You still see them in Scottish towns on the back of cars that with a bit of luck might just make it through their next Mot, if the inspector isn't too handy poking about the undersills with his screwdriver. I'm referring of course to those emblematic window stickers that the Daily Record used to hand out to their readers, so that they might recognise each other, indulge in a quip about the football or what Angus Og had been up to that day. Their signifier was of course the legend, 'Real Scots Read The Record'. As marketing propaganda goes it's up there with the very best of them. You're not reading the Record ergo you're not a real Scot. No justification, no science to back this claim up, just that subtly racist suggestion, that you might live here, be born here, work, pay taxes and die here, but until you swallow the philosophy of the Daily Record, well you're really not quite one of us.
I loved the Record when I was a nipper, we didn't get it in our house, but my gran did. Weekend visits to leafy Cambuslang were always lit up, by me, up at the crack of dawn and hurtling across the road to Sandy's precariously balanced newspaper shed. The building hung out over the railway embankment, if memory serves me correctly it shoogled quite dangerously whenever the lightweight eight year old me breenged into it. I suppose it was the smell of the ink, or even in some cases the warmth of the fresh print bundles that I liked. Sandy used to let me cut the twine that bound the copies together with his old tartan clad penknife. Today Labour would probably have him branded a knife carrying nonce and banged up the moment he pocketed his knife and went out on his rounds. By the time I ambled back across the road, gran would have the coal fire on, with a full Scottish sizzling away in the pan. After breakfast, she'd peel the paper apart and give me the section I wanted to read and send me off to my den at the bottom of the garden, the Anderson shelter that my grandad built when he was home on leave.
I'd while away a couple of hours reading and trying to understand why Angus Og and Lachie Mor kept running away from big Mairileen. Other imponderables included the wrath displayed by the Reverend Peter McSonachan upon discovering Angus and Lachie had been on overnight adventures to the West Indies in the boat on the Sabbath, or Constable MacPhater and the Laird of Drambeg always being tricked out of a giant salmon or brace of grouse by Angus. It was a genuinely nice setting to some of my childhood. When we had holidays on Ard na Murchan, I'd spot the same characters, whilst stuck outside the Kilchoan Hotel in the car drinking bottles of lemonade and munching on packets of salt 'n 'shake - for hours on end.
Of course, as I got older it began to dawn on me that the Angus Og cartoonist Ewan Bain was just about the only Scottish thing in the paper other than the football results. It was only in my late teens, when I started reading the Scots Independent and discovered his cartoons were there too, that I realised he'd been a subversive nationalist deep within the bowels of the unionist Daily Record. All those fly digs at Westminster and the Labour ministers, whilst the front page had been cheerleading away in a blaze of Hope and Glory.
All of which, if you'll excuse the trip down memory lane brings me back to today. This afternoon, I happened on a tweet by one Tom Watson, at first I pondered on why an American golfer was tweeting the rather dersiory 'Alex Salmond's cosy relationship with Rupert Murdoch and the Tories' further investigation took me to the following link . Yep a website ran by and devoted to UK Labour. The Tom Watson in question is an MP and was supposedly up to his sweaty armpits in the Damien McBride sleaze-a-thon. Here's a photo of the bonny Brownite.
The article is basically a spinning operation on behalf of the Daily Record, Alastair Campbell and the Labour Party. It quotes Daily Record political editor Magnus Gardham (is it just me or does he not sound like Mavis from Coronation Street?) and his fantasy politics that the Sun are pointing out the truth about Labour's disasterous campaign and reporting those various celebrity blandishments for the SNP as all part of a blood and spunk pact between Salmond and Murdoch...
The irony for me is the Daily Record complaining about the supposed political direction of a 'downmarket English tabloid', remember 'Real Scots Read the Record', when they are in fact owned by Trinity Mirror an err English company, headed by the voluptuous Sly Baillie and these other people.
Now Sly and company must sit back sometimes and wonder what's gone wrong with a title that's gone from having the worlds second highest saturation level in its own market to having a smaller readership than its downmarket English tabloid arriviste rival The Sun in just over 20 years. In that period the Daily Record plummeted from sales of circa 750,000 newspapers per day to the current level hovering just above the 300,000 mark. The Scottish edition of the Sun sits somewhere in the region of 370,000 - ouch. In fact as recently as 2007 Trinity Mirror was valued at £1.5 billion, by the end of 2008 it had plummeted to a market value of £250 million - double ouch. Rather ironically in 2005 Ipsos Mori did a poll on the political affiliations of daily newspaper readers, you'll never guess which UK paper's readership had the strongest affiliation with the Labour Party, yep, some 61% of Daily Record readers support the Labour Party. Oddly enough the same poll indicated that 22% of their readers supported the SNP...Quite a base level that with nearly a quarter of your readership supporting a party, your editorial is vehemently opposed to. Now I reckon in the intervening years, particularly when we've had four years of a moderately successful SNP Scottish Government, that 22% figure may have shifted somewhat.
If I were a Trinity Mirror shareholder looking at the lovely and preposterously highly paid Sly, I'd be thinking some polling of the Daily Record and readers current political affiliations and some shifting of editorial stance might just be enough to up the dividends for that new holiday home on Barbados...One would hope that Sly would consider getting on the blower to new boy Eugene Duffy, the man in charge of the Nationals Division of Trinity Mirror including the Record and Sunday Mail... For blog followers, Eugene Duffy replaces Derek Stewart Brown, (my old Pcc Megrahi versus the lying Daily Record) nemesis who was previously managing editor of all the Scottish titles, but who has now been moved into the alluringly titled Head of Motors and Commercial Supplements - triple ouch.
Ed Miliband, the heir to the man with more teeth than sense, in a blinding masterstroke of political campaigning has sent furth an emissary from London to his Scottish branch membership. His mission, to show his poor unenlightened Northern Jocks how to win an election.
Ed and Iain, a touching relationship.
It is now a distant eight years ago since the Labour regional party last won a 'local' election at Holyrood. They then faced a weak SNP riven by internal rumblings after a particularly nasty leadership tussle between the gradualists and the fundamentalists. John Swinney emerged victorious, but was condemned as the Iain Gray of his day, aka a charisma free zone, with little or no public perception.
