It was during the 1984-85 miners' strike that I first began to regard the BBC as an arm of the state. I've seen little to change my opinion since.

Reminder that Tim Davie, who's just resigned as BBC Director-General, stood in an election for the Tories in Hammersmith, was deputy chairman of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Party and in 2020 spent his first day in the job visiting BBC Scotland in Glasgow.

A proposal to require property developers to include at least one “swift brick” in every new home to save swifts, house martins, sparrows, and starlings - all of which are in rapid decline - at a mere cost of £35 per building has been rejected by UK Labour. naturalworldfund.com/labour-block...

“We do not want an independent Scotland because we dislike the English, but because we want separation from that Union of financial, military and monarchic establishments calling itself Great Britain.” —Alasdair Gray, “Independence: An Argument for Home Rule”, 2014.

If you believe in human rights but you don't believe they apply to everyone, then what you actually believe in is privilege. bsky.app/profile/urc....

Bloody foreigners, coming over here, saving our lives. www.lbc.co.uk/article/trai...

Take a look at this graph. It should be a rocket up our collective arses. It's time we took independence a lot more seriously than we are doing. Per capita, Scotland is as rich as Europe but leaks more wealth than sub-Saharan Africa. www.thenational.scot/politics/255...

When you hear, "new information has emerged in recent times..." from a former royal press officer you know it actually means, "what the royals have known in full for years and which was so damaging they paid £12m to suppress it, is now coming into the public domain."

Wee factoid: the name “Mountbatten” was adopted on 14 July 1917, three days before the British royal family changed its name to “Windsor”, by members of the Battenberg family residing in the UK, due to rising anti-German sentiment during World War I. The name is a direct Anglicisation.

Since Scotland voted No, energy costs have increased by about £3,000.

BMA Scotland welcomes £531m deal with Scottish Government - the largest investment in core GP services in Scotland to date - as a ‘significant step in the right direction’ to stabilise and rebuild general practice. I'm sure Reporting Scotland will be all over this. www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opi...

A wee nugget here regarding Dounreay which may have slipped under the radar: "The full decontamination of the site is expected to take *more than 300 years*" 12 generations. I wonder if they'll have "allowed" us another independence referendum by then. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

One of the most blatant lies I can remember from BBC Scotland (and that's saying something.) Basically a copy/paste of a Scottish Tory press release. The actual figure involved was £23,000 over 3 years. The BBC has added wages that would be paid whether the staff involved were in Turkey or not.

Royal protection officers routinely give codenames to those they’re looking after. The late Queen was known as ‘Purple One’, for example, while Prince Philip was referred to as ‘The Greek’. Prince Andrew's codename was ‘The Cunt’. www.express.co.uk/news/royal/2...

I seem to remember that the Yanks made a huge fuss about this when the Brits did it in 1814.

Only a couple of decades ago, similar lines were spewed out by representatives of the National Front and British National Party for which they were, rightly, castigated from all sides. Now it's become normalised. How far the UK has fallen. bsky.app/profile/theg...

Films: We need to hack a keycard, obtained by seducing one of the guards. We then need to drop in from the skylight after jumping from a plane, and dodge all of the lasers and traps, carefully switching the jewels for fakes that weigh the same to avoid tripping the alarm. Real life:

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

Well, it's been more than three years now. I guess that debate on the future of the monarchy we were told would have to wait until the queen died isn't happening.

Fixed that for you, @AP

The Nonce and Future King.

Oh, the grand old Duke of York, He had 12 million quid. He gave it to someone he’d never met, For something he never did.

The Royal Family has - for two decades, at every stage of these shabby, squalid, dishonourable proceedings - protected, covered up, and ultimately paid for Andrew Windsor's behaviour. His disgrace is their disgrace. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cv...

Apparently they were promised an away ticket allocation for the match in Birmingham 5,000 years ago. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“They’re arrogant. They think they can get away with it and they think they have an entitlement, and they carry on regardless. They sail on.” Andrew is not the biggest problem. The monarch, his family and allies and the system are. archive.is/mctTa

Do you *really* want this gurning neo-fascist as your Prime Minister, Scotland? Time to go. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

"The latent genius of the great engineers and thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment still exists in our community today. To be found and to flourish, all it really needs is belief." An upbeat, encouraging article from Professor Mark Logan OBE FRSE. www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/...

The UK Labour Government will allow the Welsh Labour Government to decide where the Welsh share of the so-called 'Shared Prosperity Fund' is spent. In contrast, the Scottish Government is bypassed. Spend in Scotland is dictated by Westminster. Union of equals, my arse. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"Britain’s departure from the EU in the time of Trump, and Britain’s consequent unqualified dependence on the United States in an era when the US is heading straight down the road to institutional racism and neo-fascism, is an unmitigated clusterfuck bar none." - John le Carré

Abdicate? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It's uncanny how forced "corrections" issued by the BBC always - ALWAYS - relate to stories painting Scotland or its government in a poor light. Continually telling Scottish folk that they and the country in which they live are shite is their default operating position. bsky.app/profile/scot...

All the money you made will never buy back your soul.

Your occasional reminder that this buffoonish party apparatchik has had a 24-year career in the Scottish Parliament without once winning any sort of election, trousering well over a million pounds from the public purse in the process.

Anyone who claims they have nothing to be afraid of and questions others on what they have to hide should be banned from owning curtains. #DigitalID

If scrapping indefinite leave to remain (ILR) entirely, as Reform would do, is racist, according to Labour, what is making ILR twice as difficult, expensive & humiliating to obtain, as Labour are doing?

The Secret of Life in two short paragraphs from Kurt Vonnegut. I do miss him.

That noise you hear is William Beveridge, Clement Attlee and Nye Bevan spinning in their graves. bsky.app/profile/saul...

I seem to remember Labour drones wringing their hands over Grangemouth and insisting they could do nothing because it was a private company. Like JLR is.

It's quite inspiring to see Keir Starmer come up with a policy proposal that's managed to unite all five of Northern Ireland's main political parties. In opposition. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I wonder how the Union Jack-emblazoned “Brit Card” will go down in Northern Ireland. They really haven't thought this through. As usual.

We are PRIVATE citizens; the government should know the bare minimum about us. The government, supposedly, consists of PUBLIC servants. We should know everything about them. Starmer and his cohorts have it arse-backwards.

The "Brit Card". Frankly, I'll be wiping my arse with that before cutting it up and posting it back with a nice "No thanks" message. www.thenational.scot/news/2549624...

In Wales there's a legal requirement for road signs to be in both English and Welsh. Wording was emailed to the Welsh translator and the sign installed. Unfortunately, the translation reads, "I am currently out of the office. Please submit any work to the translation team."

From the man who brought you "inject yourself with bleach" as a Covid cure. bsky.app/profile/alja...

From the sadly missed author and national treasure Iain Banks in a letter to the Guardian, 3rd June 2010. (15 years ago…) www.theguardian.com/world/2010/j...

The Onion there, pulling no punches:

From the New York Times, February 4th 1939. History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. www.nytimes.com/1939/02/04/a...

What do you call someone who's anti-anti-fascist?

Just days after Starmer stood up in Parliament and insisted that police would only target serious offences and boasted about the UK being a bastion of free speech. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Started, going, etc.