CAROLINE LAMB, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, NHS SCOTLAND

Caroline Lamb,  Chief Executive of NHS Scotland,  is euphemistically 'stepping down' from her post - and not before time either.  

Ms Lamb's  fingerprints are all over the notorious case Nurse Sandie Peggie brought against a disastrous NHS Fife Board earlier in the year.  As are the fingerprints of Carol Potter,  former Chief Executive of NHS Fife,  who resigned from post some months ago.

The Sandra Peggie case was a watershed moment in public life in Scotland where public officials thought they could get away with anything  on the instructions of the nationalist government. It was utterly shameful and,  as we have said before,  bordering on criminal behaviour involving quite a number of individuals. They found out the hard way and, for their nationalist political masters, the  very expensive way that they couldn't do just as they pleased.

Our public services  are well rid of both Ms Lamb and Ms Potter.  Now,  for Swinney  to go in disgrace - same as happened to Sturgeon.

DISHONEST JOHN SWEENEY (2)

Dishonest John Sweeney was on show at the Union Street Fire in Glasgow yesterday all dressed up in a Hi-Vis Jacket so that he was difficult to miss.   The TV cameras were rolling,  of course, hence the Hi-Vis.   It was the first time Dishonest John has  been seen in Glasgow for many years.

Amazing what a forthcoming Holyrood election in May can do for a First Minister's soul.  As if Dishonest John cares a damn about Glasgow - but votes are votes.

Dishonest John at his classic best.

LUCY POWELL MP

The Right Honourable Lucy Powell is MP for a Northern working-class constituency.  She is also Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.  As far as we are aware, she no longer holds any Government appointment as she and Keir don't get on terribly well.  

Lucy is one of the great freeloaders of the current Parliament.  She has received tens and tens of thousands of GBPs recently in what is euphemistically called 'gifts'.  Not 'bungs',  of course,  but 'gifts'.  Can anyone tell us why the hell would a politician ever accept a 'gift' from anyone?

Anyway, following last week's disastrous by-election in Denton and Gorton, Lucy stuck the knife brutally into Keir saying that if that chancer,  Andy Burnham,  had been the Labour candidate instead of the Labour-annointed candidate,  Labour would have won.  

That's how stupid Lucy actually is.  It has never dawned on her that the root causes of Labour's unpopularity are (a) the almost unbelieveable wholesale  acceptance of this thing called 'gifts' to politicians that scunnered the electorate  (b) the quite extraordinary dishonesty on which Labour based its election promises to the electorate  and (c) Labour's abysmal record since being elected to Government some 20 months ago.

You might be stupid,  Lucy,  but we certainly aren't.  That's why your own seat is on a very shoogly nail same as the rest of them.

 

MANDELSON'S ARREST

Peter Mandelson was arrested two days ago by the Metropolitan Police invesigating the fallout from the Epstein Saga in the United States.  He was held for 8 hours before released on bail.  

The allegations the Police are investigating relate to this outrageous common law English crime called 'Misconduct in Public Office'.  This deeply unsatisfactory crime is the sort of crime that,  for a public official,  is magnificently vague but covers every alleged wrongdoing under the sun.

Yesterday,  Mandelson's solicitors hit out at the decision to arrest him on Police suspicion that he was going to flee the country.  They said there was 'absolutely no truth whatsoever' on which to base that suspicion and we accept that without question.

In our view,  this is the Metropolitan Police response to the Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrest by Thames Valley Police of last week.  We regard both arrests as totally without justification at this stage of the investigations.

We have the same bad vibes about Mandelson's arrest that we had of Mountbatten-Windsor's arrest.

THE DUKE'S ARREST

For some days now,  the media has been awash with the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to ad nauseam accompaniment that 'no one is above the law' and nonsense of that sort. It's been poor journalism for the most part.