The McConnell -Jim Wallace pact was at its most vulnerable, with gaffes being served up on a near daily basis by our then somewhat saner media. Simple things like private security firm Reliance forgetting to lock their prison van doors led to crims legging it to freedom, including a convicted killer. There was also McConnell’s much derided decision to attend a golfing dinner in St Andrews rather than the French D-Day commemorations, or the very public square go with Sir Sean Connery during the Tartan Day celebrations in New York, even the leaking to the Daily Record of sensitive commercial information regarding job cuts to ensure the future of Scottish Opera, were all open goals. Unfortunately substitute Swinney got the jitters and blasted the ball over the bar from the penalty spot. Nary a goal was scored at FMQ's. Polls at the time showed that support for independence was higher than support for the SNP. Campaigning under the rather milksoppish 'Release our Potential', the SNP came a cropper and Labour romped to victory on a record low 49.4% turnout. Politics in Scotland was at its lowest ebb and the electorate most disillusioned. Labour had won by default, not on their record.
So fast forward eight years and Ed and co have decided that as well as copying the widely agreed successful SNP government policies, what their membership really needs to firm up their core vote is the raising of the walking dead. Arise Maggie Thatcher, Queen of the Zombies. This rekindling of Thatcher's ghost is according to those who spin for Labour, in our media. apparently sealing the deal with their core vote, which they place at an unqualified 30% of the electorate.
Unfortunately when you govern a regional branch remotely, you have no real idea what's happening on the ground, particularly when you're dependent on one who walked the killing fields of Cambodia, when he was nbut a bairn. Ed and co have to realise that Scotland is not stuck in the 1980's, Kirstie Wark may be working the same look, but the rest of us have moved on. Civic Scotland for all its faults will not hark back to the Unenlightenment, where Labour in Scotland produced the feeble fifty, who sat by collecting their expenses, wages and pensions whilst working class Scots went hungry. They offered no support to miners, steelworkers, ship builders and presided over the emasculation of the Scottish workforce. They took their Union support and shafted the workers.
Thatcher's babies may be in charge in London but electing a nonentity like Iain Gray or his next-in-line arrogant tithead Andy Kerr to protect Scotland would be as effective as entering Jackie Baillie for the Commonwealth Games ladies marathon.
Even the anti-SNP Scotland on Sunday have seen through their lies and roundly excoriated them for it in their leader. It's not often I agree with the Johnston Press but on this occasion my tweed cap is tipped in their direction.
It has to be said, there's been a seismic shift in attitude and latitude towards the Scottish branch of the Labour Party from the Scottish branch of The Sun tabloid. This past week or so we've seen The Sun indulge in Labour kipperings on everything from Jim Devine and the failings of Scottish Labour general Secretary Colin Smyth and soon to be, if rumours are too be believed, ex-MP Gordon Brown.
To the outing of Holywood stalwart Brian Cox as a closet Eck's Man
Which saw him reveal his true thoughts on Iain Gray and the dogs dinner that Labour in Scotland have become.
However, today, Andy Nicol the journalist responsible for most of these stories ( and a none too shoddy novelist) more or less hammered the Saltire to the Sun masthead when he mocked Iain Gray and the Labour Parties pathetic, written on the back of a fag packet manifesto.
It's a rare condition for SNP/Independence supporters to find themselves indulging in a spot of schadenfreude at the expense of the all mighty Labour Party, particularly when it comes in such a high circlation blatt as the Sun, circa 330,000 papers sold per day. Whilst support in the form of the old 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' school of thought is to be welcomed, it has to be with accepted with extreme caution and with it a reminder of these words.
"Vote SNP today and you put Scotland's head in the noose."
That front page was the most disgraceful bluntest propaganda by so-called journalists seen since Devolution. It was an offence against democracy for members of the Scottish press to crow bar their blatant and crude beliefs into an attempt to influence the Scottish public.
Lest we forget, over one million people in Scotland, who buy the three best selling papers, the Record the Sun and the Daily Mail, were told that a vote for the SNP would cost tax payers £5000 per head, income tax would go up 3 pence, hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost. All these lies were presented as actual fact, straight from Labour's election leaflets dreamed up by the likes of John McTernan and co.
The SNP government won by the slimmest of margins in the face of relentless negativity from the Scottish media, wur ain couthy State Broadcaster, postal vote irregularities and of course electronic ballot counting, complete with extremely complex ballot papers, all administered by Westminster. In our favour then and now is the online presence and technology. Last time around the campaign was all about the SNP's then revolutionary electoral software 'Active8' which utterly trumped Labour's own electioneering babbage machine, which couldn't differentiate between tenements and houses...Online, there were a few blogs about, but mostly the disgruntled with access to a computer logged on to fulminate on the pages of the Scotsman and the Herald. My abiding memory of the 2007 election was updating the Hootsman forum as the results came in and announcing to those readers around the world that the SNP had done it. This time, we're completely blogged up. The excellent Newsnet goes from strength to strength and garners amazing numbers of readers that have trounced the online presence of both the Hootsman and the Herald, all without selling out to some shady corporation. They cater to pro-Independence supporters and present them with the news in a radically neutral style, albeit from an SNP supporting stance, hey if the Record can do it... Then there's Twitter.
Stepping into the world of the Twitteratti during this election run up has become fairly interesting. I'm on there under @MarkEMacLachlan alongside sundry others from the Scottish blogosphere. Interestingly the funniest and most compelling tweets come from the likes of non-bloggers like @grahame_case, @GML1320 , @CSbungo, @bcnsco , who also has an excellent Youtube page as does @baronsarwar , and his eponymously titled Youtube page.
I've never met any of these folk in real life, at least I don't think I have, but there is no doubt in my mind that they are are mobilised and are handing Labour their collective arses on a plate. @ScottishLabour like much of their policies and attitudes are still stuck in the past and have not cottoned on to the fact that 140 characters is more suited to wit and whimsy than worthy leaden phraseology crimped from the diaries of Harold Wilson.
This move away from Labour by the Sun is hopefully something we'll see in other areas of our media. Mayhaps Scotland will only be free when the last Labour councillor is choked to death with the pages of the Daily Record.
Addendum: I've just heard on Twitter from several sources that Iain Gray was forced to abandon a photocall at Glasgow's Central Station this morning and flee in a taxi, after being confronted by anti-cut protestors...Couldnaemakeitup.
Here's the video of it after being re-imagined by the splendid Bcnsco
IT is easy to be derisory about politics in Scotland, and, as we're all aware, there is much to be derisory about. Our regard for our politicians, these keepers of the gate, continues to plummet, to such an extent that more often than not we'll hear that weary refrain “they’re all the same”. Sometimes it's difficult to argue against this jaded viewpoint, but politics is important because, excuse me while I go all Michael Jackson in a non-touchy manner here, we have to think of the children.
