Chaos in Scotland.

[CharlieOneSix]

Further costs and delays for overdue and over-budget Ferguson ferries. Only six years late. Under the latest estimates, the work to build the two ferries will be around triple the first price of £97m.

Further cost overuns

......and who has owned Ferguson Marine since December 2019? The SNP led Scottish Government of course! Couldn't organise a party in a brewery.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

It's always triple the first price. This was pointed out to us at University, with evidence back to the 1930s.
Just today, it was announced that the cost of Hinkley Point C has risen from 18bn to 46bn. But it's not finished yet, so they will sneak another 8bn in there somehow.

[CharlieOneSix]

From STV News:

The SNP should re-examine the issue of whether to withdraw MPs from Westminster following the chaos over its motion on Gaza, the party’s depute leader has said.

https://news.stv.tv/politics/snp-should ... ute-leader

Sounds like an excellent idea which the majority of voters in England would support!

[CharlieOneSix]

A great comment from Penny Mordant in connection with the disastrous Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow recently......

The Leader of the House of Commons has joked that she believed the SNP was behind the viral Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow due to: "...its high cost, its poor return and the fact police were called. But however the presence of a bouncy castle put paid to that theory, given that bouncy castles have been banned by SNP local authorities on health and safety grounds."

Penny Mordant jokes........

and if you're wondering what the joke is about.....

The Willy Wonka botched experience....

[FD2]

Excellent C16 - couldn't think of a better target for one of the few capable politicians in the Tory camp.

[CharlieOneSix]

BBC News:

Police Scotland will no longer investigate every low level crime after the success of a pilot scheme.

Words fail me. Another SNP government funded success story!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68501949

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I have no problem with the Police not investigating the stated examples.
As long as they are still recording them, and using tools such as geographical patterning, then it seems a sensible use of limited resources.
However, I'll bet there are also some egregious examples where the Police simply can't be @rsed.

Full disclosure: I have had absolutely zero crime* in my local area since emigrating. I don't even know where my house keys are.
Indeed, the only unsolved murder in the last 50 years has just been solved and the perp arrested.
So, what would I know?

* Does not include hiding things from the Government, where everyone is as Guilty As Fcuk.

[PHXPhlyer]

I have a feeling that they just said what most every other police department is already doing.
Here the departments are mostly very understaffed and investigations suffer from lack of trained personnel.

PP

[llondel]

The danger comes when people decide that if the police are going to do nothing, they'll do it themselves. Vigilantes will mete out summary justice if they think it is the only way to bring perps to account. They might even get the right one occasionally.

[OFSO]

Nicola Sturgeon received a golden goodbye of more than £64,000 of taxpayers' money after she resigned as first minister, the Scottish Parliament has confirmed.
Holyrood said the cash was paid automatically as a “resettlement grant” in accordance with legislation.
The Scottish Tories said the pay-out, the first £30,000 of which was tax free, would “stick in the craw of hard-pressed Scots”.
Ms Sturgeon announced she was quitting as First Minister and SNP leader on February 15 last year and formally demitted office on March 28 after Humza Yousaf replaced her.

Under the Scottish Parliamentary Pension Act of 2009, she was entitled to two-thirds of the additional salary due to her as first minister.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

One awaits the prison time she'll have to wait for before she can spend it.

[CharlieOneSix]

With reference to the ludicrous Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act which appropriately came into force on April 1st there have been more that 3000 cases registered in the first week which are being investigated by 40 "specially trained" police officers. Here is an extract from a letter written by a retired Sheriff (known as a Magistrate in England) in the local newspaper.....

....The following example occurs to me and I confess that I am not sure what the outcome would be.

Two people are enjoying a box of wine gums.

One says, “I hate the black ones,” and other laughs. Two others, within earshot, think that this remark is directed at people “of colour”, that the masticators are “stirring up hatred” and so the “over-manned” police get involved.

The masticators protest they were talking about the gums, some of which are gums “of colour”.

As there is corroboration of what was said by the masticators and the other two and the laughter, this laughter tilts the balance. So, the police decide to report the matter to “over-manned” Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. A complaint is served to be dealt with in the “over-manned” sheriff courts.

The masticators will require to give evidence about their intentions in relation to the wine gums’ comment and the accompanying laughter.

What happens next – over to you, sheriff ? If convicted, the masticators might think that but for laughing, all would have been well.

So they appeal to the “over-manned” High Court. The moral is: Stay away from wine gums, or if you can’t resist, do not comment on the ones you don’t like, if there are witnesses!

You might decide to eat them at home, but that is not a safe place as this Act can penalise comments about wine gums within one’s home. Your hard-of hearing and partially sighted granny might be a witness for the Crown.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

8,000 cases now.
"We cannot cope"
David Threadgold, Chairman of the Scottish Police Federation

As soon as the definition of offensive behaviour was moved away from the easily definable incitement to physical violence, this kind of meltdown was inevitable.
Chuck in identity politics and a "justice system" which is incapable of prosecuting the vast majority of obvious offences, still less effectively dealing with those so-prosecuted, and the police become simply a very large waste of money.

[Woody]

Oh yea of little faith

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1w5e2vg8wzo

[Karearea]

Oh yea of little faith

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1w5e2vg8wzo

I see she is named after a place on the Isle of Arran

[FD2]

A small hope will ignite in the hearts of the folk, mainly in the Western Isles, that they will get a decent ferry service again sometime. I don't think I'm being unduly cynical in doubting that this ship will be in service by September 2025, after the mess and huge waste of money and hopeless schedule over-runs so far. CalMac's service has been getting more and more stretched while this fiasco has dragged on at Ferguson's yard over replacements for its clapped out old ferries.

[CharlieOneSix]

The husband of former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been charged in connection with the embezzlement of funds from the Scottish National Party. Police Scotland launched a formal investigation into the SNP's finances in July 2021 after receiving complaints about how donations were used. Questions had been raised about more than £660,000 in donations given to the party for use in a fresh independence referendum campaign.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68850088

[FD2]

One more to go now, but I won't hold my breath! Living together, how could Sturgeon not have known what was happening, unless they were not living together?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

All the comments about her being as thick as two short ones now act in her favour.

[FD2]

Ferguson Marine Receives the Kiss of Death

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/242 ... on-marine/

ScotGov to 'leave no stone unturned' to save Ferguson Marine

MM1.png (258.59 KiB) Viewed 104 times

The Scottish Government will "leave no stone unturned" in securing a future for the troubled nationalised ferry fiasco shipyard, the wellbeing economy secretary Màiri McAllan has pledged.

It comes after the future of Ferguson Marine which was nationalised by the Scottish Government remains in doubt after ministers failed to immediately back an uncontested contract to build a fleet of seven lifeline ferries that would secure its future.