Britain Grates

Satire, News, Views & Commentary From Around Britain. What's Grating On You Today?

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

MPs 'failing to learn lessons' as freebies acceptance soars to £400,000.

Disclosures include £858 worth of tickets to a Harry Styles concert at Wembley by Lucy Powell, now education secretary.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

Gotham survived the Joker, the Riddler and Bane.

Can Glasgow survive a BBC documentary?

BATMAN: “I am vengeance. I am the night. I am… apparently needed in Glasgow. The BBC's most dangerous city in the world” 🦇

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

Andy Burnham & Keir Starmer flew the UK Government’s VIP Airbus A321, registration G-GBNI at an approximate cost of £14,000 PER HOUR.

The Government published these G-GBNI travel costs earlier in 2026:

Starmer to Cork: £40,519.26 in travel costs.
Starmer to Munich: £44,404.16.
Starmer to Helsinki: £79,630.98.
Starmer to the Women’s Euro 2025 final in Basel, accompanied by his wife and 10 officials: £60,130

Simply taking Cork, tracking records show roughly 2 hrs 56 mins of G-GBNI flying associated with the trip. For Helsinki, roughly 5 hrs 26 mins.

That works out at roughly:
Cork: £13,813 per airborne hour
Helsinki: £14,656 per airborne hour

Apply that observed range to Burnham's 2 hrs 8 mins of aircraft movements:

Estimated cost: £29,469–£31,266.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

Live footage from the Scottish Labour leadership contest.

One loser, fighting another loser, to decide who is the greatest loser.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

And you want to lead Scotland? Staggering you don't know what this is.

£67bn of pension assets presented as though it’s spare cash waiting for a politician to “put to work”.

No. Surprise, surprise. It’s invested to PAY PEOPLE’S PENSIONS.

Imagine you were in charge. Scotland needs a First Minister, not someone eyeing up the retirement fund like a government overdraft.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

Who's a clever wee cookie... eh 🍩

I don't mind MSP's who win elections having expenses. Particularly leaders of a country, representing the country around the world.

Russel Findlay didn't even stand. Does he not have expenses? Yet complains about those who won? Hypocrisy is astounding. Todd is one correct, one of 58 who won. All parties % of list MSP's are:

Reform 100%
Labour 82%
Greens 87%
Conservatives 67%
Liberal Democrats 30%
SNP 2%

Some 80% lost the constituency vote. Lost = losers. Who did they lose too??? We can all see where the scams are... Maybe time for FPTP in true British style eh? 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💙👋

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

GB Energy Aberdeen HQ get together for a team meeting.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

Stephen Kerr has never won a Scottish Parliament constituency seat. Ever.

Despite that, he has received approx. £369,000 in MSP salary since 2021 - plus expenses.

He lost in 2021.
He lost again in 2026.
Both times by huge margins.

He only entered Holyrood through the regional list.

[Stephen Kerr MSP @RealStephenKerr]

This is disgusting.

Nearly £100,000 of taxpayers’ money spent on John Swinney, an SNP minister and their entourage going to the World Cup.

More than £45,000 on flights. Business-class travel. Nearly £10,000 on hotels. Thousands more on car hire — including £5,458 for Maree Todd’s car in Miami.

And some of the officials travelling at our expense have not even been identified.

The scale of this is incredible.

£98,442. On this.

While taxpayers are being hammered and public services are crying out for money, SNP ministers seem to think the public purse is there to fund luxury travel for themselves and their advisers.

It is absolutely indefensible.

John Swinney should explain every penny of it.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

The 'Scottish' Press call an emergency SNAKE meeting to discuss new newspaper titles for 2026.

WINNER:
SCOTLAND THE GRAVE
- Burying good news since 1707.

SIGNED:
The SNAKE Committee
(The Scottish Negative Anti-National Knock Everything Committee)

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

Inflation is up to 2.9%. Prices are rising again.

But don’t worry - Andy Burnham will be giving live TikTok updates from Downing Street. He has a ring light.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

You really need to read the figures you’re citing.

ScotWind operational rent isn’t “capped at 2% of turnover”. Crown Estate Scotland sets it at £1.07/MWh, indexed to CPI.

And 98% of turnover is not “profit”. Turnover ≠ profit.