From our point of view, we are very far from convinced that arrest was either  justified or appropriate at this stage and we are firmly of the view that Thames Valley Police were simply grandstanding to be first out the box for a Royal Arrest - the first Royal Arrest since Charles I we are gleefully and repeatedly told.  We are told also that the arrest was in relation to allegations of Misconduct in Public Office - ie scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel allegations - relating to Mr Mountbatten-Windsor's time as UK Trade Envoy many years ago.  (Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was appointed UK Trade Envoy by Tony Blair when Prime Minister in 2001 but that's another story).

We have been told further that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor's various properties were  searched and,  indeed,  continue to be searched as we write. We are unsure what the Police expect to find in those properties from all those years ago but there you are.  Certainly,  they have not explained anything and the arrestee was released without charge after only 11 hours in custody. 

That,  in itself,  is unusual in that if the arrest was a really genuine arrest,  rather than for show purposes, one would have expected the detention to have been either for a much longer duration or the arrestee formally charged with a crime.  In a normal criminal investigation of this type of allegation,  we would expect the Police to search first and arrest later if considered appropriate. And why,  of all things,  was Mr Mountbatten-Windsor simply not invited to attend the Police Station by civilised arrangement?

That Mr Mountbatten-Windsor is a very unsavoury character - and keeps equally unsavoury company - there is no doubt.  That,  however,  does not in our view justify the circumstances of his arrest.  It has been reported, rightly or wrongly,  that eight separate Police Forces are interested in Mr Mountbatten-Windsor.  If that is so,  we hope they proceed with much more professionalism,  finesse and savvy than Thames Valley Police.

Sadly,  we suspect that none of this has registered remotely with Mr Mountbatten-Windsor.  He is way beyond any form of contrition, correction or redemption - or even understanding of his predicament.

LORD ADVOCATE DOROTHY BAIN

Dorothy Bain is the Lord Advocate of Scotland and,  as such,  the country's most senior criminal prosecutor.  She's now got herself into a very big pickle and entirely of her own making.

After the decision had been made by Ms Bain's department to prosecute Nicola Sturgeon's husband,  Mr Murrell,  on charges of fraud allegedly amounting to £460,000,  Ms Bain wrote to First Minister John Swinney advising him the details of an indictment and charges  that had been served on Mr Murrell and that the case was calling in court on 20 February.  This was an extremely unusual and extremely stupid thing for a Lord Advocate to do as it didn't concern Swinney in any way. Neither the public nor the Press was informed,  only Swinney.

All hell broke loose subsequently  and the matter called in the Scottish Parliament yesterday when Ms Bain tried to explain herself to MSPs.  She failed miserably and appeared utterly clueless. Essentially,  she had no answer to what she did and,  bizarrely,  maintained that once an indictment had been served on an accused the matter was then public.  However,  her underlings at Crown Office refuted this and said an indictment is a public matter only when it first calls in court.  They cannot both be right ...... and common sense  indicates to us that the underlings,  rather than the Lord Advocate,  are correct.

The Conservatives claimed the circumstances 'smacks of corruption' but such claim is,  in our view, grossly over the top.  Rather,  it smacks entirely of incompetence and stupidity.  It's not,  exactly,  like a Sheriff corruptly giving a verdict in favour of a party to whom he or,  indeed,  she is beholden in some form or other.

On any view the Lord Advocate is clearly out of her depth.  That's the worrying bit.

PAM BONDI, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL

We have watched,  on and off, bits and pieces of the 'testimony' of Pam Bondi,  Attorney General of the United States, to the Epstein Inquiry currently ongoing in America.

This lady should be very clearly in the psychiatric wards.

JONATHAN POWELL, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER

Well,  you could have struck us down with a feather.  

We have just learned that Jonathan Powell,  former Chief of Staff to Tony Blair as Prime  Minister,  has been National Security Adviser to Keir Starmer since November 2024.  Powell has no qualifications whatsoever for the post other than being a fully-paid-up member of The Gravy Train.

Sums up Starmer's Government in one.

