales have ground to halt, partly due to competition from private buyers pursuing speculative investments using woodland and peat restoration as carbon sinks, which has sharply driven up land prices. Scottish government data shows that by … Continue reading Community by-out projects increase by nearly 800% after SNP boost but are stalled in Tory England