Our quality of life and that of our children are of paramount importance and like it or not, that quality is dependent on politics. Being indifferent on matters of health, education, the planet, justice, equality, how we care for our older citizens and even the freezing of our council tax is determined by politics and those we choose to be politicians. Therefore, we expect those who would govern us to show care and precision when attempting to persuade us that our franchise is best served in their care.
All of which brings me to those in the Labour party who believe they have got what it takes to run Holyrood. These are not people without intelligence, they are of the professional classes, they've been successful in school, they've graduated from our universities and some have even gone on to teach our children. They know that presentation is important, they know that how politicians behave and present themselves to the public is part and parcel of the merry dance of electoral politics. Similarly the literature that they use to garner support has to be properly funded, utterly truthful, and accurate in every way. Let me repeat that, accurate in every way.
You have to ask as Blair trumpeted on about Education, Education, Education like a stuttering Kurtz, were any of the Labour party members, MSPs MEPs MPs or staff actually employed to proofread their campaign literature? The above doozy wherein they vow that 'Scottish Labour will abolish the failed Scottish Labour', is smack bang on p68 of their delightful manfesto. The online launch of the manifesto was delayed as their industrious gnomes went through it with online tippex whilst a stentorian dominie stood over their shoulders with a poised steel ruler.
Now I'm not suggesting for a minute that the electorate turn their back on them for grammatical and spelling errors, I dare say the other parties will produce clangers, like the above manifesto and election leaflets from Flakirk (sic) have, and heaven forfend I'm apt to drop the odd clanger too. However, this flip floppy approach to free verse cannot go on.
Back in the day when a young 40-a-day Iain Gray was limbering up as potential MSP, the late scholarly Donald Dewar would never have allowed such shoddy preparation for an election...
Now I'm pretty sure that the near 1000 of you who read yesterday's blog post on BBC Scotland and their selective fact presentation, with regard to their wonderful choice of photographs , will hopefully have forgiven me from keeping you from the great sunny outdoors for a few moments. By close of play I had presumed that the Beeb would do absolutely nothing about their immoral manipulation of news and images.
Well blimey O'Reilly did I get that wrong. A mere couple of moments ago I swung by their website to see if our state broadcaster had covered any of Labour's latest shenanigans about using public money for electioneering, only to discover this new image:
Now apart from the dubious quality of the photographs, I mean poor Bella and those shadows, really! I have to say it strikes me as odd that we now have in counter - clockwise fashion;
Ms Goldie with a pained attempt at smiling in strong sunlight.
The Tartan Overlord caught mid guffaw.
The Young Lochinver doing his best ginger eagle impersonation.
And toppermost.
First Minister-in-waiting, man of gravitas, future House of Lords benchwarmer, Iain Gray. This photograph has Mr Gray looking like the serious man for serious times statesman-like overachiever his small but loyal band of followers would have us believe he is.
Having him stand under the gaze of ace Kit Kat eater, the late Gannet on the Granite, Donald Dewar, actually diminishes Dewar's role as Glasgow's chief traffic cone repositary.
Now I kant make an expert critique of judgement, as Europe's smallest philosopher might have, had he ever witnessed the machinations of Labour's artful work in Scotland. However, I will say this, our very ain state broadcaster really needs to be more mindful of their own metaphysics of morals.
Ohh and here's a more likely shot of Mr Gray that won't make it on to the state broadcasters website....
The aim of the propagandist is to create the semblance of credibility.
Have a look at the images below.
Consider that at the end of the first week of election campaigning for the 2011 Holyrood election, during which we witnessed the first televised 'leaders' debate, it has been universally perceived that Iain Gray, the Labour Party candidate for First Minister, has had a disasterous week.
There is talk of deep schisms within the Labour party. Labour MP's and MSP's are briefing our media on the negative effect Mr Gray is having on the Labour Party's electoral chances. Ed Milliband has had to fly in one of his assistants to help bolster his regional parties support. The opportunistic Sun newspaper openly ridiculed Gray for his performance in the televised debate, highlighting the fact that 87% of respondents believed that Alex Salmond gave, by far, the most commanding performance. The polls saw the SNP take the lead for the first time.
Now take another look at the photo from BBC Scotland's online news page.
Is it fair to say that we have three party leaders here and one deputy leader? Why is there no photograph of the Alex Salmond who is standing for post of First Minister? Do BBC Scotland not have a photograph of Alex Salmond? If they do have a photograph of him, why have they chosen not to use it?
Look at the photograph again, let's go counter clockwise.
Is it fair to say that Nicola Sturgeon looks pensive in the photograph, particularly in the week when her management of the Scottish Health sector saw the abolition of prescription fees?
Similarly, is it fair to say that Tavish Scott has the concerned look of a man who only received 2% support in a poll on the person favoured to be next First Minister?
Does Annabel Goldie look fraught with worry at the end of a week when her jolly hockey sticks sensible persona has seen her win renewed respect from political correspondents? Now take a long hard look at Iain Gray. He's smiling. I'll repeat that again. Iain Gray is smiling.
Political anoraks who watch FMQ's diligently each Thursday know that a smiling Iain Gray is as rare as a guaranteed Scottish summer.
This is a man without troubles to seek, he's flip flopped on four years of relentless negativity opposing nigh on everything the Scottish Government have attempted to legislate.
Yet here he is smiling. Smiling suggests confidence, assurity, a winner.
Why is Iain Gray smiling? Has he suddenly become credible?
BBC Scotland are by their very constitution tied to the continuation of Union. They are supposed to be the last bastion of freedom of speech, their doctrine is apolitical, they are bound by rules of impartiality.
Yet someone in our very own state broadcaster, in their shiny but ever so dysfunctional building decided that these photographs are merely reportage.
Was it Atholl Duncan Head of News and Current Affairs who believes that the veteran host of his flagship news programme can ridicule the First Minister in an avowedly Labour supporting newspaper and continue to be seen as impartial?
Or maybe the unnamed state reporter ran the photo selection and copy by the keen eyes of Alasdair MacLeod, BBC Scotland's head of Editorial Standards and Compliance.
Either way, any complaints of subtle propaganda by our state broadcaster are always met with complete denial and infantile excuses. As anyone who has ever read the non blethering with Brian 'blog' knows, complaints are never justified.
