September 13th – September 19th, 2025
You have to feel sorry for Jim Ratcliffe; Rent Controls to be Watered down; … but first …
Greens’ Red Line isn’t Green, it’s Pink and Blue
When is a Green Party not Green? Answer: When it’s the Scottish Greens, whose new co-leaders, Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay, have interestingly declared that they welcome into the party those who are pro-independence or not, even those who are concerned or not about the climate. But not those who do not accept gender identity ideology.
Now their only ‘red’ line is a pink-and-blue one, after their declaration that their party is not for those who do not agree that ‘trans women are women’, denying biological reality and flying in the face of public opinion and the Supreme Court ruling, not to mention opening themselves to legal action for refusing to uphold a protected characteristic they do not like.
For Women Scotland (FWS) is protesting against the police allowing a very loud counter-protest at its
Holyrood rally on 4th September, where a sole male protester was allowed to drown out FWS speakers and allegedly intimidate women at the event. True to form, it is the women who are being investigated for allegedly breaking the male’s umbrella, although it seems it may have been damaged before the protest, where it was allegedly brandished at Susan Smith, one of the founders of FWS. Questions were asked in Holyrood, to which the government had no answers, again true to form. Worse, the police had been warned by FWS that there was likely to be a counter-protest, but it was still allowed to proceed, way too close to the main protest.
Angus Council Bans Wood-burning Stoves
In a landmark move, Angus Council has decided to ban wood-burning stoves and other heating which uses carbon fuels, banning the replacement or installation of open-flued appliances which burn wood, coal, coke or gas, and will compile a register of all properties which have such equipment.
This is not yet a blanket ban, and applies only to council buildings and houses (so far). The council says it is intended to protect tenants from carbon monoxide fumes and fire hazard, reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality.
But isn’t this unfair on those in rural areas, who do not use wood-burners as a fashion accessory, but as a necessity? Many are off the gas grid and must use expensive oil. It is also prohibitively expensive to insulate old rural properties to enable installation of a heat pump. Angus Council appears to have ignored the concerns of 65.5% of tenants who were upset at having no choice in their own heating.
The Stove Industry Association (SIA) said the policy is short-sighted, ignoring the fact that modern stoves mean they produce up to 90% fewer emissions than open fires, and up to 80% fewer emissions than older wood-burners.
And if the Scottish government dropped similar plans last year, it seems unlikely Angus Council can enforce these rules beyond council housing tenants.
Police First-Aid Dummies are Racist
Never mind crime, Police Scotland has decreed that its own first aid training guidance for officers was ‘institutionally racist’, particularly when looking for signs of heart attack, one of the symptoms of which is cyanosis (blue lips), which is harder to spot on darker skins, where cyanosis can present as grey or white on the lips, with gums and palms showing a bluish tinge. Maybe inaccurate, but racist? Another senior officer is said to have claimed the use of only white first aid training dummies also showed institutional racism.
Warrants Left Outstanding
And never mind about warrants either. Over 10,000 arrest warrants are currently outstanding in Scotland, with police claiming they do not have the officers to carry out arrests. They include warrants regarding the most serious cases, murder, rape, domestic abuse and assault. Warrants are often issued when people fail to appear at court, but enforcement seems to be at the bottom of a long list of other priorities. Police admit that 7 outstanding warrants relate to murder; 5 to attempt murder; 42 to rape and attempted rape; over 1200 to assault; 72 to domestic abuse; and 156 to housebreaking.
Wild Goats and Beavers
When Oxygen Conservation (OC) bought 11,000 acres of Langholm Moor for carbon sequestration purposes, the wild goats who lived there were not protected, and in February 2025, OC culled over 80% of the ancient herd which had roamed freely for centuries. A petition signed by over 13,000 has now been endorsed by Holyrood’s Citizens Participation and Public Petitions Committee to protect the scant remainder. A further cull is intended by OC, who claim a ‘massive increase’ in goat numbers since 2023, a claim disputed by local people, who say the quoted population rise from 20 goats to 138 is impossibly high over the period of 16 months to January this year.
It is not illegal to cull goats in Scotland, hence the attempt belatedly being made to secure protected status for the animals.
