Latest news with #AlexSalmond
Spectator
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Ash Regan's prostitution blunder
To Scotland, where once Britain's greatest schools were found. These days, sadly, that can no longer be said, thanks to the SNP's mismanagement over the past 18 years in office. One of those who served as a minister in its wretched regime was Ash Regan, who held the Scottish Government's Community Safety brief from 2018 to 2022. Having failed to win the party leadership in 2023, she now sits as an MSP in the Alex Salmond fan club that is the Alba party. Her latest Holyrood initiative is to restart the debate on prostitution north of the border. Regan is championing a new 'Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill' which aims to criminalise the buying of sex in Scotland while decriminalising those selling sexual services. The 51-year-old is in the midst of a big publicity push for her Bill. But it seems she has now come unstuck in her latest interview with
BBC News
3 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
A chapter closes as the RBS bailout enters the history books
Those leaving school this summer to study economics at university will see the bailout of Royal Bank of Scotland as a piece of were in nappies when it happened. And today, in a way, history is what it becomes. The UK government is a shareholder no tranches of shares have been sold off at far less than they cost, from an 84% stake owned by the UK government down to those looking to turn a profit on an investment are forgetting that is not what this was. It was a rescue of a bank which, in 2008, could be counted as the biggest in the world. It had more than $2.2 (£1.63) trillion on its balance those young students of economic history, note that it was a source of pride for Scotland to host such a successful example of globalised finance. The then First Minister, the late Alex Salmond, wrote as much, as he encouraged the chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, to take over the Dutch bank ABN it turned out to be riddled with unforeseen risk on its less global, HBOS or Halifax Bank of Scotland, headquartered on the Mound in Edinburgh, had splurged lending around the UK had acted as if, in the words of then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, there was "no more boom and bust".Well, there had been a boom. And this was a bust - or there would have been if the UK government had not stepped Bank of Scotland was within hours of having to shut down, end its massively complex trail of transactions with other banks and stop issuing cash from its automated tellers. Alistair Darling, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told of the warning he received. If RBS fell, it was hard to see how the West's banking system wouldn't go down with the next morning, a bailout had begun, to shore up Royal Bank of Scotland, first with £20bn, later with £25.5bn months later, it announced a record UK annual loss of £24.1bn, with many more billions in red ink, including fines and penalties, before it eventually turned its next profit in would be guarantees, put behind hundreds of millions of pounds in assets, while it tore through them in a fire sale of debt obligations tied to tanking property properties were handed back by customers, including chains of hotels, restaurants and pubs, leased aircraft, office blocks, warehouses and list seemed endless and endlessly daunting. The bank divided the good from the bad, and ran off billions of pounds in toxic financial was told to sell Direct Line insurance and its US subsidiary, Citizens, having already sold a stake in Bank of China. It sold its payments platform, exited the high-stakes, high-risk world of investment banking, and was told to hive off a share of business banking that it struggled to sell or to spin off, until it gave up. In Edinburgh, there was a palpable sense of shock, as RBS and HBOS both imploded and had to be bailed out. Could the Scottish capital survive the loss of such financial titans?They not only employed big staff numbers at their headquarters, but contracted with a supply chain of other professional services as well as transport, catering and numerous others who had come to depend on them. Going too were the sponsorship deals ranging across sport and culture, including the city's history has been well documented. What remains to be seen is the account and accountability of Fred Goodwin, removed from office in what he called a "drive-by shooting", later stripped of his knighthood and of his dignity as he hung on for a vast lifetime of the staff of Royal Bank of Scotland had invested in its shares for their pension nest-eggs, but saw valuations plummet to near 17 years later, the story is of Edinburgh's resilience. Its financial skills base continues to retain and attract big banks. Its asset managers dodged the flak, and thrived, some more than city is now a centre of fintech, or financial technology, much of it spinning out from its does not have the huge bank salaries of the top executives to pump up its property prices, but