Let me repeat again.
Sturgeon not standing as First Minister - Pensive.
A few weeks ago whilst trawling these internets I came across a comment about veteran BBC Reporting Scotland 'news anchor' Jackie Bird having a column in the Sunday Mail. Intrigued I let my fingers do the walking and eventually arrived at the following article.
In her whimsy infused column, the 'Sunday Mail's Jackie Bird' deigns to deliver her views on societies big stories of the week. The above article was written as a response to the startling news that Downing Street had employed the skills of an experienced cat to rid them of their rat problem. Ms Bird, using that as her cue transported the reader to a furry land where Scottish politicians are portrayed as cats. Yoiks what fun!
Here's how our impartial newsreader sees the situation:
Tiger Salmond, the SNP cat: "Look, Larry, my man, in an independent Scotland you would have your rats and we would have ours. Problem sorted. Excuse me, if you don't mind I'll just have another lick of my cream. Now, where was I? Oh yes, in an independent Scotland, cream. Cream for all & cream for every man woman and child, and, of course, cat. There would be cream coming out of the taps, cream in the puddles..."
I like a joke, I love ripping the piss out of pomposity wherever I see it. I think I've developed a sense of what's funny and obversely what's downright insidious. I don't see the above as a light hearted joke at the expense of Salmond. I see it as a yet another in a long line of scathing attacks used by cringe infused Scottish journalists who seek to portray Salmond as being of the chocolate tea pot self munching variety. The idiom of 'the cat who got the cream' is commonly interpreted as being, one who is oh so satisfied and arrogant with themselves and displays an overtly smug mien...Remember in Scotland our journos don't like confident people, mind we kent his faither...
Tabby Gray, the Scottish Labour cat was unavailable, however, we found this statement tied to a lamppost: "Missing - Tabby Gray. Our adorable Tabby disappeared from the Scottish Labour party HQ some time ago.
Now wrap me in tinsel, roll me down a hill and call me a fat Christian, but doesn't the above sound like a plea from the impartial publically funded BBC veteran news reader for the leader of the North British Regional Labour parliamentary group to up his game in the fast approaching Scottish Parliamentary election?
Now some of you may remember that waaaay back in 2003 the BBC big boys in thatLondon got into all sorts of problems when BBC Radio 4 reporter Andrew Gilligan broadcast an item about prospective war criminal Tony Blair and his team of acolytes 'sexing up' the document which led to Dr Kelly's mysterious homo-sui-cide. Gilligan went on to repeat his allegation in his column in the Mail on Sunday. The beeb were simply battered by Blair and Campbell for having the temerity to utter the allegation in the first place, as a sop to stop the bloodletting the Beeb executives decreed that BBC employees could no longer have outside paid gigs. This led to complaints and weapons grade whinging from the likes of Paxman and Humphries. The beeb senior execs stamped their little teeth and roared their little roars and won the day. Their top tier talent were rewarded for loss of outside earnings with eyewatering bonuses and peace settled over Broadcasting House.
So with the fact that BBC broadcasting talent are not supposed to have outside work, particularly that which conflicts with their publically paid work, in mind I wrote to the BBC Audience Council Scotland acs@bbc.co.uk, the BBC Scotland Director Ken.MacQuarrie@bbc.co.uk and ACS chairman and BBC board of Governors directorBill.Matthews@bbc.co.uk to let them know my damnable opinion.
This is what I sent
Dear Sir, I am intrigued to discover that BBC Reporting Scotland news ‘anchor’ Jackie Bird has paid employment outside of the corporation which I believe conflicts with her impartial role at the BBC.
Ms Bird writes a column for the Sunday Mail, a profoundly self-avowed pro-Labour newspaper. Her recent 'blog' post for the newspapers online content entitled. 'Claws come out as top cat Larry makes mark.' is diametrically opposed to her unbiased and apolitical role within the BBC. I include the link below for you to assess for yourself whether her descriptions of both Messrs Salmond and Gray is appropriate for one who is employed to read the news in an unbiased fashion.
I recall that the BBC took a stringent policy stance against their on-screen and on-air talent profiting from their publicly paid profile by moonlighting for private companies. Most notably BBC Reporter Andrew Gilligan and the uproar that followed his freelance ‘sexing up the WMD dossier’ column in the Mail on Sunday caused.
For your reference I include the link to the Guardian’s media column which reports that the BBC Governors resolved to take the initiative to force their presenters to choose between their freelance newspaper columns and their work for the corporation, following a meeting in Cardiff on November 27th 2003.
Surely some seven years on the BBC have not fudged the issue?
yours sincerely
yadda yadda yadda (that's not my real name I'm just a Seinfeld fan)
A week later I received a reply from the very friendly Jackie who works for Mr McQuarrie:
Sent: Wed, 2 Mar 2011 14:40
Subject: FW: Outside earnings for BBC employees.
Dear Mr MacLachlan,
This is to acknowledge your e-mail sent to ACS.
Your e-mail has been forwarded to the Head of News & Current affairs for
his views and a full response will follow.
A week later and no word back, I sent the following:
Dear Jackie,
Just wondering if there's been any response yet?
regards
Mark
Jackie wrote back within a couple of hours. (I really like her she's very people orientated compared to lots of Beeb wonks.)
Hi Mark - checking this out with colleagues in News and will get back to you asap. Jackie
So fast forward five days and lo and behold the clouds did part, a mighty rumble was heard in the land and Head of News and Current affairs had cast aside such thoughts of triathlon's and lycra and did reply, here's what he said:
Hi Mark,
Please see below response from Atholl Duncan, Head of News & Current
Affairs.
Jackie
Dear Mr MacLachlan,
Thank you for contacting us regarding Jackie Bird's recent column in the
Sunday Mail. Ms Bird is a freelance journalist and broadcaster. She is
not a member of BBC staff. She earns her income from a number of
different sources and while we are careful to monitor outside activities
we do not have a rule preventing such activities. In other words,
there's no blanket prohibition on BBC presenters having outside writing
commitments. The issue is more around the content of what they might be
writing. In particular, presenters or reporters should not write columns
on politically controversial subjects in which they express a personal
political opinion or take a side in a politically controversial debate.