Now residents near Loch Ness are being consulted about the introduction of Beavers to some areas between Fort Augustus and Lochend, but there is not universal support for the move. Beavers can cause a lot of property damage, such as when damming causes flooding to neighbouring properties, but it is nonetheless illegal to capture, transport or release beavers in Scotland without a licence from NatureScot.
Pity Poor Jim Ratcliffe
Not content with receiving a £500,000 loan guarantee from the UK to underpin his investment in petrochemicals in Belgium, and having declined to save Grangemouth, he has reached the end of his tether, saying Labour taxes are forcing him out.
INEOS are diverting £3 billion of investments from the UK to the US in protest at windfall taxes. North Sea earnings tax has risen from 75% to 78%, with windfall taxes due to remain until 2030. INEOS was also not best pleased at the Competition and Markets Authority blocking its £790 million takeover of a concrete additives firm to its portfolio.
You really have to feel sorry for Ratcliffe. After all, he is only worth £17 billion. When INEOS was ‘assisted’ to continue at Grangemouth in 2013, many benefits such as free meals for staff and allowance and overtime rates, were cut. And his football team isn’t doing too well either. When he bought a stake in Man Utd in February 2024, a quarter of the staff lost their jobs while ticket prices soared. But only the jobs ordinary people had, and concessionary tickets for children, seniors and students were stopped.
Cuts. It’s the Ratcliffe way. Except for himself.
But better news for Alexander Dennis
Not quite out of the woods yet, but following the injection of £4 million from the Scottish government, the Falkirk-based bus manufacturer has U-turned on plans to close its Scottish manufacturing sites. The money will pay for a ‘furlough scheme’ allowing workers to keep their jobs for six months while future orders are placed, which ADL are hopeful about, having seen increased demand in recent weeks. ADL is still in a consultation period over the redundancy of 11 roles which are not directly linked to Scottish manufacturing.
Rent Controls Getting Watered Down …. Again
Not that the Scottish government feels intimidated or anything, but they have announced they have dropped plans for a national rent control scheme. Instead, Build-To-Rent (BtR) and mid-market properties will be exempted from future rent controls, with local councils deciding which measures, IF ANY, they want to introduce. Housing Secretary Mairi McAllan said it is to increase housing supply and address affordability problems. But it won’t do anything of the sort. BtR is not social housing, but is built specifically for those who can afford to pay over the odds for ‘community living’ at elevated cost. It will, though, elevate what is regarded as the norm for housing costs, which is what rent rises are measured against.
National or Local Rent Controls?
What if a local council has councillors who are also landlords? They are hardly likely to enact rent limits which will cut their own incomes. Despite admitting that many responses to the government consultation were strongly in favour of ‘no exemptions’, McAllan nonetheless opted to go with the exact opposite. She sees it as a priority to ‘expand housing supply’, but do social tenants benefit? It seems she has listened to developers who threatened to scupper Scottish developments in favour of building elsewhere in the UK, where there are not similar constraints.
But the Scottish Greens have promised to table amendments to stop the exemptions.
Cash-strapped Edinburgh University,
meantime, has paid nearly £460,000 on a report into its historical links to slavery, at the same time as job cuts are looming. The report found that the university benefited by an equivalent of £845 million today from slavery and colonialism. The university must cut £140 million from its budget and has dropped its previous ‘no compulsory redundancies’ promise. Emeritus Professor Sir Tom Devine said the report was not ‘intellectually credible’, while social anthropologist Dr Neil Thin withdrew from teaching at the university over the strange claim that black academics were ‘friendlier and more inclusive towards students’.
Finally,
Stone-Skimming Storm
September’s World Stone Skimming Championships (WSSC) in Easdale in the Inner Hebrides has this year been ‘rocked’ by scandal. Not doping, not match-fixing, but ‘doctoring the stones’ to circumvent rules which demand that entrants use ‘naturally formed’ slate from the island and that the stones must be less than 3 inches in diameter. The culprits are alleged to have machine-ground their stones to perfect circular circumferences, acquiring extremely smooth surfaces. Some added ‘notches’ in the stones.
Several suspects were already known to other competitors and were swiftly disqualified. They accepted it with good grace. No riots or anything.
The competition emerged from the sudden collapse of Easdale’s native slate mining industry through a storm which suddenly flooded its huge quarries with water. The competition has run since 1997 and this year was won by Jon Jennings from Kentucky.
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