June 27th – July 3rd, 2026
‘Soft Touch Justice’ to ‘No Touch’ Justice?
Justice Secretary Neil Gray’s latest wheeze to cure Scottish jail overcrowding is ….. to not send anyone to jail as long as they do not pose a risk to the general public, diverting them instead to community payback orders (CPOs). But over 25% of CPOs are not completed or enforced, and one third of those given CPOs are re-convicted within a year. His actions may be in response to the Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission’s recommendation to reduce the prison population from the present level of over 8,200 (costing over £1 billion a year) to 5,775.
Gray claims this will led to ‘much better outcomes’ and be ‘better for the public purse’, but probably not for the public.
CPOs would cover shoplifters, fraudsters or those committing driving offences, but fraud, for example devastate lives. Fraudsters have to be amenable personalities who will no doubt resume their activities on release; and shoplifting hardly gets any police response, never mind a conviction.
Scotgov Doesn’t Like Jails
Two planned new jails, HMP Highland in Inverness, costing £209 million, is not due in service till spring 2027; and the new Barlinnie, to be known as HMP Glasgow, is due in 2028, but costing £1 billion, many times the original estimate.
Meanwhile, Neil Gray is looking at housing prisoners in portable cell-blocks (‘temporary modular accommodation’). He is awaiting ‘business cases’ on this accommodation. Modular sites in England accommodate female and low-risk male prisoners on existing prison sites. Prison staff and inmates both approve of these units, saying they reduce violence and self-harm, and incentivise good behaviour.
Sentences to Fall … Again
Long-term prisoners will soon be released automatically after serving only two-thirds of their sentences. This includes those guilty of culpable homicide and child abuse. Those serving less than 5 years will be freed after only 30% of their sentence, and the presumption against jail terms will increase to 2 years from the present 1 year. Neil Gray thinks these ‘bold reforms’ will strike the right balance and ‘protect victims and the public’. Opposition MSPs claim it will put the public in danger.
Edinburgh Council Votes to Scrap EHRC Guidance
Another democratic deficit, unless the voters of Edinburgh consciously elected a council which would defy the law. The council voted this week to condemn the EHRC guidance on the Supreme Court ruling, demanding that the Council’s chief executive writes to the UK Prime Minister demanding the withdrawal of the guidance.
Their stance was dismissed by women’s campaigners For Women Scotland who said the Greens were once more ‘engaging in performative stunts’, pointing out that withdrawing the guidance would make no difference to the law.
Will ‘Kilts’ be good value?
Scotgov’s plans to issue Scottish bonds to fund capital projects is not universally popular, with accusations that they will be more expensive than ordinary borrowing from the National Loans Fund. They have chosen 9 banks to advise and support the £1.5 bn programme over the next five years, with HSBC, Merrill Lynch International, Nat-West Markets and RBC Europe Limited chosen as the joint ‘bookrunners’ (lead managers) of the scheme.
But Patrick Harvie said that, by making Barclays Bank one of its partners, the Scottish government has breached a Holyrood vote to boycott Israel, with the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement alleging Barclays are ‘bankrolling Israel’s genocide’ by acting as a primary dealer for Israeli government bonds.
Barclays say they are only part of an international syndicate connecting the world’s largest economies to international capital markets, but stated they do not provide direct funding.
Is it ‘Academic Vandalism’ to Cut Maths Degrees?
Yes, according to St Andrews University professor Mark Chaplain, president of the London Mathematical Society, in response to Dundee University’s money-making idea. All current students will be able to graduate in maths, as will the intake of 2026-2027, but it will henceforth only be a ‘supporting act’ in other degrees. Losing maths-only degrees may restrict the pipeline to postgraduate study and research.
The Campaign for Mathematical Sciences say maths-based disciplines contribute £36 billion direct economic value and 394,000 jobs across Scotland.
Dundee Uni Jobs Bloodbath
In addition to 675 jobs already cut and 134 cuts in the pipeline, 200 more redundancies are planned, meaning a quarter of the pre-crisis workforce (1019) will have been shed. The closure of the Botanic Garden, Cooper Gallery and the Philosophy Department are also being mooted.
The University’s financial fall stemmed largely from a collapse in international fees, with1230 students whittled down to 393 in 2023/24, and a refusal to adjust its budget downwards. But two former principals got nearly £300,000 after leaving their posts, just when Dundee University’s finances imploded.
People Power fighting AI Data Centres
Protesters at Holyrood recently opposed the burgeoning number of datacentres being proposed for Scotland, up to 24 so far. The West Hermiston campaign recently failed to get a local moratorium enacted by the City of Edinburgh, fearing they could not legally do this, opting instead to call on Scotgov for a nationwide moratorium.
Concerns surround the vast quantities of energy and water the centres require, plus the pollution they create, the heat they emit and health concerns. Cabinet Secretary for Climate and Rural Affairs Gillian Martin said they are not considering a national strategy as such, but were ‘engaging with industry and partner agencies to better understand the cumulative impacts … on the environment’. Wouldn’t it have been better to do that first?
Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell voiced the concerns of many when he suggested the Scottish government has been ‘totally caught out on this issue’.