I have reviewed the column
http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/jackiebird/2011/02/claws-come-out-as-top-
cat-larry-makes-ma.html
I would regard the content as being humorous rather than controversial
or expressing a political opinion. It is a satirical, light hearted
piece about Larry the Downing Street cat. The references to "Tiger
Salmond" "Tabby Gray" and ""Scrummy, the Scottish Rugby Union's resident
moggie" could not be regarded as serious political comment but more
light hearted fun. Surely even in the serious business of Scottish
politics it must be important to keep one's sense of humour ?
Needless to say I haven't replied to Mr Duncan's question. Whilst I profoundly disagree with his interpretation that Ms Bird's column is merely light hearted fun. I'm a tad more gobsmacked to discover that the great get out is that our very own Jackie Bird is not a member of the BBC staff and therefore not subject to the same rules and guidelines that might govern other less fiscally rewarded talent.
Now if any of our political parties are slightly taken aback at this relevation, I would hope that some smart but lowly paid bod is currently hot footing it to the Freedom of Information guidleines and determining just how much money Jackie Bird is paid out of public funds as a freelance journalist and broadcaster, oh and also asking Mr Duncan how many other people in the on-air 'Talent' pool are paid on a freelance basis. I'd also be interested to know just how much David Robertson was paid in compensation to stop him talking about the alleged spats between him and his older then co-anchor...
The last thing I want is for Ms Bird to vanish from our screens in a David Robertson 'get it round ye' hissy fit style. Now naturally if her contract were to mysteriously end overnight and one of those bright young avaricious talents like 2007 Labour list candidate Catriona Renton or the rather delightfully gothic and eligible Catriona Shearer were to take her place, I'd still look forward to seeing her at the plethora of after dinner engagements which she habitually attends for money. I'm sure the nation would be up in arms at the loss of this latter day Our Lady of St Mary Marquis...
The Scottish Cup, is the oldest trophy in the world, being minted in 1873, the year Queens Park FC defeated Clydesdale FC 2-0 at Hampden in front of 2,500 bunnet waving connoiseurs of the beautiful game. Apart from the inter-war years of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, the cup has only once, never been awarded.
That was 102 years ago next month. When those arrivistes in the Scottish game, Rangers FC and Celtic FC, competing in the final against each other for what was only the fourth time in the Cups thirty-six year history, petitioned the SFA not to award the cup following mass riots after a 2-2 draw on April 10th and a 1-1 draw in the subsequent replay the following week.
Paranoia, the word bandied about as a slur today, was the phrase of the day. Rumours swept Glasgow that the cheapskate suits at Park Gardens had fixed both ties in order to fill their pockets from the gate receipts.To give you a feel for the time, the Childrens Act 1908 came into effect the day after the first match 11th of April when the wishy washy Liberal government abolished hanging for under 16's and restricted access to booze and smokes for the under 14's...
Back to the game, as the players trooped off the field after 90 minutes of humphing a heavy wet leather ball about, the SFA announced there would be no extra time and a third replay would be required to determine the winners. Cue 60,000 supporters losing their collective stiff upper lip, unbuttoning their toppermost collars, ruffling their carefully pomaded hair and getting right stuck into each other with a mass bout of fisticuffs and ungentlemanly behaviour. By 7.30 pm, both sets of fans had torn up the goalposts, molested the sacred turf and set fire to the pay booths and sturdy security handrails. The beloved Glasgow polis astride their magnificent horses weighed in with their truncheons in an effort to conclude matters efficaciously , they were repelled by a volley of broken kerbstones and sticks made from goal posts. Undeterred the authorities sent in the fire brigade, same result expect they left without their hoses.The body count as the rioters left Hampden and headed into town was fifty polis with a variety of biffed ears, bashed skulls, broken limbs and a unified loss of innocence.
The SFA abandoned the tie, withheld awarding the trophy and handed out not one medal. Celtic and Rangers were awarded £150 in compensation and Queens Park a back hander of £500 to err rebuild the stadium.
One outraged gentleman of Milngavie writing in the letters pages of the Glasgow Evening Times harrumphed, "I would suggest the withdrawal of all policemen from football matches, and substitute a regiment of soldiers with fixed bayonets." Given that the British Army used gatling guns against the crowd at Croke Park a decade later, the above correspondents suggestion was probably given weighty consideration.
All of which neatly brings us up today's- cue drumroll- SUMMIT!! As we all know his royal Eckness in the face of unrelenting pressure from First Minister-in-waiting Iain Grey finally relented and decided to do something about Scotland's shame...ooh wait, no I've got that wrong, Iain Gray wanted to talk about a fiendishly successful event from two years ago that wrought a ratio of £24 pounds return out of every £1.00 of public money spent. It was Ma Broon, who sensibly asked the FMQ question about what the Tartan Overlord was going to do about it!
There have been a plethora of outraged letters, blogs, articles and no doubt missives from beyond the grave as to why this has nothing to do with politics, why it's footballs problem, there's no such thing as sectarianism in Scotland and we're all barabarians who should be kept at bayonets length whilst collecting around an association regulation sized football...
Well straighten my moustache and call me Wilfred, if I haven't gone and thought up a solution that improves our global image, strengthens the competitiveness of our game and saves teams across the land from going the way of Third Lanark and Clydebank.
Other countries have no problems with fining, deducting points or relegating their biggest teams when they've transgressed, broken the rules, brought misconduct to the games, bribed referees etcetera. I suggest both Celtic and Rangers for crimes, present, past and future be relegated to Division Three alongside previous Scottish Cup winners, Clyde and Queens Park. Ensure there is a booze free exclusion zone around those clubs and in order to make it fair on the rest of the division, I suggest both sides start their league campaign adrift at the very bottom with minus 25 points, as happened to poor wee Dundee for the crime of entering administration. I wonder how their debts compare to the combined Auld Firm fiscal delinquency?
So let's imagine in my fantasy football world a Scottish premier league without either of these Glasgow sides. A more equitable slice of television revenues spread between the remaining teams, a more competitive league, not dependent on the three young diddies rule aka less foreign players on squigillion pounds per year, family friendly clubs representing their own country in Europe, imagine it Scottish teams playing under the Saltire when getting humped on foreign fields, rather the flags of Ireland and England. Oh and considerably less debt for those trying to keep up with the tsunami of credit card football funding emanating from both sides the Clyde...