they're being pumped up all the same. Education, technology and tourism have filled some of the gaps left by the banks. But the shrinking of RBS, allied to changes to banking and the shift to working-from-home, have left Goodwin's prestige global HQ at Gogarburn, near Edinburgh Airport, with many, many empty bailout helped, as it did for the whole UK and international economy. It helped also that the late Lord Darling displayed the unflappable calm of an Edinburgh lawyer in steering the Treasury through the crisis. That quality was fact that there was political and public accountability for the bailout, expressed through the Treasury's shareholding stake, also helped it retain a foothold in visits to the country, repeating their humble apologies, chief executives would acknowledge the bank had strong roots in Scottish banking tradition, even if they had gone badly were careful not to complain that the dominant shareholder was a restriction on their freedom, forcing them to shrink further than some in the bank wanted and to curtail executive stuck with the name until the evidence could no longer be ignored - that Royal Bank of Scotland was a deeply tainted brand. Its Scottish customers remained loyal, perhaps because they cannily reckoned on it as a secure, state-backed place to park their pounds. But elsewhere, the NatWest brand would take over as the corporate entity. The UK Government, wielding its shareholder clout through the arms-length holding company, wielded it more lightly than might have been the could see that too much interference would further reduce the bank's market valuation. It held back from the temptation to direct lending, at least overtly, into sectors that might have been politically are, perhaps, lessons to be learned before this era passes, about state stakeholding versus nationalisation, about the constraints it imposes and the unaccounted value it can generate if a company's political masters use their influence a European country such as France, such ownership, from energy to airlines, is common. It offers both good and bad lessons in Scotland (Scottish Water and rural airports to Ferguson Shipyard).But it is rare for the UK. In edging towards an industrial policy protecting and promoting strategic sectors, which could soon see state ownership of the steel industry, it may become less could be a task for the Library of Mistakes, set up after the crisis in an Edinburgh New Town mews house by a group of the city's financiers, to learn the lessons of financial crises down the service that the state's stake in RBS and NatWest provided through those years has been as protection against takeover. While hobbled, Royal Bank of Scotland and later NatWest, might otherwise have been snapped up by a rival, broken up and parcelled has not happened. Not yet, anyway. Now fully in private ownership, as both an acquirer and a potential target, the next chapter of its story is poised to be written, two years shy of its 300th anniversary.
The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
When the Scots were revolting: Do we need another Braveheart?
The latest in the Archive on 4 series, the programme dipped into the BBC's vintage recordings to follow the impact of the film on Scottish cinema, Scottish cultural and political life and, perhaps most importantly, on the tourist trade. Stirling is still seeing the benefits three decades later. Morrison went up the Wallace Monument at the Abbey Craig to discover that, yes, all the international visitors had indeed seen the movie. 'Who needs historical accuracy when you've got a gift shop?' she asked. The programme invariably touched on how the film was exploited by politicians at the time (notably by former SNP leader Alex Salmond, although the Tories also sought to tap into the film's popularity) and how it unleashed a wave of anti-English sentiment in cinemas. 'People were standing up and cheering English people getting killed,' historian Fiona Wallace pointed out to Morrison. Read more There's another question to be asked about Braveheart, perhaps. Is it any good? Not really. That's never stopped Scots embracing it though. You could say the same about Restless Natives, a sub-par Bill Forsyth simulacrum that's now been transformed into a musical, or The Wicker Man, a not-that-great horror movie that's been reclaimed as some kind of masterpiece (Morrison isn't a fan of the latter, we learn in passing). Maybe Scots in the past were just starved of films and TV about themselves that they'll embrace anything. The stereotypical Scotland on screen that existed prior to Braveheart, film lecturer Johnny Murray told Morrison, is a country that's an unspoiled wilderness, that's authentic, untameable and inhabited by noble savages. It's a recipe, he pointed out, that can either be served sweet - as in Whisky Galore! or Local Hero - or savoury, as in Braveheart. 