Monklands Scrapped at the 11th Hour
North Lanarkshire Council leader Jim Logue is threatening to sue the Scottish government for scrapping the £2 billion proposed replacement for Monklands Hospital only 30 minutes before Holyrood adjourned for the summer. NHS Lanarkshire Chief Executive Louise Long only learned of the decision an hour ahead of the announcement.
Local people feared for the project when the SNP refused to give final approval before the election, with concerns dismissed as ‘scaremongering’ only a couple of months ago. Worse, previous Health Secretary Neil Gray claimed work was on track days before the May 7th election.
New Health Secretary Angela Constance wants a ‘formal reset’ of the project, effectively cancelling it, despite having spent over £100 million on plans and earth removal; and despite costs already incurred on a £185 million link road.
She says there will be a comprehensive redesign of the project, ‘ready in mid-2027’, with construction to start ‘in 2028’ and ‘demonstrable progress’ by the time MSPs are all looking for their jobs again in 2031. Despite Scotgov being ‘fully committed’ to a replacement at the Wester Moffat site, Constance said the £2.1bn cost was unaffordable and not value for money.
But this only became apparent half an hour before the end of the parliamentary session.
SaxaVord Lobbied Scotgov to make them a Freeport
Investigative journalists The Ferret have raised major concerns about this enterprise. SaxaVord repeatedly lobbied Scottish ministers before meeting then-business minister Richard Lochhead. Both SaxaVord and Rocket Factory Augsburg pressed the Scottish government to keep parts of the sea dumping licence application secret, also urging ministers to make the spaceport a Freeport with tax breaks, less regulation and increased access to government funding.
SaxaVord spaceport already got £473,000 from the Scottish government’s Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The firm is partly owned by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, who objected to Scottish rocket developer Orbex setting up its own rival space port at Melness, Sutherland, where Povlsen owns estates. Orbex is now in administration.
Licence to Dump at Sea
German space firm Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) has applied for a marine licence from the Scottish government to allow it to dump tons of space debris into the sea near the Unst Spaceport. Five companies plan to make nine launches in the next few years of rockets weighing a total of 550 tonnes. Each will dump debris in the sea. The nose cone and rocket first stage components weigh respectively 250 kilograms and 4.5 tonnes, and are nearly 30 metres in length.
Glossing Over the Risks?
The licence application’s Navigational Risk Assessment by NLA International, identifies the highest risk as undetected recreational and fishing boats ‘being struck by rocket debris’, requiring mariners to be alerted to the dangers up to three months in advance, and intensive monitoring of shipping. But how many Russian and Norwegian vessels will be there at peak times? How are they to be notified? Other risks including damage to fishing gear, deemed ‘tolerable with additional [unspecified] controls’; and collisions with offshore oil or wind installations or damaging wildlife areas, deemed ‘tolerable with monitoring’. SaxaVord would ‘track and record returning (i.e. crashing to earth) components.
Gaslighting the Public?
RFA says debris will not be recovered as it is ‘expensive… and hazardous’, but will be left to sink and may somehow reinvent itself as artificial reefs to benefit seabed wildlife! Campaigners call this is gaslighting but SaxaVord think they just need to get their message over to the public.
Shetland Tourism Association says they are ‘railroad[ing] this through’; Shetland Fishermen’s Association asks how fishermen are ‘expected to work around hazards they are not allowed to see’; and the Marine Conservation Society called the dumping ‘simply pollution’.
Residents’ Rules
About 100 residents near SaxaVord are required to apply for a ‘local resident pass’ for ‘continued unrestricted access’ to their own properties, providing names and vehicle registrations, and those of any visitors and all car passengers. They fear a one-way system may be set up, closing roads into Haraldswick, and the ‘managed control points’ during launch periods will be in place for several hours at a time on the north of the island.
Fishing Rules
Fishing will be subject to a marine exclusion zone during launch ‘windows’, with ideal weather conditions for a space launch coinciding with ideal fishing weather. The exclusion zone may start any time until August 7th.
And a launch exclusion zone of over 17 miles north of Unst will BAN shipping altogether – an area used by 332 boats in 2024; the total impacted area covers over 400,000 square miles of seas between Shetland, Greenland, Iceland and Norway; this area was used by over 3000 cargo, fishing and other boats in 2024, and is fished all year round, particularly by herring and mackerel boats; Shetland has up to 300 commercial boats involved at peak times in in August.
Finally
Will Sheep or Golf Win?
A row is brewing between local crofters and Brora Golf Club over grazing rights. The Scottish Land Court is being asked for an order of ‘resumption’ to allow the club to take back grazing rights, which would be the first time an entire common grazing would be lost. Sixteen crofters currently hold 48 shares between them to graze cattle and sheep on the course and are upset about the ‘insulting’ offer of £3000 a share to relinquish them.
Until recently, Brora Golf Club was happy to use photos of the cattle and sheep as a Unique Selling Point, but no longer. Crofters and club co-existed happily since the court ruled in 1915 that the land should be shared, with the club confirming the crofters’ rights when they bought it in 2021.
Crofters fear they will lose their livelihoods if they have to find different and more expensive grazing land. Each seems to blame the other for damage to the course, and locals are also unhappy about the golf club getting a £25,000 grant from Kilbraur Wind Farm community benefit fund, when grants are usually limited to £10,000.
The Scottish Land Court’s decision is final, so it is hoped the two parties can come to some accommodation first.