There's also the consideration that away days for the faithful to such far flung places as Berwick, Stranraer, Elgin and err Coatbridge just might be enough to strip the hard core bigots and troublemakers away from both teams, obviously this would add to their arduous ferry and plane travelling arrangements...As I say fantasy football, but what other situation will make these two teams face up to their responsibilities? How long will their friends in the media continue to deny that the Auld Firm brand is toxic, that there very existence holds Scotland back. Sure friendly rivalry is good for competition, but when you're talking about two teams who live a couple of miles apart and foster 'fans' from around the world who are asked to overlook the bigotry on both sides, then enough is enough.
I was a wee bitty concerned when Stewart asked me to write a piece for Caledonian Mercury about my thoughts on what the other parties' weaknesses are vis-a-vis the SNP. A dull thud in the back of my head pounded out the question, why me? Paranoia kicked in. Was I leaving myself open for a kicking from the plethora of dribbling sockpuppets that infest the Scotsman comments undergrowth and who occasionally slither over to the Cal Merc board? Probably. Would it bother me? Yawn. Was I expected to put the boot into the Tartan Overlord after he joined Labour in devoting an entire FMQ to little old me and my wayward keyboard ways? Nope, I’ve had loads of opportunities to do so in the Cheesy blog and haven’t felt the need to bellow half-naked from the rooftops, yet. Would I take the opportunity to do a Crichton/McKenna like fluff job on the SNP leader. As if.
So dear reader, in order to avoid a spiral of paranoid stupidity, I decided to ruminate on where Scotland is today and why we should all be fearful of mediocrity.
The vintage age of fifty is approaching me like a joyriders stolen Suburu hurtles towards a bumbling blue bottles backside. There’s no way to avoid the impending thud of this date, so like the leisurely feller I am, I tend to find myself taking a dawdle down memory lane, wearing comfortable brogues and idly twirling my moustache, where like a chap who had a good war, I wallow in the fading glow of nostalgia.
I belong to that generation of Python heads who at the merest mention of the word ‘blessed’ can rattle off the sermon on the mound scene from the ‘Life of Brian’. I spent the early eighties living in the schizophrenic environs of west end Glasgow. On one hand, it was the enlightened city that saw culture as a great regenerating force that created Mayfest and brought Peter Brooks Mahabarata to a freezing cold tram depot. On t’other the venerable city fathers embraced their dark fearful side and prohibited screenings of the above mentioned film, lest wit and sacrilegious thought infested the city youths. Like North Africans and Arabs have taken to Twitter and Facebook to express themselves, early eighties Pythonians would furtively gather in basement flats of an unemployable afternoon and engage in the nefarious act of listening to and reciting the long player soundtrack of the film. I still have the somewhat faded vinyl album, complete with closing hymn, which all these years on reminds me of our venerable opposition in Scotland. ‘All Things Dull and Ugly.’
The one sketch that resonates to this day is, “What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us?” The debate between the Peoples Front of Judea as they discuss life in Judea before the arrival of the Romans. It’s a bit like watching the weekly ordeal of FMQ. The opposition parties are convinced that the SNP government have done nothing for them and their constituents these past four years. Until a wee voice at the back of the mind of the most impartial viewer pops up and says. ‘The aqueduct’?
So apart from the Aqueduct what have the SNP ever done for us?
How about these for starters?
·
Delivered an extra 1,000 police officers
·Crime in Scotland has fallen to 32-year low
·Scottish Knife Crime at a 10 Year Low
·Gun crimes falling to a 10-year low
·Keeping open local accident and emergency units as promised
·Prescription charges cut dramatically and about to be abolished
·Removed the tolls on all of Scotland's roads and bridges
·A record number of modern apprenticeships
·Reversed a decade of decline in international educational comparisons
·Increased payments for free personal and nursing care
·Helped 70,000 small businesses with the small business bonus
·Oh and of course frozen the council tax for the last four years.
I could quite easily fill the page with other achievements both small and large that make a difference in every day Scotland, but that’s not my job.
The opposition parties in their effort to contain the fiendishly successful machinations of the Scottish government have gone out of their way to put party before country. Legislation for the betterment of all has been brought to a shuddering halt by the spending power of the vested interests. Those same parties who swear to their dying breath a desire to save small Scottish business, now nestle comfortably in the comfy pockets of the supermarket billionaires.
Therefore I’m more interested in, ‘What the SNP could have done for us, but were stopped from doing.’
The opposition parties block vote against the introduction of a minimum unit price for alcohol, has potentially cost Scotland’s health and wealth a fortune.
There is as we all recognize a booze culture in Scotland where our youngsters indulge in necking the cheap supermarket stuff at home before going out clubbing or pubbing, thus avoiding the high prices often found at said establishments.
Having imbibed to beyond sufficiency, they then indulge in post entertainment ribaldry and japes which more than often involves vandalism, pissing in shop doorways and vomiting in no-longer-working public fountains. Attempts at back alley amour usually end up with further exchanges of bodily fluids, just not the intended ones. This usually results in raised emotions, tempers are frayed and some poor blighter's son or daughter ends up with a smashed bottle being ground into their previously unblemished faces.
The 'harder' type will of course endeavour to display his weaponry skills and often sever a companion’s major artery resulting in massive loss of blood. The resulting costs in police, ambulance, nurse, doctor, mortuary, undertaker and social worker services are of course perfectly acceptable when balanced against the 'do-gooders' attempt to curb excessive alcohol consumption.
Here's a stat for you, in dearest Dumfropolis 92 % of all ambulance calls on Friday evening, Saturday evening and Sunday morning are booze related. So if your child turns blue and stops breathing in their cot on a Friday night or your husband clutches his left arm, turns puce and plants his face in the G-plan glass coffee table, chances are your ambulance crew are going to be a bit late getting too him or her, because they're currently trying to peel a shit, piss and puke encrusted half-dressed teenager off a precinct floor, whilst their mates wail, moan or jeer along.
Naturally, those lovable rapscallions are only expressing their right to go out on the lash and anyone from 'big brother' or the preferred 'nanny state' government that tells them they can't do that, can like go forth and procreate, right. However, the facts exist that money spent on mopping up the mess caused by cheap booze means there is less money to go round on things like nurses, doctors, specialists, ambulances, hospitals, GP's etcetera. But hey, don't let that bother you. Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories, those supine friends of the supermarket lobby voted against legislation that allows our kids to go right on swallowing that Carlsberg special brew, White lightning and delightful tonic wine Buckfast until their little livers pack in.