ANAS SARWAR MSP

Anas Sarwar,  Scottish Labour Leader, would-be First Minister of Scotland and self-proclaimed best friend of Prime Minister Keir Starmer,  brutally knifed Starmer in the back yesterday and told him to resign. He was fully expecting UK Cabinet members (particularly that traitorous creep Wes Streeting) to back him up and stick their own knives also into Starmer's back but they all refused so that Sarwar is all on his own - and with a Holyrood election coming up soon.  How about that for stupidity?

We have little time for Starmer for a number of reasons - (1)  his appalling lack of leadership  (2)  his appalling lack of judgement in (a) accepting a huge amount of freebie clothing from Lord Alli  (b) appointing  clowns like Angela Rayner,  David Lammy,  Wes Streeting and Rachel Reeves to Cabinet (c) appointing a scoundrel like Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to Washington (d)  getting  elected on false promises and policies all of which he has had to reverse and (3) his dithering over everything.  That's quite a damning indictment. 

The plus side,  however,  is that Starmer is regarded seriously abroad in a way none of those other idiots would be and he has been a great friend to Ukraine.  Those matters must not be overlooked.  If we think we have problems with Starmer,  just wait till we've seen the rest,  Burnham included.  That really would be the time to get the hell out of the UK.

Anas Sarwar,  Iscariot, your time is up.  If you had any honour,  you would resign without ado and make way for longstanding MSP Jackie Baillie.  

It's Labour's only chance to rid Scotland of those perfidious nationalists.

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?

The Commentariat are in full-flow mode over the scoundrel Mandelson,   each trying to outdo the other with cries of 'The Biggest Crisis Of My Lifetime' or 'The Biggest Crisis Since Profumo' and nonsense like that.  Utter drivel.

The biggest crisis that we can recall in recent years is Labour winning the General Election of 2024 and our discovering thereafter of Starmer and Cronies accepting freebies from various sources such as Lord Alli amounting to millions of GBPs.  Trust in politicians,  already bad after the Parliamentary Expenses scandal,  has never been the same since and no wonder - and no wonder that the charlatan Farage has been able to make such inroads into the popular vote.

There was little criticism - if, indeed, any - by Opposition politicians at the time and the only realistic conclusion one can come to  is that the very great bulk of parliamentarians are at it,  take,  take, take.  In our view, Members of Parliament receiving gifts of money or in kind from outside interests must always, but always, be classified as criminal.

This current Parliament of all shades is rotten to the core.  That's a far bigger crisis than Mandelson every day of the week. 

NO WONDER OUR JAILS ARE FULL!

We read somewhere the other day of a Sheriff's outburst at a young male appearing before him in court wearing shorts.  The Sheriff expressed his 'astonishment' at such audacity and publicly stated that this mode of dress amounted to 'Contempt of Court' and warned all and sundry that poor dress code in future could result in a jail sentence.

We find it difficult to assess what,  exactly,  the Sheriff was taking exception to,  whether it was the bony knees or the naked knees but, on any view,  it was a draconian and jackboot approach to the legal process.  In our eyes,  as long as the attire does not display anything  offensive or indecent,  anyone appearing in court is entitled to wear whatever he or she feels comfortable with according to whim,  weather,  or whatever.  It is,  perhaps,  our only remaining liberty in this crazy and intolerant country of ours called Scotland.

And what if the young man had been wearing a kilt,  allegedly Scotland's National Dress?  And,  woe betide,  with a Sgian Dhu attached?  Or,  in the utterly bizarre  trans man/woman thing gifted us by Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney, a mini-skirt?

In our view, the Sheriff must be rebuked and brought to heel for his outburst as this goes well beyond his remit.  At the very least,  'the authorities' should have a quiet word in his shell-like.

And to think  our prisons are stuffed full to over-capacity already!  No wonder with Sheriffs like this about!

