SWINNEY'S PROGRAMME FOR GOVERNMENT

Yesterday,  First Minister Swinney announced his Programme for Government or 'rewiring the state'  as he stupidly referred to it.  It was a long and miserable performance and, essentially, a re-hash of what every government worldwide should be doing as a matter of course anyway.  We have space for only a few items of this alleged 'rewiring'.  Let's have a look.

One of the most controversial proposals was reducing the number of mainland Health Boards from 11 to just two.  That proposal would leave only Western Isles Health Board,  Orkney Health Board and Shetland Health Board intact.  However,  and rightly, the proposal met with howls of derision and anger.  In our view it is utter folly.  Scotland needs at least four Health Boards with Western Isles,  Orkney and Shetland badly needing inclusion in a Highlands Health Board. 

Another piece of utter folly is Swinney's Food Price Cap whereby he proposes to cap food prices.  How on this earth can a government do that?  Does he want food producers and shops out of business?

A £2 bus fare cap?  For how long?  And who is going to end up paying?  The taxpayer?  The bus company,  and drive them into liquidation?

Reduce the number of Quangos?  A long time coming but we'll believe it when we see it.  Remember,  Quangos are a speciality of  Nationalist governments.  They just love appointing their own placemen to their Quangos.  There are nearly 150 such bodies currently in Scotland.

Reduce the number of Scottish Councils from the current 32?  Now,  for the first time in his very grey life,  Swinney's talking sense.  

We would really like to see this as,  in our view,  Regionalisation worked well previously.  It is the only sane proposal of the lot. Indeed,  Regionalisation worked so well that it threatened the supremacy of what was then the Scottish Office before the Scottish Secretary of the day,  Michael Forsyth,  took to scrapping it.

But,  when the chips are down,  will Swinney have the guts to create potential rival power blocks?  

We very much doubt it.

 

TRIPLE HELIX ANDY (1)

Unusually for us,  we watched a little bit  of the news last night on telly.  We broke the habit of a lifetime.

In what,  we think,  was Prime Minister Burnham's first Commons appearance,  he rambled on and on in true Socialist bullshit style with convicted criminal fraudster Louise Haigh at his side.  It certainly wasn't a pretty sight.

He concluded his monologue by saying that 'we will back local industrial strategies ................. by developing the triple helix approach to economic development'.  

What does any of that mean?  

As we've remarked before,  the intellect required for leadership is simply not there.

JENNY GILRUTH, DEPUTY FIRST MINISTER (2)

We're unusually prescient types here at Loch Roag Diary.  Either that or we're telepathic or psychic or whatever.

We first wrote about Jenny Gilruth on 28 May this year,  just days after the Holyrood Election,  and on being told that Ms Gilruth had been appointed Finance Secretary and Deputy First Minister.  We slammed the appointment at the time,  describing Ms Gilruth as 'a particularly disagreeable ,  aggressive and arrogant individual'  before adding that she was 'wholly unsuited to being a government minister and we expect a lot of problems'.

This morning Ms Gilruth is making headlines and accused by Scottish Government civil servants of bullying and belittling staff to a grossly unacceptable extent. The allegations against her are extremely serious matters,  way beyond bullying as we know it.  They are,  of course,  only allegations as we write.

We repeat.  Jenny Gilruth is a nasty piece of work and wholly unsuited to being a government minister.

PRIME MINISTER BURNHAM - NOW TAKING HOAX CALLS!!!!! - (2)

Well,  that didn't take long,  did it?  Less than a month.

Prime Minister Burnham engaging in hoax calls with somebody pretending to be the White House Chief of Staff!!!!!

How's that for naivety and stupidity,  exactly as we predicted?

LORD BRACADALE

If our understanding is correct,  Lord Bracadale is a retired Court of Session judge. A year or two back,  he was appointed by the Scottish Government to inquire into the circumstances of the death of a young man while being restrained by Police in the Kirkcaldy area of Fife.

That the man was openly carrying a large knife is not in dispute.  Neither is the fact that he was high on narcotics,  doped up to the eyeballs in colloquial terms.  A most thorough investigation by Police and Crown Office failed to find any evidence of criminal conduct by Police Officers who attended the scene.  Quite why there is now a Judicial Inquiry is way beyond our understanding.

Anyway,  to date,  the Inquiry has taken up a staggering 122 days of evidence before Lord Bracadale.  There was a major hiccup last year when the Scottish Police Federation - who appear to be the main protagonists in the case - discovered that  Bracadale  had had  FIVE private meetings with the deceased man's family.  The Federation took legal issue therewith and asked Bracadale to withdraw (or 'recuse' himself we believe to be the legal term).  A perfectly reasonable and proper request one might think.

Bracadale refused.  Astonishingly,  he told the Inquiry that 'having reviewed the facts,  the fair-minded and informed observer would conclude that there was no possibility that I was biased'.  Quite,  man, quite!!!!!  And what was that about the supposed impartiality of the Judiciary?  And, while we're at it,  what was that about the need for justice not only to be done but manifestly seen to be done?

After a lot of very unhappy noises from all over the country,  and with the Scottish Police Federation threatening Judicial Review,   Bracadale at long last relented and withdrew from the Inquiry.  A new judge has now been appointed to continue with the Inquiry but why did it take Bracadale so long to accept the inevitable and realise that he was adrift all on his own and without a paddle?  The powers that be,  realising the enormous stupidity of what Bracadale had done,  just washed their hands off him.

To date,  the Inquiry has cost the public purse the extraordinary sum of £55million and rising fast.  Of that figure,  the sum paid to Bracadale has been £711,680 or,  to be more specific,  £5833.44 per day!!!!!  

But does the Scottish Government now have the guts to try and recover this figure from Bracadale over a dreadfully botched Inquiry that was entirely of Bracadale's  own making?  It would be an interesting development.  And the wider public question is whether judges should be allowed to bugger up on such unprecedented scale without consequence or sanction and retain their large and publicly-paid pensions intact?  

The question that has never been answered is why Bracadale behaved in this most unbecoming manner in the first place.  We cannot recall any explanation from him far less any word of contrition or apology.  

Arrogance beyond measure.

(It has long been a standing joke in these islands of ours that our Free Presbyterian friends love money much more than they do God!)

THE MANY SCANDALS OF NICOLA STURGEON (4)

We have been writing about Nicola Sturgeon for years now and for one reason.  She's a dishonest and perfectly horrible piece of work who has long shamed both Scotland and Politics.

Just the other day,  Geoff Aberdein,  her predecessor Alex Salmond's former chief-of-staff, described her as 'of no self-awareness,  no loyalty and no class'.  And Geoff should know.  Translated,  it means she is poisonous,  traitorous, vulgar as they come and couldn't give a toss for anyone but herself. 

Geoff was being kind.  We continue to view her as the ultimate psychopath. 

PRIME MINISTER BURNHAM (OFF ON HOLIDAY!!!!!) (1)

Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on 20 July 2026.  He's off abroad on holiday some 14 days later leaving convicted criminal Louise Haigh in charge of running the country!!!!!

Well done Andy,  well done indeed.  Obviously,  you are much more frightened of The Wife than you are of the electorate.  And what was that we said just a few days ago that you were naive, stupid  and without intellect? 

Didn't take long for us to be proved correct,  did it?