'These are all very masculine, these stereotypes,' Morrison suggested. Indeed. At another point we are reminded that in Braveheart it takes 20 minutes before any of its female characters gets to say a line. Which suggests what? That we need less Mel Gibson, more Morven Callar maybe. Earlier in the day Radio Scotland's Sportsound had the excitement of a penalty shootout to bring us. When Aberdeen won it, a Sportsound reporter - I was in the car so I can't be sure, but I think it was Tyrone Smith - went pitchside to catch the jubilant victors. A couple of them, carried away in the moment swore, a little, prompting an apology from the presenter. Aberdeen players celebrate winning the penalty shoot-out during the Scottish Gas Men's Scottish Cup final at Hampden Park (Image: Andrew Milligan) You do wonder if interviewing players in a heightened state of emotion is a good idea if you are bothered by the odd swear word. Then again, was it the Scottish players who couldn't mind their language? Noble savages indeed. On Monday 5 Live had spent the day reporting from the joyous chaos of the Liverpool FC victory parade through the city. My sister lives in the city and had sent me photos of the players on the bus passing her home in the south of the city earlier in the day. At teatime 5 Live Drive presenter Chris Warburton was clearly enjoying the atmosphere in the city centre. And then everything changed when a car hit some of those in the parade. The sudden shift from joy to shock and horror could be heard in Warburton's voice. 'The mood since I last spoke to you has really changed now,' he said, trying to find the words when he still wasn't totally clear what had happened. Nicky Campbell spent his 5 Live phone-in show on Tuesday morning talking about the incident. The conversation was largely sensible. But now and then Campbell would read out comments from listeners speculating on the why. Campbell then added, 'We can't speculate on any motivation but I am just conveying to you what some people are saying. We don't yet know.' Hmm, why read them out then? Kenneth Cranham (Image: free) Listen Out For: The Essay: An Actor's Life, Radio 3, Monday to Friday, 9.45pm It's easy to forget that actor Kenneth Cranham - star of Shine on Harvey Moon and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and known for playing London gangsters on a regular basis - grew up in Dunfermline. In this series he talks to fellow actor Neil Dudgeon about working with Joe Orton and Harold Pinter
Edinburgh Reporter
5 days ago
- Politics
- Edinburgh Reporter
Why did the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry take so long?
Lord Hardie who was charged with conducting the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry (ETI) which cost millions and was much delayed, has responded citing operational difficulties with accommodation and internet as the reasons for some of the delay. The Edinburgh Tram Inquiry report was delivered nine years after it was instructed by then First Minister, Alex Salmond at a cost of more than £13 million. His Lordship submitted evidence to the parliamentary Finance and Public Administration Committee on Tuesday. In advance of the committee meeting at Holyrood the retired judge sent a written submission which covered many of the practical issues, saying these were reasons for the delay. He said: 'Following my appointment as chair of ETI, I had to identify suitable premises with the assistance of the Solicitor to the Inquiry, whom I had appointed immediately following my appointment, and other civil servants unconnected with the ETI. This issue is addressed in chapter 2 of my Report. I was offered and accepted the use of premises that were surplus to requirements of Creative Scotland. The rent was paid by the Scottish Government and the office premises had the appearance of a modern office with adequate IT connections. The appearance was deceptive and for almost 6 months staff at ETI struggled with inadequate IT connections which frequently failed. 'The effect on staff morale was significant and there was a considerable waste of time and money during that time. In the Report I refer to the fiasco of Vodafone failing to install a cable on different occasions for different reasons and failing to link the portals to a newly installed cabinet. 'Apart from accommodation it was necessary to appoint a Secretary whose early tasks included staffing the Inquiry office with document coders, an IT manager and others. Many of the staff were agency workers while others were civil servants electing to transfer to ETI. Because of civil service procedures the delay in civil servants, including the Secretary, moving to ETI resulted in delay to the initial progress of the Inquiry. The process of setting up the Inquiry with accommodation, staff and other resources gave the impression of our reinventing the wheel. There was little or no guidance to assist with this stage of the Inquiry. 