December 21st – December 27th, 2024
Electric Vehicles Don’t Like the Cold; Is AI harming the gig economy? but first ….
Police Can’t Take it Anymore
There has been a worrying 49% surge in 5 years in officers resigning to pursue other careers or education, or retiring earlier than they should be, with 257 officers leaving in 2023.
Chief Constable Jo Farrell says in the next financial year they are on track to reach 16,600 officers, that is, to get back to their previous baseline. At the moment there are only 16,353 full-time-equivalents in post.
The Scottish Institute for Policing Research found almost half of officers said they would not have chosen policing as a career if they had known how demanding it is today, with drastically reduced numbers of beat officers, demands on their free time to complete custody reports and attend court, and having to cover much larger areas than previously, meaning they are often haring round from town to town on call after call.
Labour More Likely to Cause Poverty than Fight it
Labour’s focus quickly became clear after taking office. They will not provide a welfare net for those who need it, but are actively working towards taking £3 BILLION worth of benefits away from those currently entitled, according to research by the House of Commons Library commissioned by the SNP. They are also refusing to lift the two-child benefit cap. Up to 45,000 Scots could lose nearly £5K a year under these measures, particularly those on Universal Credit (UC) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Labour do not seem to have noticed that their own National Insurance hike for employers will probably limit the jobs available. Never mind that cutting benefits does not get people back to work if there are no jobs, for example in rural areas.
Scrap Universal Credit?
Universal Credit is set up to put people further in debt, with a mandatory 5-week delay to getting benefits, during which they rack up considerable debt in council tax, school meals, social rent and private rent top-ups and energy payments. They may get a UC ‘loan’ to cover this, but then have it deducted later on.
Professor Morag Treanor of Glasgow University has highlighted that government agencies can be ‘uncompromising’ compared to the private sector, harsh and punitive, and pulls families ‘deeper into poverty and holds them there’. The average deduction for Scots on UC is £80 a month, and over £1 million is owed to councils by families who are not entitled to free school meals, despite being on low incomes.
Two-thirds of those on Universal Credit were suffering one or more benefit deductions, meaning reliance on food banks, with Heriot-Watt research finding 64% of food bank referrals were on Universal Credit. One solution would be to make the advance UC loan a grant and non-repayable.
Football Violence Out of Control?
There has been widespread condemnation of the violence which erupted in Glasgow ahead of the recent Old Firm League Cup Final, bringing chaos to Argyle Street, forcing shoppers to shelter in store entrances, with flares let off and objects thrown. One police officer was injured by a missile and a male was hospitalised after an assault.
The violence appeared coordinated between two groups and the police had to temporarily invoke special powers to stop and search members of the public as far away as South Lanarkshire. The use of pyrotechnics, although prohibited, is widespread at big games.
Gig Economy at the mercy of AI
A survey by the Workers’ Observatory, a worker-driven research collective, highlights the reality of the gig economy for food delivery drivers. Many claim that their accounts have been deactivated by their ‘employers’ for minor infractions they could not control, like road closures leading to late deliveries. Deactivation means they cannot work. One Just Eat worker said the appeal system does not work. Complaints are just ignored.
Fully two-thirds of those surveyed do not believe they have received tips paid to them via the app. AI is now being used by Deliveroo and Uber to drive down rates paid to drivers and control their working conditions, resulting in increased hazards to gig workers, unregulated systems and long hours.
The War on Motorists (continued)
Under Transport Scotland plans, Scots could be charged up to £15 PER DAY to drive in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen. No new legislation would be needed for this to be enacted by local authorities. Or they may alternatively charge between 3p and 10p per kilometre to drive on ANY road. The £15 charge would raise between £800 million and £1.3 billion, and the pence-per-metre would raise between £875 million and £2.3 billion.
EVs don’t like the Cold
Electric Vehicles don’t do too well in Scotland’s very cold weather, simply giving up the ghost and stopping. Recently, bus passengers in Glasgow were left stranded due to the batteries draining much more quickly in the cold. Of course, they cannot be pushed off the road, so pile-ups of stationary vehicles quickly build up. Nonetheless, the Scottish government is ‘charging’ ahead with delivering 24,000 more charging points by 2030. But they admit this will need an eight-fold increase in private investment in the sector to be achievable.
