January 3rd – January 9th, 2026
Well, we hope you all made it through the Bells in good shape and are ready to go in this Election Year …. A Happy New Year to all ….
Swinney backs Males in Female Prisons; Remember when Ministers were accountable? St Andrews becoming a Rich Man’s Theme Park; … but first …
Did you know the ‘Hoolie’ is a trademark?
No? Neither did the Edinburgh Hogmanay ‘hoolie’. But Gary Innes, who launched the Glasgow Hoolie in the Hydro event, saw the possibilities and trademarked the word ‘hoolie’ last year to ‘protect the brand’ from other events including the Edinburgh ‘Night Afore Hoolie’ New Year event beneath Edinburgh Castle. The Glasgow event has run for 3 years, while the Edinburgh promoters claimed that the term ‘hoolie’ was fairly generic, and that hoolie events have been held over 30 years of Edinburgh festivities without a problem.
But under pressure Edinburgh backed down and their event has become the Night Afore Concert (doesn’t exactly grab you, does it?). The trademark is valid until 2034.
Swinney backs Male Prisoners over Female
Despite last year’s Supreme Court decision being unanimous (5-0) – that biological sex is the determinant of rights under the UK Equality Act, not gender preference – our First Minister is fighting on valiantly to protect the rights of males to be in female prisons, in clear contravention of the ruling, with his government asking a judge to declare that the ruling ‘breaches the human rights of trans inmates’. For Women Scotland are currently pursuing a judicial review to overturn Scotland’s prisons policy. Incredibly, the government is asking that the judicial review is dismissed outright, failing with they want a ‘declaration of incompatibility’ – i.e. that the Supreme Court decision should not apply in prisons.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Greens’ Ross Greer refuses to say Adam Graham is a rapist, saying it is Isla Bryson who is a rapist, which is impossible if as they claim Isla Bryson is female. Shame on you, Scottish Greens.
Such is the tangle you get into when you make gender self-ID an article of faith which makes no sense and which most do not agree with.
Forget Women Heading the SNP Party Lists
…. now the SNP is putting MEN at the top of half the regional lists. Of course, the whole question of all-women shortlists was somewhat snookered by the SNP putting a trans-identifying male at the top of one all-women shortlist in 2021, and after that, the idea somehow never caught on. After taking legal advice, the SNP is this time deciding the sex of the lead list candidate based on the number of men or women currently at Holyrood, meaning the lower number of 28 males to 32 females allows the party to favour the men. The constituencies affected are Edinburgh and Lothians East, Mid Scotland and Fife, North-East Scotland and West Scotland.
But critics say the placing of men contradicts its own national council decision in June which sought to favour women, BAME and disabled candidates, as in 2021.
Even in 2021, the SNP ‘women first’ policy was compromised. Now they have dropped the pretence entirely.
Newly-released Scottish Cabinet papers
reveal some interesting debates and decisions in 2010. For example, ministers planned to impose a new business tax to subsidise universities who even then were facing a looming financial crisis. Cabinet opposition led to the plan being dropped but it was agreed to invite views on how businesses could make a ‘reciprocal contribution’ in recognition of the benefit they gain from universities.
Education Secretary Mike Russell said that, due to the Scottish ‘free tuition’ policy, an extra £1 billion government investment was needed over the following five years to 2015 just to keep pace with English university funding. In the last couple of years this has come home to roost, with many Scottish universities facing severe financial difficulties, with Dundee University getting a £40 million funding injection for its financial recovery, following an earlier £22 million from them.
Interestingly, the Cabinet papers also show a time when government ministers actually felt accountable. SNP Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson did not wait to be sacked, but resigned for getting things badly wrong when the government was caught unawares by blizzards which led to hundreds of people being left stranded in their vehicles on the M8, M9 and A80, with other routes totally gridlocked.
Stevenson admitted there had been insufficient coordination between police, Transport Scotland’s control centre and transport operators, and carried the can. Will Fiona Hyslop resign over the shameful abandonment of the North East in this week’s snowstorm, which has left communities cut off and farmers and other members of the public stepping into the breach to help.
Imagine politicians ‘falling on their swords’ today ….
The Earth Really did move ….. in Perthshire
Over 300 earthquakes were registered across the UK this year, with Perthshire and the western Highlands among the most active regions of the UK. The two largest onshore quakes happened on October 20th near Loch Lyon in Perthshire, the first being a 3.7 magnitude, the second 3.6. The British Geological Survey received 198 reports from people who felt the quake, with Loch Lyon suffering 34 quakes from October to December.