'My first recommendation of 24 in my Report was that 'Scottish Ministers should undertake a review of public inquiries to determine the most cost-effective method of avoiding delay in the establishment of an inquiry, including consideration of establishing a dedicated unit within the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service [SCTS] and publishing regularly updated guidance for people involved in the establishment and progress of public inquiries.' Net costs Lord Hardie also recommended that in any future inquiries the costs should be reported net – and he gave his reasons why the net cost of £8.7 million was the more representative cost of the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry. He said: 'Wherever possible and in the interests of economy regarding public expenditure I used resources that had already been funded by the public purse. These included the cost of accommodation which was vacant and where the Scottish Government was the tenant and had sub-let it to a government department or agency. 'It also included the salaries of permanent civil servants who had transferred to the ETI and whose posts in their former department were not filled. Although these costs were added to the costs of the ETI as an accounting exercise, the public purse did not incur any additional expense. I am aware that not all public inquiries have adopted a similar approach. For example some may use accommodation that is not already available within the Scottish Government's portfolio of leased but vacant property; some may also use more staff recruited from outside the civil service. 'In these examples the costs will be included in the costs of the inquiry and will be additional expenditure incurred by the public purse. As I explained in my video release of the ETI Report, if the expenditure on resources already funded by the public purse was deducted from the cost of ETI, the cost at that time would have reduced from £13.1 million to £8.7 million.' Lord Hardie Chair of the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry Professor Sandy Cameron Professor Sandy Cameron, CBE, who is currently Independent Chair of the Children and Young People's Centre for Justice, gave evidence to the committee in person. He was involved in the Jersey care inquiry which was supposed to last six months and cost £6 million – but it took two years and cost £23 million. Asked about the apparently enormous cost of that inquiry he was asked if lawyers are motivated to keep the cost to a minimum. He replied: 'Legal colleagues work very much on the basis of doing what they believe that they need to do, rather than looking at how to contain and manage costs. The expectation is, 'This needs to be done. We will do it and we'll keep going until it's done.' There is a reluctance to look at other ways in which they might have done it and other ways in which they could have contained costs. To some extent, that is about the way in which legal colleagues always practice.' Professor Cameron said in his written submission that he can 'confidently predict that … inquiries will last longer than anticipated and cost more than budgeted for'. He suggested to the committee that there must be another way of conducting inquiries which 'manage the costs more effectively and deliver more rapidly for people'. He explained that the public 'lose interest' when inquiries last for a long time, and for inquiries involving survivors or victims there is 'the issue of how long it feels for them that the inquiry is taking to get to a conclusion'. The cost to the public purse in the last years has been considerable – some £91.9 million on the child abuse inquiry and £34 million on the Scottish Covid Inquiry. Michael Marra MSP who sits on the committee posed the question as to whether it might be possible to set up a judge-led public inquiry unit. Any instructions would then be sent to that unit to set up more quickly and also to keep tabs on finances. But Professor Cameron was not convinced that any such body should be judge led. He said that he thinks there is good reason for looking at an alternative to public inquiries, but explained to Craig Hoy MSP that it is important that there is a degree of independence in reviewing the outcome of any recommendations of any inquiry. Like this: Like Related
The Herald Scotland
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
SNP has betrayed voters - no wonder Reform is on the march in Scotland
As the referendum campaign entered its final weeks I travelled extensively throughout Scotland and began to sense a dynamic in our towns and villages that seemed to have been overlooked by Yes strategists. As the opinion polls crept up from a starting point of around 27% in favour of Yes and moved into the high 30s and mid-40s, the inconvenience was easily buried. Read more The truth that dare not speak its name in ardent Yes society was this: that a large percentage of Scots were quite happy to belong to the Union and harboured deep feelings of affection about England and the English. What's more: they considered themselves to be as fiercely proud of their Scottishness as the most fervent nationalist. This simply didn't compute at Yes HQ. What if people just liked the Union for its own sake and for what it seemed to represent to them: peace, stability, permanence, yet still permitting badinage and nationalistic tomfoolery around the big sporting occasions? It was unlikely, given the intensity