The figures are startling. While unemployment stands at almost 1.5 million, the number classified as “economically inactive” has soared to 9.4 million
First the ferry sad news. With a blast on the horn, the MV Hebridean Isles sailed out of Stornoway for the last time, bound for the Clyde and a broker’s yard.
The SNP’s list of Holyrood candidates has potential as a warm-up act for the Glasgow Comedy Festival at which Nicola Sturgeon is already billed as an unlikely source of side-splitters, writes Brian Wilson.
Whatever else has happened since the General Election, there is one manifesto commitment being pursued with relentless vigour. The drive towards renewable energy is well and truly on, and moving at pace. Money is being poured in and obstacles are being swept aside.
For the first Labour budget in 14 years, yesterday’s was pretty good and I don’t even feel it necessary to add the caveat “in the circumstances”. It was a rare case of a politician under-promising and delivering more positivity than was advertised.
It would be pleasing to report that National Geographic’s designation of the Outer Hebrides as a “Best in the World” destination for 2025 was greeted with dancing in the streets of Lochboisdale. Sadly, it would not be true.
Quangos are the hidden hands of government in Scotland; agencies which nobody voted for but hold far more power than is healthy, much of it leeched from local accountability. Once again, the failed governance of Scotland’s ferry network has highlighted this but the quango issue goes much wider and deeper than that.
Transport secretary Fiona Hyslop has been told that her decision to re-appoint the Danish chair and other absentee directors of Caledonian MacBrayne has caused “real anger” in the islands.
Sometimes, anniversaries remind us of how much has changed. Other times, they serve notice of how little has changed. The current flurry of interest in the 50th anniversary of the Barlinnie Special Unit serves both purposes, in ways which should lead to honest re-evaluation of Scotland’s penal system, its aims and outcomes.
There is no rational basis for hostility to a minority language, driven to the edges of survival, which barely impinges upon the life of most Scots. The public money spent in its support scarcely equates to an accounting error.