The reality is there hasn’t been an effective opposition in Holyrood. The Greens have grown from being the curly haired scamps that everyone had a fondness for, into belligerent teens that’ll huff and puff and throw a hissy fit until every house in the land has loft insulation made from kitten fur. Spurned at Budget time, they now coyly bat their eyelids in the direction of Labour. The co-joined twins of the Tories and Lib Dems are fused at the hip in Westminster, similarly so in Holyrood. You’ll rarely hear a Tory slam a Lib Dem or vice versa. Prior to last year’s Westminster election they reserved their bile equally for the SNP and Labour.
No, the real opposition in Scotland relies on the concerted efforts of the Labour group of MSPs and their friends both North and South of the border in state broadcasting and their pro-Union mouthpiece chums in the dying tree press.
Here SNP achievements are twisted, distorted, partially reported or taken out of context. Hypocrisy and deceit have become central to the very being of the Labour party in Scotland. The SNP are talking about revolution, the Lib Dems, Tories & Greens devolution, whilst Labour still ponders over the benefits of evolution.
Civic Scotland has become infested with Labour placeman. There’s barely a council in the land where members of the senior management aren’t either married, related or in a relationship with members of the Labour party. This isn’t the party that looks after their voter’s -- they simply look after their own. Much like we require applicants who plan to work with children and vulnerable adults to undergo a Disclosure Scotland check maybe it’s time to apply something similar to the various HR departments across the public paid estate, where placemen become agent provocateurs…
Yet despite this, the Tartan Overlord and crew continue in their cheery positive way, ignoring the negative, not wallowing in the politics of character assassination. This does not always endear them to their supporters, who sometimes want to see some backbone, a flash of teeth and a bit of forcing the lies and the hypocrisy back into the lying liars mouths…But, if truth be told, the Salmond mantra of positivity is working. He’s got it right. His example puts the old adage about politicians of ‘they’re all the same’ into a fresh perspective.
At the last election the SNP were elected for a number of reasons, malaise with the bright shiny right wing party that Tony Blair had created, a deeply unpopular war predicated on lies, but above all else the SNP benefitted from Labours failure to improve the significant problems our country faced, does its election campaign today suggest that they have the policies to do so now? It’s as if time has stood still and they’ve settled into a default setting of carping and girning like a petulant child. Labour’s London handlers must be looking askance at the collapse of Fianna Fail across the Irish Sea and fearing the worst.
Today, it looks as if people in Scotland have woken up to the fact that the past four years of relentless negativity from the Labour party has shown that they have not matured as a socially progressive party, their failure to cast aside tribalism to vote for the common good, declares them to be as extinct as a parrot what has joined the choir invisible.
Oh and there's this.....
and the rest from http://www2.snp.org/
We have frozen Council Tax for four years, saving an average family more than £300.
We’ve slashed or abolished business rates for some 80,000 small firms and local employers, protecting jobs in tough times.
We’ve put 1,000 more police on Scotland’s streets, helping drive crime down to its lowest level for 32 years.
We’ve abolished prescription charges, saving people with long-term illnesses an average of more than £180.
The National Conversation launched in 2007 revived progress on the constitutional debate in Scotland, and paves the way for an independence referendum in the next parliament.
We’ve restored free higher education by ruling out upfront fees and abolishing the £2,300 graduate endowment - a back door tuition fee.
We’re delivering a record-breaking 25,000 modern apprenticeships in the year ahead – a two-thirds increase on 2007.
We’ve transformed Scotland into a world leader in green energy, consenting a record 39 new renewable projects since we came to office – more than double the previous administration.
Our £10 million Saltire Prize for marine energy innovation is establishing Scotland at the forefront of this global renewable technology.
We’ve removed tolls on the Forth and Tay Bridges, saving commuters £184 a year on crossing the Tay, and £207 a year on crossing the Forth.
We’ve kept healthcare local. That means A&E units have been saved, children’s cancer services and neurosurgery units protected, and maternity units kept open.
We have provided vital support for the staging of two of the world’s greatest sporting events here in Scotland in 2014 – the Commonwealth games in Glasgow and the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles. This includes the building of a new National Indoor Sports Arena and the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.
We’ve started 24,000 social sector homes since coming into office in 2007 – that’s an average of 115 new houses every week.
We’ve helped some of the world’s poorest people by doubling the international development budget and protecting that aid from UK cuts.
We’ve delivered smaller government, including fewer ministers and departments, saving more than £4 million over the parliamentary term.
We’ve provided funding to secure the Dundee V&A museum, the new Bannockburn visitor centre, and the creation of the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayrshire.
We’ve provided extra funding for Scotland’s veteran charities, and ensured our ex-service men and women receive priority treatment in the NHS and other services.
We’ve established Creative Scotland as a single, national body for the arts, culture and creative industries.
We’ve protected spending in the NHS with an extra £1.2 billion to health boards over the last four years to safeguard frontline services – and we will continue to protect the health budget.
We’ve abolished hidden waiting lists, and reduced hospital waiting lists to a record low.
We’ve increased the number of nurses, doctors and dentists working in the NHS – and we are reducing the number of senior managers by a quarter.
There are 1,000 more cleaners in the health service, helping ensure infection in Scottish hospitals is now at an all-time low.
We’ve set up a tough new inspectorate to ensure that our hospitals are clean.
We’ve banned irresponsible alcohol discounts in supermarkets and off licences.
We’ve made sure our older generation is properly cared for by increasing payments for free personal and nursing care for the first time since it was introduced.
We’ve delivered on our ambitious cancer target which means treatment begins within one month of a decision to treat.
We are building the £840 million new South Glasgow Hospital.
We’ve cut the risk from cervical cancer for the next generation of young women by providing the HPV vaccine for girls in S2.
One million more Scots are registered with NHS dentists under the SNP Government.
We’ve delivered a new dental school in Aberdeen.
We’ve frozen bonuses to NHS consultants.
We’ve made sure more GP practices are open in the evenings and at weekends.
We’ve abolished charges at all NHS-run hospital car parks.
We’ve introduced a Patient Rights Act to provide new statutory rights for all those using the health service.
We’ve given the public a direct say in the NHS by introducing pilot elections in two health boards.
We’re working for a healthier Scotland by raising the legal age for buying tobacco to 18.
We’ve delivered more than 40,000 new heating systems and helped Scots on low incomes to reduce energy costs and keep their homes warm.
We’ve enabled councils to build new homes for the first time in years, providing funding for 3,300 new council houses.
We’ve reformed the Right to Buy in order to protect social housing for rent.
We’ve helped over 5,300 people buy their first home with our shared equity scheme.
