Best Of

"I didn't drive and I had no interest in cars," says Nicola Sturgeon when asked why she never discussed Peter Murrell's purchase of a Jaguar worth £80,000.

From the "I don't sweat" box of excuses.

This is nonsense. Why would Sturgeon as part of a couple both earning very good salaries, modest house, no children and oodles of discretionary income, be suspicious of her husband being able to afford an £80K car, when she is in a 24/7 job, away a lot, and has no interest in cars anyway?

The only slightly interesting thing about it is the relatively small amounts of money involved.

It wasn't one car though, it was 3 vehicles, plus the 87 kettles, 43 coffee machines, pens, watches, etc etc etc.

If I buy even one of those kind of toys Mrs U is straight on to me about how much, did I really need it etc.

The Flying Pig column in the Aberdeen P&J is spot on. Worth a look.
Link here: https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-press-and-journal-inverness-highlands-and-islands/20260530/282312506735233

Extract:

"Fit wid you buy wi’ £400 thoosand? Being hon­est, I’d prob­ably ging big on booze, Haribo and fags, but it turns oot if yer nae hon­est, like ex-SNP supremo Peter Mur­rell, the answer is cars, a camper­van, funcy watches, space pens, cof­fee machines, a 1K tele­scope, video game con­soles and some Loc­tite Super­glue. At’s the weird­est Gen­er­a­tion Game con­veyor belt iver, is it?

"He spent o’er twa thoosand on salt & pep­per grinders. Fit the hell? At’s jist unas­sept­able, ‘at. Fit are they, like? Robot eens fit walk on to yer plate and per­fectly sea­son yer food files singing ‘Food Glor­i­ous Food’? Nae just ‘at, he spent mair than a thoosand on a cof­fee machine and mair than three thou­sand on an emer­gency backup cof­fee machine. He’ll hiv been up a’ night drink­ing ‘at much cof­fee, fit explains the eight thoosand Amazon pur­chases. I da even think he used half the stuff. Foo mony Nin­ten­dos and Dyson hairdry­ers dis a bal­die man­nie in his 50s really need?"

"I didn't drive and I had no interest in cars," says Nicola Sturgeon when asked why she never discussed Peter Murrell's purchase of a Jaguar worth £80,000.

From the "I don't sweat" box of excuses.

This is nonsense. Why would Sturgeon as part of a couple both earning very good salaries, modest house, no children and oodles of discretionary income, be suspicious of her husband being able to afford an £80K car, when she is in a 24/7 job, away a lot, and has no interest in cars anyway?

The only slightly interesting thing about it is the relatively small amounts of money involved.

It wasn't one car though, it was 3 vehicles, plus the 87 kettles, 43 coffee machines, pens, watches, etc etc etc. And at no point went Pete, love, are you sure we can afford all this stuff.

If I buy even one of those kind of toys Mrs U is straight on to me about how much, did I really need it etc. Mrs U is absolutely not interested in cars in the slightest, you can be absolutely certain she wants to know to the penny how any new motor cost.

This high salary thing, £100k a year is high, but its not footballer money. In todays day and age, it is not the sort of salary where you are just buring £20's for the LOLs.

People who earn the same money live very different lifestyles.

For a couple earning £150-200k between them, some will spend £50k a year, others £100k, and some will spend it all plus any debt they are allowed to on top.

"Re-allocate £1bn currently spent on net zero projects!"

Thanks for that although as stated it still doesn't make the £1bn cut from Qango's feasible.

Looking at net zero within Scottish Government control in terms of actual public money spent the figure I can find is around £400m a year so good luck saving a billion from that!

Peter.

Also, does the economic analysis done by Reform include the impact of abandoning Net Zero on the 105 000 mostly skilled and engineering jobs comprising 4.9% of Scotlands economy?

https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/3-000-businesses-now-driving-scotlands-net-zero-economy-analysis

There was an interesting piece on Fridays C4 News where the Reform Mayor of Hull could not answer straight-forward questions on the impact of abandoning Net Zero on Hull's economy whith its strong renewables sector.

That is a different issue, though I'm sure Reform has very strong views on the relationship on the broader push toward Net Zero and jobs.