As for the £755m: the Scottish Fiscal Commission says just £96m was used to support the resource budget in 2022-23, with £0 used in 2023-24 and £0 in 2024-25.

The latest Scottish Budget says hundreds of millions remain available for future deployment.

I see you proudly mention that you use ai. Clealry sitting copy/pasting because you can't think for yourself. A lot of words (ai slop) later, Scotland is still producing the surplus and sending power south. Westminster remains very comfortably switched on. 👋🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💙

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

Scotland: keeping Westminster switched on.

Scotland exported 21.7 TWh of electricity in 2025 and imported just 0.9 TWh - making it a net exporter of 20.8 TWh to the rest of the UK.

In 2024 Scotland generated 18.2% of UK electricity despite accounting for only 9.8% of UK electricity consumption. England generated 70.7% while accounting for 81.2% of consumption. Scotland then transferred around 17.2 TWh south to England.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

You’re now arguing a different point.

Yes, the £910m gas turn-up is part of the same constraint bill. But your original claim was that £1.5bn was paid “just to turn Scottish wind off”. It wasn’t.

More importantly, why are you framing this as a failure of Scottish generation?

The problem is that large amounts of renewable capacity was built without upgrading the transmission network fast enough to move that power south. Even the UK Government now describes this as a historic failure to develop the grid alongside generation.

So Scotland produces the electricity, the grid can’t always carry it, consumers pay for the bottleneck - and somehow your conclusion is that Scotland is the problem? That’s quite a spin.

Funny how Scotland’s generating capacity becomes a ‘problem’ when England can’t match the surplus. All while England generates less than it consumes.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

There’s a fair criticism of ScotWind here - Scotland should absolutely have secured more public ownership of its offshore wind. But that’s a separate argument from whether Scotland generates and exports electricity.

The £755m was upfront option-fee revenue, but it hasn’t all been “spent covering budget shortfalls”, and operational projects will make further multi-million-pound payments to Crown Estate Scotland.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

That £1.5bn claim rather falls apart when you read the Government’s own figures.

CfD levies aren’t divided by the number of “billpayers”. They’re charged per MWh of eligible electricity demand across GB. Yes, England and Wales pay the majority because they consume the majority.

But £1.5bn “just to turn Scottish wind off”? No.

In 2024/25, the Government says wind generators across GB received £370m to turn down. Around £910m went to gas generators to turn UP replacement power.

And the Government itself calls the underlying constraint problem a “historic failure to develop our network infrastructure”.

Scotland produces the surplus. England consumes more than it generates. The grid struggling to move that Scottish power south isn’t quite the anti-Scotland gotcha you think it is. The constraint problem exists in large part because there is more generation available in Scotland than the existing grid can always transport south. Using that as proof Scotland doesn't contribute very much is backwards.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

Nobody said it was donated. Of course generators are paid - that’s how electricity markets work.

But you’ve skipped the inconvenient bit.

In 2024, UK Government figures show England consumed more electricity than it generated, while Scotland generated more than it consumed. 17.2 TWh was transferred from Scotland to England.

And in 2025 Scotland exported 21.7 TWh, imported just 0.9 TWh - net exports of 20.8 TWh.

Calling it an “integrated GB market” doesn’t make the electricity disappear at the border.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

@S1ckboy81 You mean I'm the 3rd person you’ve invented a claim I didn’t make, then congratulated yourself for correcting it.

Official stats are clear: “Scotland exported 21.7 TWh” in 2025. You should read them sometime.

Nobody said Holyrood owns the generators. Corrected ✅

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

You mean exactly the same as England? Funny how national statistics only stop counting when the numbers become inconvenient.

Energy generation creates tax and public revenue - including non-domestic rates, Scottish income tax from jobs and supply chains, and Crown Estate Scotland revenues. ScotWind alone has already secured £755m in option fees for public spending.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

@bm24601 Scottish consumers help fund the same GB-wide renewable support schemes - while Scotland provides a disproportionately large share of the resulting electricity generation. England generates less electricity than it consumes.

[Britain Grates @BritainGrates]

Here's your 2024 stats, now be careful there are more than a few words. It may take you a while to understand but I believe in you, you will get there. https://t.co/Tbg06R2kS2

And here's some data on 2025. Much easier to understand, this one's right up your street. Or maybe not. Have a great day! 💙🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿https://t.co/UHGrrRbMRL