TimM

Walking. Dogs. Industrial Architecture. Steam and Diesel Heritage Railways. Retired businessman & Chartered Engineer.

[Higgy @higgyboson]

I've been driving around the Scottish Highlands for a few days and I've noticed a big difference in towns compared to where I live in Devon.

In Devon, whenever you drive into a town you have to pay to park. That's before you spend anything in shops, bars, cafes etc.

Councils consider car drivers as the enemy. A mere cash cow. If you park - YOU PAY.

Hence, many people now avoid town centres like the plague or they severely limit the number of times they visit.

For the past few days I've stopped off in many towns across the North of Scotland. I've parked in council car parks and not once have I been confronted with a ticket machine, a barrier or an ANPR camera.

And guess what? I've actually been into shops, cafes, restaurants etc and spent money. In so doing, I've helped the businesses to do what they do best - Providing goods and services to their communities.

Communities free from paying extortionate amounts of money to local councils for the "privilege" of being able to park up and visit businesses who rely on their custom.

Councils "down South" should take notice.

If you price drivers out of towns, they stay away, businesses close and the town dies.

The evidence is everywhere.

(And yes, I know Internet shopping is another enemy of the High Street so I don't need to be informed about that).

[Basil the Great @BasilTheGreat]

Henry Nowak's final moments were surrounded by:

The Man who murdered him
The Family who covered it up
An officer who didn't believe him
An officer who thought he was a racist
An officer who arrested him

Not a single person cared about Henry

And they wonder why we're angry?

[Ben Leo @Benleo]

Keir Starmer can complain about foreign interference from @elonmusk and @JDVance all he likes but:

He's the one who led the UK's martyrdom of George Floyd in 2020

And he's the one who led a party which campaigned for Kamala Harris in battleground states during the US election

[John Aziz @aziz0nomics]

Often, The biggest danger of trying to be "anti-racist", it seems, is that by focusing on race, you end up being racist in a different direction.

I honestly think that MLK-style "content of character, not colour of skin" colourblindness is the thing to strive for, instead.

[John Redwood @johnredwood]

Why does the government stop the flow of tax that would come from more UK oil and gas production, so we have to pay huge taxes instead to foreign countries for imports? @Facts4euOrg today sets out this huge self harm. There’s more than £200 bn awaiting a sensible government.

[Suffragent @Suffragent_]

Man who took the knee for a foreign criminal and called everyone far-right after Southport is now accusing people of "whipping up" division over Henry Nowak.

[Wes Streeting @wesstreeting]

I’m not going to amplify Reform’s ad by sharing it, but the wilful misrepresentation of Kemi Badenoch - selectively quoting what she said about ‘white lives matter’ - is disgraceful and dangerous.

It needs to be challenged, including by those of us who are not Conservatives.

[TimM @tigger_tim]

@MarkMcLaugh1in Almost certainly 'previous convictions'.

[Joanna Cherry KC @joannaccherry]

🧵From Murrell narrative it’s clear that the systems put in place by @theSNP for financial management were wholly inadequate. Leadership, party office bearers, most of NEC, HQ staff including party’s in house solicitor at best asleep at the wheel at worst grossly negligent. 1/2

[Joanna Cherry KC @joannaccherry]

Peter Murrell was not a criminal mastermind he just took advantage of a system devoid of adequate checks & balances and a culture where scrutiny and questioning were demonised. That culture has infected the Scottish government, our Parliament & our civic life. It needs to change.

[Alex Armstrong @Alexarmstrong]

Unbelievable.

@SkyNews dedicated an entire TV channel to livestream the ENTIRETY of George Floyd’s murder trial. The feed ran live from 3pm to 11pm BST, Monday to Friday.

They DIDN’T live broadcast Henry Nowak’s case statement today… let that sink in.

Neither did BBC News. Only @GBNEWS covered it live.

Do you see the issue with these establishment news channels and their unabashed bias? Shame on them.

[Win C @UKScotBrit]

This is a good comment on this article:-

"Douglas Chapman the SNP Treasurer resigns because Murrell
refused to let him see the SNP accounts.

The SNP Audit Committee resigned (3 of them) because Murrell
refused to let them see the SNP accounts.

The SNP auditors, Carmichael Johnston, withdraw their services.
The new Auditors, AMS, issued ‘qualified’ status because they, according to the accounts, couldn’t satisfy themselves with sufficient evidence.