BBC ALBA HOGMANAY TELEVISION BROADCAST 2025

Yesterday,  a week or two into the new year,  we saw for the first time BBC Alba's Hogmanay Television Broadcast of 2025 courtesy of a chip an old friend sent us.  Frankly,  we hadn't expected very much, perhaps because of Alba's dire Hogmanay Television Broadcast  of 2024 or whatever but,  as it happens, we were pleasantly surprised that this year's event was a greatly improved show all-round.

Superstar singer and West Highland beauty, Ellen MacDonald, along with fellow musicians of Gaelic supergroup Daimh,  gave a truly memorable performance well into the night and they are our nomination for very best act of the show.  Up-and-coming singing star Emma Scalpaigh Macleod had a brilliant night  also and,  no doubt,  we will see a lot more of Emma and her delightful, super-strength personality in the future.

We remain unconvinced about the presenters,  however.  As with 2024, we still see them as chatterbox-style presenters and lacking the gravitas that the first broadcast of the year demands.  Their style of presenting is much more suited to Rock Festivals and the like than hardcore New Year television broadcasts.

Let's hope for continuing improvement - but no more Robert Burns,  please.  The BBC should know that Burns's scribblings never fit well into West Highland Gaelic settings.  He was,  after all,  a Lowland Scot (Gall) to his fingerprints.

We prefer our very own Gaelic prose.

SANDIE PEGGIE v NHS FIFE BOARD and DR BETH UPTON

Admission. We fell asleep many times trying to make sense of the Judgement in this case amounting to a monumental 312 pages.  We gave up in despair.  The Judgement is both rambling in nature and untidy in form and no wonder.  The Tribunal obviously took the view that if one word was adequate to cover its deliberations they would multipy that by a factor of 100.  Verbal diarrhoea, it's called,  so that it is quite possible that the core of the legal arguments was lost somewhere amongst all that verbiage.

To cut a very long story short,  it is obvious that the Tribunal took a rather unfavourable view of the Claimant,  Nurse Sandie Peggie,  while taking a much more favourable view of the Second Respondent,  Dr Beth Upton.  Basically,  in upholding only Mrs Peggie's claim of harassment by NHS Fife Board - to which NHS Fife Board had no real defence - Mrs Peggie was successful only in the very minimum of her claim.  All other claims by Mrs Peggie were dismissed so that we may not have heard the last of this case after all.

Our own view is that much of this bizarre case  was utterly unsuited for arguing in Courts and Tribunals of Law as opposed to the application of sound,  common sense at the very beginning of the problem and long before it became an issue. Frankly, politicians were seriously at fault in passing legislation that could possibly be interpreted in the manner of the circumstances here. But, when it comes to Trans issues,  we don't expect politicians to show much grey matter,  do we? They follow the herd,  do they not?

That outrageous Scottish Government policy, basically that man and woman are interchangeable,  is one that,  in Scotland, has been applied with both vigour and vengeance by the Scottish Nationalist Government.  NHS Fife Board is,  of course,  a quango of the Scottish Government so  that that may explain a lot of what went abysmally wrong in this case for NHS Fife Board. While something going wrong happens all the time,  both for organisations and for individuals, the consequences in what happened to Mrs Peggie are verging on the criminal.

The only sanity we could find anywhere is the recent case of For Women Scotland Ltd where the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom gave,  as always,  a Judgement of superb intellectual  lucidity which,  sadly,  appears to have been largely,  if not entirely,  ignored in Mrs Peggie's case.  It has certainly been  ignored widely by the Scottish Nationalist Government for the simple reason that the Supreme Court decision turns on its head the Nationalist Government's desperation since it came to power  to pursue its agenda that a man and a woman are interchangeable.

Whichever way we approach it, we cannot agree with the Tribunal that the claims against Dr Upton should have been dismissed. It was Dr Upton,  a trans woman,  who triggered this problem in the first place by insisting on using a female-only changing facility when she was acutely aware of the problems her behaviour was causing. Her conduct could only have been deliberate towards her junior colleague, Mrs Peqggie,  and,  thus, actionable. Why on earth would a biological male wish to access a female-only changing room anyway?  That core question has never been addressed.