While the government struggles to deliver on promises to make the A9 and A96 safer, and struggle to do anything at all with the A75 and A77, they did manage 6000 charging points. Not only that, but we got them TWO YEARS before they were due.
Police Misogyny Contradiction
Serious misconduct allegations against Police Scotland officers resulted in nine officers being sacked or quitting, some after allegations of sex offences, stalking and domestic abuse. Some quit before disciplinary proceedings and because they quit or retired ahead of a misconduct probe, their cases were dropped and they stayed eligible for their pensions. One officer ended up on the sex offenders’ register, another stalked their ex-partner.
The force remains committed to tackling misogyny, but is still hell-bent on allowing men to access women’s toilet and changing room spaces if no-one kicks up a fuss.
But police are not so keen on tackling Scotland’s Shoplifting Epidemic, which has soared by over 60%, with secondary school pupils the second-largest group responsible, as well as organised crime gangs which travel through the UK. Attacks on shop staff have increased correspondingly.
Reports to police often result in ‘no attendance’ or a cursory look out request for offenders, followed by the crime being noted over the phone by officers.
Labour ‘to review’ the Internal Market Act
Labour will be fast-tracking a review of the Internal Market Act, which Scotland and Wales have called a significant and far-reaching assault on devolution, demanding mutual recognition by all 4 UK entities of goods and services, a ‘so-called race to the bottom’.
The review will start in January 2025 and is meant to be finished by summer 2025.
No plans for Ferry Reform
Scottish Transport secretary Fiona Hyslop said there are no plans for immediate decisions on the network or for any public consultations on its running. State-run ferries will continue to be supplied by a tripartite grouping of Transport Scotland, Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL, who own ferries and 26 harbours) and CalMac Ferries which deliver the service.
Ernst & Young recommended merging CMAL and CalMac and including island communities as part of Project Neptune. Instead, the government is planning to award a non-contested permanent ferry contract to the same parties which have spectacularly failed to deliver so far.
This is at the same time as Audit Scotland have sounded a warning that Ferguson Marine will be no longer viable without significant government money.
Just Transition or Economic Cliff-Edge?
We have heard a lot about the disastrous effect the closure of the Grangemouth refinery will have on Scotland’s local and wider economy, as well as the terrible message it sends to the rest of the world, that Scotland’s government does not care that Scotland will be the only leading oil producer with no refinery of its own.
Since 2014, UK oil-and gas-supported jobs have been halved to just over 200,000. Renewables have brought in £10 billion to the economy in 2021 and now supports 42,000 jobs. But that is well short of the 464,000 UK jobs supported by oil and gas in 2014. And sad to say the Scottish government appears indifferent, given its obsession with arbitrary Net Zero targets.
Space Industry ‘not viable’ without the military
Spacewatch campaign group say the enthusiasm for Scotland’s new space exploration sector may be over-hyped, saying much of this type of development depends on the military paying to use the facilities for launching spy satellites and such. The destination of £14.5 million in Scottish government funding given to support the Sutherland Spaceport, which has now been paused, with rockets launching instead from the SaxaVord site in Shetland.
The group also says it calls into question the SNP’s long-standing opposition to Trident, given that military operations would be needed to make the project financially viable.
Scotland Still Exporting to Russia
Scotland has exported at least £26 million of drink to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, despite producers, including whisky producers, being urged to boycott the Putin regime. The second quarter of 2024 saw just under £3.85 million-worth of ‘beverages’ exported.
This is completely legal, but the Scottish and UK governments have urged producers not to continue doing so. East Kilbride firm Campbell Meyer is to have its Glendale budget whisky bottled near Moscow, but big producers like Diageo have dismantled their Russian operations.
It is not easy to compile completely accurate figures due to shipments possibly going through third-party countries such as Latvia.
Finally,
Wild Boar Out of Control
Thousands of feral pigs roam the Great Glen which runs from Glencoe and Fort William to Inverness, with some farmers saying the animals are now approaching the city itself. Government body NatureScot says the numbers are in the ‘low thousands’, but local residents estimate it is nearer 5000. Highland Deer Management believe the wild boar population is ‘out of control’ and unmanageable, with reports of boar at Dochfour and Torvean Quarry.
It is another example of well-intentioned government plans running out of control.