This is about the Scottish Government spending an insane amount of money on Net Zero projects (Reform say £1bn, Peter Cairns says £400mn) when Net Zero is not a devolved matter.

A large part of net zero spending covers things like Social Housing which Reform wants to expand. The problem with just tagging it as "Crazy Net Zero Policies!" is that a lot of things like better insulation are actually good investnents that pay for themselves and can also to a lesser degree create jobs.

Like Solzhenitsyn it's ideology. Reform have portrayed those pursuing Net Zero as ideologies while being ones' themselves.

It's what populists do. Characture their opponents and respnd with characature policies.

£400m is only an insane amount of money if you think spending just over 0.5% of the annual budget on a range of environmental policies across the whole of government can't be justified. I think if you broke it down you'd find some to object too ,but many that would probably be spent anyway in some other form.

Peter.

Sturgeon - "I don't have any conscious memory of seeing that motorhome"

Lawyer approved....

She said it wasn't on the drive of her in-law's place; in other words at the front of the property, but away to the side, to that she 'might' not have seen it. Or if she did, that she thought it was the neighbours.
Could someone please produce a ground plan of the place so we can test the likelihood of her statement?

Surely the best way of testing the likelihood of that statement is to ask a jury to give an opinion

They got away with stitching up Salmond , just made the damning stuff unadmissable and ignored the witnesses for the accused so not make chance of that.

The evidence against erstwhile Russia Today presenter Eck, seemed quite compelling. Would he have been in greater jeopardy outside Scotland?

Sad old Pete, he would have been not guilty outside Scotland and your pathetic jibe about his independent TV show is typical leftie arse stuff.

He was far more of a leftie than I ever was. Didn't he start life as a revolutionary communist?

The evisceration of the reputations of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon - both utterly dominant and untouchable in the Scottish political space during their respective primes - is quite extraordinary. Of course they still have their adherents and loyalists, but most people just shudder when they are mentioned. Quite a thing.

The only living ex-First Minister with a reasonably intact reputation is probably Jack McConnell. The other two, Humza, and McLeish, ended up as rather pitiful short-lived figures.

The late Donald Dewar towers over all of hem.

"Re-allocate £1bn currently spent on net zero projects!"

Thanks for that although as stated it still doesn't make the £1bn cut from Qango's feasible.

Looking at net zero within Scottish Government control in terms of actual public money spent the figure I can find is around £400m a year so good luck saving a billion from that!

Peter.

Also, does the economic analysis done by Reform include the impact of abandoning Net Zero on the 105 000 mostly skilled and engineering jobs comprising 4.9% of Scotlands economy?

https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/3-000-businesses-now-driving-scotlands-net-zero-economy-analysis

There was an interesting piece on Fridays C4 News where the Reform Mayor of Hull could not answer straight-forward questions on the impact of abandoning Net Zero on Hull's economy whith its strong renewables sector.

That is a different issue, though I'm sure Reform has very strong views on the relationship on the broader push toward Net Zero and jobs.

This is about the Scottish Government spending an insane amount of money on Net Zero projects (Reform say £1bn, Peter Cairns says £400mn) when Net Zero is not a devolved matter.

It may be a different issue, but it is a very relevant one.

Renewable enegy supports a lot of highly skilled and paid employment, particularly along the East Coast, but also in places like the Isle of Wight, with 300 jobs at Vestas there producing blades for onshore wind.

Reform/Restore voters in these places are turkeys voting for Christmas. Indeed much like all those Brexit voters in our automotive industry supply chains.

The Government is considering a ban on children having conversations with strangers on gaming platforms like Roblox, Fortnite, Discord and Minecraft

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/social-media-ban-kanishka-narayan-l0brjnvvb

How do you enforce that?

You can't fully although Apple / XBox already taking a very aggressive approach to complying to existing Online Safety Bill, you have to prove your age for things like Xbox Chat. Apple recent update won't give you full functionality unless you prove your age.

Thanks; maybe we are getting somewhere. One wonders whether a determined 14+ year old will be able to worm through, although I suppose if they're smart enough to do that they may well be smart enough to spot that the person with whom they are 'chatting' is a wrong'un.

We won't even need to be that determined.