Latest news with #SamHall
Irish Independent
6 days ago
- Irish Independent
Man who burned Koran guilty of religiously aggravated public order offence
Hamit Coskun, 50, held the flaming Islamic text aloft in London on February 13 Sam Hall, Ted Hennessey and Lily Shanagher ©Press Association Today at 08:48 The burning of a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London amounted to a religiously aggravated public order offence, a judge has found. Hamit Coskun, 50, shouted 'f*** Islam', 'Islam is religion of terrorism' and 'Koran is burning' as he held the flaming Islamic text aloft in Rutland Gardens, Knightsbridge, on February 13, Westminster Magistrates' Court heard last week.
Scotsman
19-05-2025
- Sport
- Scotsman
Quality over quantity as 125th Dispatch Trophy set for exciting last-16 ties
Posse of Lothians champions set to be involved in second-round matches at the Braids Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... It may have suffered in terms of quantity over the years, which is down to a combination of lots of the old teams no longer existing and some big clubs surprisingly not being able to raise a team. But there is absolutely no denying that the quality as far as the overall field is concerned has risen in that same time in the Edinburgh Evening News Dispatch Trophy. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad For example, take the 125th edition, which got underway in glorious conditions at the beautiful Braids on Saturday and continues when eight second-round matches are held on Tuesday night. Heriot's had Lothians champion Sam Hall, Fraser Smith, Elliot Innes and Scott Dickson in action on Saturday at the Braid Hills Golf Course | National World Heriot's have Sam Hall, the current Lothians champion, in their line up while Sean Marc, who landed that title in 2015, is representing Kilgour Wealth Management. Two-time Lothians champion Allyn Dick is also taking part, bidding to claim his eighth gold medal in a Duddingston side that is chasing a third straight trophy triumph. David Miller, yet another Lothians champion, played on Saturday for the holders and it's likely that Jamie Duguid, runaway winner of the Craigmillar Park Open last month, will be back in the Duddingston team for the last-16 stage. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Some of the youngsters taking part have also helped up the ante in terms of quality and that, of course, is no disrespect whatsoever to the hundreds of players who have played in the historic tournament over the years. Archie Wyatt is representing Murrayfield after arriving home from the US at the end of the college season on Friday, as are Stephen Gallacher Foundation duo Jake Johnston and Callum Kenneally. Two of the players - Callum Kenneally and Jake Johnston - representing the Stephen Gallacher Foundation in the 125th Dispatch Trophy only arrived home from the US at the end of the college season on Friday | National World Add in the likes of Dispatch Trophy stalwarts Keith Reilly, Graham Robertson, Fraser Jarvis, Stewart More and John Cafferty among others and it really is a cracking field still in the trophy hunt. 'I love it up here and will keep returning as long as I possibly can,' admitted Jarvis, who made it to the final with Lothians & Borders Police in 2009 and is part of Newbattle team Donuts@the9th on this occasion. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'It's one of the best competitions you can play. It's competitive but friendly at the same time and, yes, we had our donuts on the ninth tee with our opponents on Saturday!' Hall and his Heriot's team-mates face Heriot's Quad on Tuesday night in a repeat of the 2023 semi-final. Heriot's lost to Duddingston in the final on that occasion before it was the same outcome in the semi-finals last year, when Heriot's had to make changes due to a clash with one of the top FP events in the UK. Scott Dickson wasn't buying into this being a case of them necessarily having unfinished business, but you get the feeling that will be driving Heriot's this week. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It's brilliant to see both Kilgour Property Management and Kilgour Wealth involved in the second round after their weekend wins. 'We are not the wealth part of the company,' joked Gus Santana after joining forces with David Downing, John Shepherd and Mark Roberts for Kilgour Property. They now face Duddingston and spice will be added to that one by the fact that Santana, Downing and Shepherd are all members of the Capital club, with Roberts, who is a Tantallon man, being the odd one out. Tuesday's second-round ties 4.30pm Donuts@9th v Kilgour Wealth Management 4.40pm Hailes v Edinburgh Western 4.50pm Heriot's Quad v Heriot's 5.00pm BBT v Stephen Gallacher Foundation 5.10pm Silverknowes B v Edinburgh Academicals 5.20pm Harrison v Silverknowes 5.30pm Braids United v Murrayfield 5.40pm Duddingston v Kilgour Property
Telegraph
05-03-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Heat pump costs higher for Britons than Europeans
Britain is one of the only countries in Europe where having a heat pump leaves households with higher energy bills. Telegraph analysis has found it costs £80 a year more to keep a home warm with a heat pump than a gas boiler in the UK. Only in Belgium would households face a bigger hit after switching to the green heating technology. The Government is encouraging householders to install heat pumps in order to hit its net zero goals, and wants 600,000 installed each year by 2028. But officials fear it will be impossible to reach that target while households face a bills penalty for getting rid of their gas boiler. Installations last year reached just 60,000. Household electricity bills in the UK are some of the most expensive in Europe, partly because of the impact of green levies used to pay for the development of renewables. Sam Hall, the director of the Conservative Environment Network said: 'Electricity prices are far too high. They are damaging businesses and causing pain for households. 'They also have a detrimental impact on electrification, undermining households' incentives to switch to heat pumps and electric cars. To both save Britain money and decarbonise, we must lower electricity prices.' Levies of £6bn a year The Government is now considering removing the levies, which amount to nearly £6 billion a year, with options including adding them on to gas bills or to people's taxes. Fuel poverty campaigners have warned that moving the levies to gas would be unaffordable for the millions of households with gas boilers that are already struggling with record energy debt. 'Moving levies onto gas does nothing to change the underlying costs of supplying electricity, and would have potentially harmful distributional impacts,' said Harry Wilkinson, the head of policy at the Global Warming Policy Foundation. 'These levies can be reduced if we stop subsidising new intermittent renewables.' Lord Callanan, a minister of energy efficiency in the last Conservative government, said that 'one of the biggest barriers to uptake of heat pumps is these artificially high prices electricity because of all the add-ons' from net zero projects. He added: 'We knew when we were in government that this was one of the issues that we needed to fix, and I'm sure the current Government do as well. Clearly, it is politically difficult, there's no getting away from that. But it's one of those things that just has to be done. 'They need to start the process of slowly transferring the levies from electricity onto gas.' Lord Callanan said transferring the costs to the Treasury was unlikely to be viable, given the pressures on public finances. The Telegraph compared electricity and gas prices for domestic users in the first half of 2024 using figures from Eurostat, the EU's data service.