Crumbling Infrastructure
is an increasingly costly problem for councils, with repair bills for VANDALISM in schools last year costing £1.8 million, and totalling £7.9 million over the last 5 years. The yearly cost has more than doubled over the three years to 2024/25. And that is without completely accurate figures, as 3 of Scotland’s 32 councils – Glasgow, Edinburgh and Highland – not supplying figures. The Scottish figure of vandalism to 40% of its schools is twice the average rate of countries in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
One thing which may have had some effect is the use of CCTV cameras in schools, but Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth has helpfully ruled that out.
Roads Getting Worse
Despite having a statutory duty to repair crumbling roads, councils just cannot keep up with the number of potholes appearing on Scotland’s roads as well as the rest of the UK. Claims by affected drivers have risen by 90% in 3 years, with over 8000 claims made to 24 Scottish local authorities in 2024, with Glasgow seeing the second highest rise in Britain over 3 years, and Edinburgh’s toll more than doubled to 936 incidents.
….. and Rats Running Amok
All over Scotland, almost 20,000 complaints were made about rats, with the number rising over a third on the 2020/21 figure. More than half the complaints were in Glasgow, with nearly 11,000 complaints in 2024/25, up 20% on the previous year. Glasgow Council leader Susan Aitken interestingly claimed there were not more rats, they were just ‘more visible’, and denied it was a public health risk. Refuse staff have even been bitten by rats, requiring hospital treatment, but Glasgow remains sanguine, saying rats can be a ‘fact of life’ in an urban environment!! The street cleaning budget fell from just over £150 million in 2010/11 to just over £98 million in 2024/25. I’m sure that has nothing to do with it.
St Andrews Now a Theme Park for the Super-Rich
Local residents are feeling increasingly pushed out of their St Andrews homes by the super-rich buying up properties, making the town Scotland’s most expensive coastal location. Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake faced the local wrath in their attempt to convert the New Picture House cinema into a luxury sports bar, plans which were eventually pushed through by Fife Council.
The number of homes in the two highest council tax bands has risen by over 10% in the last decade, with those in the lowest band down from 3533 to 3429 in the same period.
But No Room for Fife’s Homeless
This is at the same time as more than 13,000 applicants were also languishing on the Fife housing waiting list, with Fife declaring a housing emergency in 2024. The number of second homes in East Fife rose 12% between 2015 and 2024 to a total of 1847, with about 1000 short-term lets in the town, or 5.4% of St Andrews’ housing stock, which not only has a knock-on effect on rent levels, but the general shortage of housing pushes up house prices.
The community-led St Andrews LPP (Local Place Plan) has identified the further problem of new housing being aimed at wealthier retirees or second homeowners, not young families; and that student housing in the town centre pushes local people to the periphery. Fife Council appears to have no coordinated plan to build new housing (more likely, no money). Most recent new-build applications are for 2-bedroom flats. The community council said the town was changing from permanent residents to a more transient community, fracturing local democracy and local connection.
Are Lynx In or Out?
Rewilding groups want them back, farmers don’t. In their favour is that lynx suppress red fox numbers, allowing ground nesting birds like capercaillie and black grouse to flourish; and they help keep deer numbers in check, allowing natural regeneration of woodlands. But not so good is that lynx are known to prey on sheep and lambs, so farmers are not in favour of their reintroduction. Optimistic campaigners claim that lynx pose ‘no realistic threat to humans’, while others admit that as lynx are carnivores, there must be some danger, albeit small.
While the Scottish government is not planning on reintroducing the lynx any time soon, 89,000 households in the north of Scotland will shortly get a mailshot about proposals for their reintroduction as part of a public engagement starting on January 26th.
Finally, ‘Let the Train Take the Strain’
The animal world must have been watching the rail adverts all those years ago encouraging us towards train travel, and taken notes. They appear now to be taking their revenge on humans by means of the train network. Some of them cause consternation just by getting on a train or, in the case of one marmoset, being left on it by an absent-minded owner; but more often they are satisfied with disrupting or cancelling train services.
A swan found sitting on the tracks at Glasgow’s Central Station managed to delay or cancel 28 trains over 1819 minutes; an escaped Highland cow calf made its way to a station in Glasgow, perhaps wanting a lift home; and various sheep, cattle and bird collisions have taken their toll. A badger caused 212 minutes of delay in November 2023, and stags, dogs, goats, horses and a squirrel have all played their part in disrupting our travel plans, but of all the representatives of the animal world, it is deer who have been the most frequent cause of delays to service, with 128 incidents reported in all.