As for NHS Fife Board, it deserves utter condemnation for both its stupidity and its outrageous malevolence towards its employee, Mrs Peggie,  for whom it had a legal duty of care.  That malevolence,  and Dr Upton's poor conduct,  were glossed over by the Tribunal.  The Board was,  of course,  doing its master's bidding in the form of the Scottish Government but that's no excuse.  The Board is a legal entity of its own.

No woman should ever have to endure the indignity, humiliation and degrading treatment suffered by Mrs Peggie in  having  to share a female-only changing room with a biological male in the course of her employment,  an important factor  that appears to have escaped the Tribunal altogether. Add NHS Fife Board's very obvious malice towards Mrs Peggie and Dr Upton's deliberately bad behaviour and one is left to wonder whether the Tribunal was simply out of its depth or just took a flakey in dismissing so much of Mrs Peggie's claim.

Finally, let's not forget Nicola Sturgeon,  former First Minister of Scotland and principal architect of the Scottish Government's Trans policy,  for this omnishambles.  Her dreadful legacy is unravelling.

It's a mad,  mad world.

TORCUIL CRICHTON MP (3)

Our MP,  the lamentable Torcuil,  has voted against extending Child Benefit on two occasions since elected in July 2024 and in accordance with this awful Government's instructions to  Labour MPs.  However,  now, in a total reverse-ferret and terrified of its abysmal poll ratings,  the Government has announced that it will extend Child Benefit after all,  starting the increased rates in April.

Will the spineless Torcuil object to the increased rates?  He should publicly justify his position and let us,  his constituents,  know where he stands.

We're watching!

BBC RADIO NAN GAIDHEAL

Utterly awful.  Should be renamed RADIO POP MUSIC and come with a Serious Health Warning. It is absurd that any public money should be wasted on this mind-numbing drivel from BBC Radio nan Gaidheal.

Like countless others, we wish to continue our Gaelic learning and education.  The only way to learn to an acceptable level is by keeping listening to Gaelic conversation and broadcasting.  

And most certainly not by listening to a Gaelic radio station spewing out Pop Music.  The two entities of Pop Music and Gaelic Culture are as far apart intellectually as it is possible to be.  They can never be reconciled.

Like most other listeners of Radio nan Gaidheal, we loathe Pop Music.  So why does BBC Scotland insist on shoving this rubbish into our ears day and night?  And why was the Gaelic Radio Channel established in the first place?  Was it,  perchance,  so that the BBC could  broadcast  Pop Music to the West Highlands?

It's not just the Pop Music thing that gets us worked up.  The standards in Gaelic Broadcasting have fallen badly in recent years even with supposedly professional journalists so that all too often what we get is a very mixed bag of Slang English and Slang Gaelic  instead of pure,  Broadcast Quality,  Gaelic.  Just why do so many broadcasters simply have to  introduce the English word 'so' into every Gaelic sentence?  It's infuriating.  The television channel BBC Alba is at least as bad if not even worse.  Embarrassing,  actually.  This should not be allowed on air.

We used to have Radio nan Gaidheal on every moment that we could  but,  nowadays,  it is with great trepidation that we press that ON button.  We simply do not know who,  or what,  is at the other end.

What on earth would the late founder of BBC Highland and Gaelic broadcasting legend,  the erudite and inimitable Uilleam Carrocher,  make of it?  

Uilleam is spinning in his grave.

RACHEL REEVES MP (3)

Astonishingly,  after that disastrous Budget of a few days ago,  Rachel From Accounts remains in post as Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Of course,  Rachel and Starmer are interlocked - if one goes,  the other is on a very shoogly nail.

