The SNP Continues to Flounder with More Uncomfortable Details about Nicola Sturgeon's Leadership of both the SNP and Scotland.
First the real cost of the SNP international junket to the COP27 conference in Egypt last year. At the time some media outlets in Scotland questioned the cost of sending the First Minister and an SNP team to the COP27 climate conference.
Secondly: Now in July 2023 the media are reporting that Lord Foulkes, a Labour peer has asked the Advocate General to investigate SNP directed 'government spending' on wasteful projects and policy initiatives such as IndyRef2. It seems that Humza Yousaf is just as careless as his predecessor when it comes to Scotland's expenditure.
First Minister Humza Yousaf with his team, the recently appointed minister for independence Jamie Hepburn and deputy First Minister Shona Robison, promoting the SNP push for a referendum on Scottish independence, posing for a press photo-opportunity with suitably expensive glossy brochures and promotional materials. All funded by the Scottish tax-payers.
So bad have things got with the "improper expenditure" by the SNP led administration that Labour peer Lord Foulkes is leading a campaign to force not only an official investigation into SNP government directed spending, but for some kind of official restrictions on what projects can be directly funded from the Holyrood coffers.
It was nae me !Former First Minister and ex-SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon staging a recent press conference on the drive outside her home in Glasgow.
The Police Scotland investigation into the finances of the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon's leadership has not gone away and more questions keep emerging about how she ran the SNP as a political party and what internal tensions and cover ups went on during her tenure.
Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP delegation spent how much at the COP27 Conference in November 2022?
The Scottish government spent £148,000 of tax-payer's money on the SNP delegation to COP27 in Egypt last year. This was the vanity trip staged to present Scotland's First Minister and the SNP on an international stage.
At the time, November 2022, a number of news media outlets questioned the cost of the trip, and the necessity of so many SNP officials travelling with Nicola Sturgeon to Egypt. At the time it was estimated that the travel costs and accommodation alone were about £78,000.
Now the final costs, the true costs of the trip have come out: £148,000. All taken from the Scottish government budget. The SNP delegation acted as though they were representing an independent nation with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon acting as if she were some actual head of state.
Nicola Sturgeon flew from London directly to Egypt, but at least half the Scottish delegates had a one night stop over in Milan, Italy. The SNP delegation had a suite of 25 rooms at the Parrotel hotel in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, roughly costing £44,000. The SNP crowd rented office space in the resort, spent thousands of pounds on food, snacks and mobile phones.
Nicola Sturgeon and her team tried to present themselves to the international press as some kind of official diplomatic mission by an independent sovereign state!
The whole junket really went to their heads and First Minister Sturgeon got so carried away that she pledged £5 million from the government of Scotland to the countries of the 'global south' as Scotland's financial contribution towards 'reparations for climate change'!
When did the MSP's at Holyrood get consulted about that Scottish government commitment?
Pictured below: one of Nicola Sturgeon's many photo-opportunities at COP27 in the resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
Holyrood must have lost the plot - Legalise Drugs in Scotland - Are They for real?
Recent outlandish pronouncements from Holyrood indicate that the SNP and its Green allies want to break with overall UK law and law enforcement by legalising drugs. That is street drugs, currently illegal Class A and Class B narcotics, including heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, LSD and more.
Scotland has the worst figures for drug related deaths; not just in the United Kingdom but across Western Europe. Needless to say the MSP 's at Holyrood claim to know better than the UK national government at Westminster and want to completely re-write Scotland's laws on drugs, drug possession and drug dealing. If this goes through then we can expect every junkie in England, Wales and Northern Ireland turning up in Scotland to take advantage.
And now Glasgow is set to lose the Night Bus !
Only a couple of months ago BM Scotland reported on the latest SNP/Green plans to turn Glasgow into a LEZ (Low Emissions Zone) which would deter the drivers of petrol and diesel vehicle drivers from entering the Glasgow restricted vehicle zones and impose a financial penalty on those driving into the city. Supporters of this 'Green- Environmental' agenda said that public transport would take care of their travel needs. Oh Yeah?
So First Bus Scotland are now telling the folk in 'Greater Glasgow' that the only late night bus service available is going to end this Summer. In fact First Glasgow plan to cancel all weekend late night bus services in Glasgow from the end of July, thus abandoning all late night bus users in Scotland's biggest city. So much for public transport replacing private cars; what does this do to both workers and customers of the Night Time Industries?
One very telling statement came from an anti-poverty charity, "stopping the night service was completely unjust and will hit Glaswegians on low incomes the hardest - people who work night shifts and early shifts.." Does anyone inside the Holyrood SNP and Greens 'think tanks' even consider those facts of life?
How many folk from across Scotland travel into Glasgow to see live music entertainment or comedy shows in the city? What are they supposed to do now because the train and subway networks across the city shut down at midnight?
The SNP government keeps banging on about reducing car miles across Scotland by 20% by the year 2030......but the loss of a night bus service in Glasgow shows the total lack of joined up thinking by the SNP and the Scottish Greens behind these grand schemes.
Looking back at a BM visit to Parkhead a couple of years ago