We’ve helped 10,000 pensioners and families secure £1.6 million in savings through our benefits health check.
We’ve invested £17 million in the establishment of world class multi-sport facilities at Aberdeen Sports Village, Toryglen Regional Indoor Football Training Centre, and Ravenscraig Sports Centre.
We’ve invested £7.5 million to improve our medal hopes in 2012 and 2014 with World Class facilities for training for our elite and emerging athletes.
We’ve delivered the smallest average primary school class sizes ever, and set a new legal limit of 25 pupils for primary one.
Since the last election, 330 schools will have been built or refurbished - 80 more than planned by Labour.
We have lifted over 130,000 pupils out of crumbling school buildings.
We’ve raised standards in schools by introducing the new Curriculum for Excellence.
We’ve increased funding for college bursaries to a record £89 million, supporting a record 42,000 students.
We’ve given legal protection to rural schools, preventing unnecessary closure.
We’re helping less well-off youngsters by continuing the £30-a-week Educational Maintenance Allowance – now scrapped in England.
We’ve introduced tough new qualifications – the Scottish Baccalaureate – in science and languages, challenging the brightest pupils to achieve more.
We’ve helped 250,000 people expand their learning with Individual Learning Accounts to pay for training courses.
We’ve extended free school meals to 55,000 children from lower income families.
We’ve helped home-grown talent perform in Edinburgh with a £6 million Expo Fund for the City’s festivals.
We’ve reformed the unique and successful Children’s Hearing System to make it fit for the future.
We’ve made sure children who need additional support to learn get the help they need with new laws and guidance for all schools.
More than 2,600 primary children are now able to learn in dedicated Gaelic language classes, up by a fifth since 2007.
We’ve protected more than 15,000 jobs in Scotland during the recession, including by accelerating spending on nearly £350 million of public projects as part of our comprehensive Economic Recovery Plan.
We’ve put Scotland on course to exceed our interim target of 31 per cent of Scotland’s electricity from clean green renewable sources this year. And we’re on track for 80 per cent by 2020.
The approval we’ve given for a desperately needed new Forth Road Bridge will ease congestion, cut journey times, boost business and secure some 3,000 jobs.
We’ve delivered an extra £2.3 billion for jobs and public services by driving up efficiency in government – far exceeding the target of 1.5% efficiency savings.
We’ve established a £10 million national life sciences institute in Dundee.
We’ve funded improvements to major roads across the country including the M8, the M80, the A9, A90 and A96. We’re also completing the M74 - bringing new jobs and helping local regeneration.
We’ve protected Scotland’s pensioners from UK cuts by guaranteeing free bus travel, and we are extending the scheme to injured veterans.
We’ve successfully completed one of the largest rail projects in Scotland for decades, with the opening of the Airdrie-Bathgate rail line.
We’ve helped tourism and the local economy in the Western Isles through a pilot scheme to reduce ferry fares.
We’ve funded improvements in rail services and journey times from Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
We’ve invested £2.4 billion in improving the nation’s water infrastructure, and published proposals to boost the role of Scottish Water, publicly owned for the public benefit.
We’re on track to slash the number of quangos by more than a quarter.
We’ve established Public Contracts Scotland, a website that makes it easier than ever for small businesses to access government contacts.
We’ve invested £2 million in small post offices, helping 49 businesses expand and stay open.
We have established the Scottish Investment Fund to help grassroots business projects get up and running.
We’ve reformed Scottish Enterprise so that it focuses on growth sectors, growth markets and growth companies – boosting key industries such as renewables, financial services and life sciences.
We delivered Scotland’s first ever year of Homecoming in 2009, encouraging more than 95,000 visitors to travel to Scotland and exceeding its target by generating £53.7 million in additional tourism revenue.
Violent crime is down by over a fifth since the SNP came to office, with nearly 3,000 fewer violent offences last year.
We’ve used over £30 million seized from criminal behaviour to invest in community projects for over 300,000 Scottish kids.
Fear of crime has fallen – and the risk of becoming a victim of crime continues to fall, and is lower than south of the Border.
Knife crime is down by 30 per cent since this government took office, but we must and will step up efforts to keep driving this figure down.
We’ve delivered faster justice, with three-quarters of cases completed within six months – compared to only two-thirds in 2006/07. And criminals are being locked up for longer, with prison sentences at their longest for a decade.
We’ve put in place new measures to cut the cycle of re-offending with tough community punishment.
We’ve reformed the laws on sexual offences to make it easier to prosecute people for serious sexual attacks.
We’ve increased funding for Victim Support Scotland, and our victim notification scheme is helping people affected by crime.
We’re tackling Scotland’s drug problem head-on through our national drugs commission, the new national drugs strategy, and 20 per cent more funding to help people recover from addiction.
We’ve provided parents with more information on dangerous paedophiles to protect children in local communities.
We’ve given the go ahead to a new prison for the North East of Scotland, as part of our prison building programme.
We are building the Gartcosh crime campus, and have established the Serious and Organised Crime Taskforce.
We’ve provided Citizens Advice Scotland with extra funding to provide advice and support to families facing debt problems.
We are reforming the law on Double Jeopardy, to help ensure that the guilty do not escape justice.
We’ve introduced world leading Climate Change legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent by the end of the decade.
We’ve secured £1.6 billion of investment for Scotland’s rural economy through the Scottish Rural Development Programme.
Scotland is clean as well as green - under an SNP Government, recycling is at its highest level ever.
We have developed a non-nuclear energy strategy for Scotland, including working with partners to progress the concept of a European Super Grid to export our surplus power.
We’ve promoted Scotland’s top quality produce – sales of Scottish food and drink have increased by 30 per cent since the SNP came to office.
We’ve helped make our communities safer from flooding with investment in flood defences and new measures in the Flooding Act.
We’ve backed consumers with a continued ban on planting GM crops in Scotland.
We’ve developed Conservation Credits, catch quotas and on-board CCTV, working with fishermen to develop and implement fisheries policies right for the 21st century.
We are the first administration to introduce a scheme dedicated to encouraging new entrants into farming, worth £10 million.
We’ve delivered the Wildlife and Natural Environment Bill, toughening up wildlife crime measures and protecting Scotland’s environment as one of our greatest assets.
We’ve passed a Crofting Reform Act, tackling absenteeism, neglect and speculation to protect crofting for future generations.
With your support we can build on the work of the past four years. Progress has been made and there is more to do. Together, we can make Scotland better.
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