But Rachel remains in big trouble still.  Rachel publicly based her Budget on a Big Black Hole of anything up to £30billion GBP in the nation's finances.  However, it has now been revealed that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) told her months ago that there was no such Big Black Hole and yet up to,  during, and,  indeed,  after the Budget Rachel persisted that there was.  The Leader of the Opposition,  Mrs Badenoch,  has called Rachel a liar saying she has no option but to resign office.

The reason for this deceit on the public is simple.  The thick as mince horny-handed sons and daughters of toil lobby fodder on the Labour back benches are getting very restless as,  come the next General Election,  their chances of survival are virtually nil.  To placate them in the meantime in return for their continued support,  Rachel simply had to increase the Child Benefit bill by a huge amount - pay those MPs off in other words.

We have long maintained that Mrs Reeves is the most stupid woman in the world.  She is doomed - and Labour's latest version of Russian-style Socialism is doomed with her.

THE COVID INQUIRY

Well,  that's that over and at a cost of some £200million GBP.  That the various governments of the realm did 'too little,  too late' we already knew. With Boris Johnson in charge down south and Nicola Sturgeon in charge in Scotland it was inevitable that it was always going to be a dog's dinner anyway.

Should the Inquiry not have been about whether Lockdown was both necessay and appropriate in the first place?  

That's the one question everyone wants to know.

THE ROYAL FAMILY (1)

As a matter of recorded history,  monarchs and their offspring the world over have long been a very unsavoury lot.  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is no exception.

As events unfold,  the late Queen Elizabeth II's perceived saintliness is suffering a mortal blow and quite rightly so.  We have never believed anything other than that she was highly typical of the breed and a cunning and conniving woman,  just like her mother Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon,  better known in later years as the Queen Mother.  That Queen Elizabeth chose to marry that awful man,  Prince Philip, and  the closeness of the Royal Family to the debauched Lord Mountbatten - mentor of the present king,  no less - tell us really all we want to know.

British newspaper proprietors and editors over the past 150 years are to blame for this dreadful state of affairs.  Instead of  investigating and publicising the outrageous conduct - including drug-taking aplenty - of the Royal Family over those years,  newspaper proprietors and their editors opted for the fawning sycophants' way in anticipation of  becoming associates of the royal tribe.  Utterly shameful.  Everything stage-managed to perfection alongside the newspapers as only the Windsors can do. 

No wonder we cannot trust or believe a word written in the Press to this day and no wonder that in this internet-enlightened age  newspaper sales have dwindled to a trickle. 

Both the Royal Family and the Press are reaping what they have sown over a great many years.

THE LABOUR VULTURES

If our assessment  of the ghastly state of politics today is correct,  it appears that the only issue among the chattering classes for some time now has been who is to replace Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.  

Keir has never got over his huge  problem at the start of his premiership in accepting a colossal amount of free clothing  from Lord Alli.  He never will.  That was a bad move but there is nothing he can do about it now.  However, realising that Keir is  a hopeless Leader,  that he's not really interested in being Prime Minister and that they are all going to lose their seats,   the vultures are circling for blood.  Those vultures are  Angela Rayner,  Red Ed Miliband,  Wes Streeting and that chancer,  Andy Burnham,  mayor of somewhere in the North of England.

Lord help us with any of that lot as Prime Minister.  Caviar and champagne for them,  sackcloth and ashes for the rest of us.

RADIO SCOTLAND BREAKFAST

Most sadly,  the BBC flagship radio programme,  Good Morning Scotland,  is soon to be no more.  It is to be replaced by some dreadfully-named thing called Radio Scotland Breakfast. 

We had become well-used to presenters Gary Robertson and Laura Maxwell over many years and we liked in particular Robertson's roughing-up of Scotland's Nationalist politicians - who are stupid beyond belief one might add.  We have nothing whatever against the new presenting team of Martin Geissler and Laura Maciver,  both excellent journalists in their own right,  but why the change?

And what prize dumpling dreamt up the name Radio Scotland Breakfast?  It's enough to make you spew your porridge.