The Chair of the SNP NEC berates NEC members for daring to raise their concerns about the lack of transparency and evidence of the
whereabouts of that £667k at the March 2021 meeting.

Yet Sturgeon and Swinney, plus Yousaf, saw nothing, heard nothing and did nothing"

@JohnSwinney Are you really telling us you had no idea what your boyhood bestie was up too?

https://t.co/sI4CfITE8Y

[TimM @tigger_tim]

@Bexbel @GBNEWS @MPIainDS @HantsPolice @IPCC_CH @elonmusk @afneil @AllisonPearson I'm assuming you meant to tag @policeconduct rather than the climate change group?

[ripx4nutmeg @ripx4nutmeg]

Labour MP Jonathan Hinder says his party could "die" if his parliamentary colleagues continue to ignore important issues facing voters and instead keep making statements supporting cross-dressing men

[TimM @tigger_tim]

@PolitlcsUK It would help if airline staff stopped visibly drunk people from boarding. And stopped serving so much alcohol on board.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

My monologue on today’s The Times at One with
ANDREW NEIL on our political leadership deficit @TimesRadio

I think we can pretty much all agree this is not exactly a golden age for British political leadership. 

The UK Prime Minister is such a lame duck he virtually quacks. 

The former First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, once feared by Scottish journalists and feted by the London media, is now held in such low regard north of the border that she’s moving to London. At least she’ll avoid the higher taxes she imposed on her fellow Scots. 

And the glitzy capital is probably a more fitting habitation for the Imelda McMarcos de nos jours than the grime of Glasgow or the grey of Auld Reekie (aka Edinburgh). 

But it does leave the current First Minister, John ‘Jobsworth’ Swinney, to deal with the fallout of the biggest scandal to hit Scottish politics since — well maybe since forever. 

In other leadership news, the Lib Dems are led by a man whose main claim to public recognition is falling in the water, the Greens by a man who seems to have more skeletons in his closet than Davy Jones’s locker. 

Nigel Farage has his followers but so far his political abilities have been as an insurgent rather than somebody who could run a country. 

In a dispiriting field, Kemi Badenoch is just about the only political leader to shine. But she leads a brand which could be tarnished beyond repair. 

Keir Starmer clings to power, perhaps emboldened by the lacklustre efforts of those who would unseat him. 

Wes Streeting, who resigned as Health Secretary to challenge Starmer, had second thoughts and now strikes a somewhat forlorn figure, launching a battle of ideas without a single new idea to offer. 

Andy Burnham, fighting the Makerfield by election as the springboard to his own challenge to Starmer, has hardly set the heather on fire with his campaign. That could be because he’s so dizzy from all the policy U-turns he’s executing. 

The Starmer-Streeting-Burnham performance is emboldening others even less talented to think they might be in with a chance of the big job. 

The Times reports that Darren Jones, barely a household name in his own household, is thinking of throwing his hat in the ring. 

What we’ve done to deserve all this isn’t clear. Perhaps electing them is the first clue. In other words we reap what we sow. 

Makerfield might be par for the course. Burnham is favourite to win, even if not runaway favourite. 

The British, of course, can be, every now and then,  notoriously curmudgeonly and contrarian. Perhaps the good people of Makerfield will decide it’s time to display such characteristics once more. 

If Burnham does go down to defeat on June 18 it could be because voters have had enough of being taken for granted. But what happens to Labour after that is anybody’s guess.

[TimM @tigger_tim]

@afneil "Oh, that, she said. Accounts always go up and down. There’s always something no one quite understands and you just have to let it go."

[Chris McCall @Dennynews]

In June 2021, John Swinney told the BBC he could not understand why Douglas Chapman had resigned as the SNP's national treasurer.

Asked whether police were investigating "£600,000 of SNP funds that was.. perhaps diverted elsewhere?"

Swinney replied: "Not to my knowledge, no."

[Susan Dalgety @DalgetySusan]

It’s surely a huge red flag when an organisation’s treasurer resigns because he isn’t allowed access to the books. ❓Who stopped him?
❓The party leader, Nicola Sturgeon?
❓Or her husband, the party’s boss.
❓Or both?
❓Why was he refused sight of the books?
Whoever was responsible and for whatever the reason, it is the surely the height of bad governance.

[Jackie Baillie @jackiebmsp]

Nicola Sturgeon was in charge the whole time. She was even the Treasurer when Douglas Chapman resigned and a ‘loan’ was arranged from Peter Murrell to the SNP.

She shut down and covered up any suggestion that there were problems.3/5