of the emotional excursions and alarums around September, 2014, that these people would be out and proud about this. Alex Salmond seemed to recognise this too (though somewhat late in the day) when he delivered a speech in Cromarty about the social, cultural and political unions that would always bind Scotland and England in a fraternal embrace. Certainly, support for Scottish independence has more or less held up since 2014. It could hardly have failed to: not when you consider the Boris Johnson years and extreme Brexit and Jacob Rees Mogg and the obscene get-rich-quick Covid schemes that operated for friends and families of Tory grandees. And then, even when it seemed that the SNP would inevitably lose Holyrood to Labour in 2026, along came a windfall named Sir Keir Starmer, a man so shallow and insincere that he makes John Swinney look principled. Two questions remain for those who still think independence is a possibility in the next ten years or so: how many of those quiet Scottish No voters have become even more attached to the Union. And to what extent have their numbers been augmented by Scottish nationalists sickened by the way their party has been hollowed out by an ugly and vicious cartel of special interest groups hell-bent on cancelling women arguing for their sex-based rights? SNP leader and First Minister John Swinney (Image: free) Even a cursory glance at social media reveals that many could scarce forbear to shout 'three cheers for the Union' when first the UK Tories activated the Section 35 provision to thwart self-ID and then again when the UK Supreme Court ruled in favour of biological reality for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act. We may get an answer to these questions if Reform UK, lacking even a Scottish figurehead, occupies either of the top two places at next week's Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by election. The disgusting race-baiting that's featured in Reform's attacks on Anas Sarwar should alert those tempted to vote for this deeply unpleasant party. It's reasonable to ask why decent people might consider voting for them. An even more pressing question arises, though. What does it say about Scotland's counterfeit Left that large sections of the working-class seem intent on doing just that? John Swinney already seems to have read the runes. In one of several rambling, incoherent interviews, the First Minister – under probing by BBC Scotland's excellent Martin Geissler – tried to explain what a 'compelling and demonstrable demonstration of support for independence' looks like. Mr Swinney said it would be something like the numbers in the run-up to the 1997 election in Scotland, when there was 'demonstrable, clear consensus of opinion that Scotland should have its own parliament within the United Kingdom'. In other words, 74%. I've long suspected that the SNP in the Sturgeon/Yousaf/Swinney era has been duping its support base. This confirmed it. A few days later, Michael Gove could scarcely wipe the smirk from his face when he said that he agreed with Mr Swinney that another referendum might happen if there was 'an overwhelming desire on the part of the Scottish people for one'. Effectively, he was saying: 'my job here is done'. And neither he, nor his Unionist chums even had to lift a finger to make it happen. All of the heavy lifting has been done by the SNP who surrendered independence to their malevolent little identity parade. Such has been the chaos engulfing Scottish and UK politics in the last 12 months that it's been claimed that Nigel Farage may yet be the man to keep the dream of independence alive. Another suspect narrative attaches to this: that if he were to lead Reform UK into Downing Street then surely all reasonable, liberal and thoughtful Scots would have no other option than to vote for independence to disassociate us from this riot of a party. Read more This though would be to ignore the ugly, class-baiting tendencies of the SNP in recent years in which they routinely attack working class communities for not speaking properly, for drinking too much; for eating unhealthy food, for being unfit parents; for exhibiting irresponsible attitudes to refuse collection; for their callousness in the face of Scotland's drugs death crisis. 'Find something else to moan about,' Mr Swinney spat at a Labour MSP who had attempted to question him about child homelessness, a response for which he was later forced to apologise. Elements of the deeply unpleasant nature of Reform's attacks on Anas Sarwar are present in the tide of malevolence that the SNP and Greens have directed towards decent Scottish women who have refused to be cancelled. It may be that having seen the sewer that runs beneath the SNP, the darkness at the heart of Reform doesn't scare voters so much now. The SNP have brought us to this bad, bad place in Scottish politics, no-one else. Kevin McKenna is a Herald writer and columnist. He is Scottish Feature Writer of the Year. He's fiercely proud of never having been approached by any political party or lobbying firm to do their bidding.
