“It’s now hitting England where rates changes have been proposed by Rachel Reeves, so accordingly the sectors plight is getting a far bigger UK media profile. South of the Border, there have even been campaigns to ban Labour MPs from pubs, It has forced the Chancellor to both backtrack and make concessions.
I recall writing almost a decade ago to Derek Mackay about the issue when he was finance secretary. The rates crisis in the Scottish hospitality sector was not of his making but rather something which he’d inherited. But I told him that the buck now rested with him and that action was urgently needed. Sadly, nothing was done then and the crisis rumbled on and closures mounted. It got worse and is worsening now. The closure of a pub in a village or even an urban locality might not have the same impact as the shutting of the school.
But it does still damage the life of a community where it was once the hub where folks gathered and the venue for community groups to meet. As churches shut, so do many of the halls attached to them and as councils’ budgets tighten community centres are closing their doors too.
A pub or hotel often provided a meeting space, whether a corner for a group to chat or a function suite for larger events. The demise of a pub or hotel, along with the closure of other public venues, affects all ages and not just those seeking a drink.
It also leaves a gap in the high street or on the corner in the area which it served. Many main streets are wash with charity shops or with units lying empty. Filling the gap left by a pub or hotel is far harder. Conversion is much more difficult and often the building is just not suitable for most other ventures. Decaying pubs and hotels can be seen in both urban and rural areas. It’s depressing and a great loss.
Tourism generally and the night-time economy specifically are important for our country but Scotland’s already an expensive destination in comparison to rival nations and especially Ireland. Our loss in inbound golf and cultural trips, or just short breaks, is their gain, and it’s due to cheaper energy prices and other costs – certainly not on the product on offer to the visitor.
The contribution to our land in revenue and job creation are significant. Compounding the highest energy costs with even greater rateable charges has broken the back of many a pub owner and other businesses to.
The night-time economy is also far more than just folk drinking in city centres. It generates footfall, not just for evening visits but for overnight and even longer stays.
It’s also more than nightclubs for younger folk. Events and attractions fall within its ambit, and there are many places in Scotland which rely on festivals and gatherings, covering all ages and all interests. Their loss would gut our city centres and severely damage many smaller communities.
What is going to happen here is still not fully clear and pubs and clubs are holding their breath to see what Finance Secretary Shona Robison does. Many levers are not within her control, with excise duties and other key areas being reserved, but rates are devolved and action must be taken to protect what we’ve still got.
There needs to be immediate action to pass on any funds which become available as a result of the Chancellor’s changes but there also has to be a longer-term strategy. Of course, not all the blame can be laid at the door of Holyrood or Westminster and rates and energy costs. There have been societal changes that have had an impact they even predate Covid.
Home drinking replacing popping into the local hostelry, the smoking ban and even drink driving legislation have had an effect, even if the latter two were necessary for the public good. There are steps that should be taken beyond immediate measures to alleviate the rates impact. There needs to be a root and branch review to end the absurdity of Scottish pubs and hotels paying so much more in rates than south of the Border, not just across the Irish Sea. That is for Holyrood to deliver.
It should also be pushing Westminster for either action or powers which would benefit our hospitality trade and communities.
In many European countries there is a VAT reduction in the tourist sector and on alcohol sales in pubs and restaurants. The same should be done here. Excise duty should be increased on the off-sales trade to allow for a reduction in the on trade of pubs. The likes of Tesco is profiting at the expense of the local and communities are losing out.
Scotland prides itself on its hospitality to visitors, ensure there’s a hospitality trade for them to visit.”
After the second murder of a Minnesota ICE protester by federal agents, Jon Stewart breaks down the increasingly unhinged gaslighting from Trump officials, who are trying to paint victim Alex Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and ICE agents as innocent kittens, despite clear video evidence to the contrary. And as MAGA and Kristi Noem ignore even their precious Second Amendment in their attempts to justify the shooting of a legally armed citizen, Jon points to the real weapon threatening this administration: cameras.The video is 24 minutes long.
Here are a few remarks posted on the show’s Comments page, and our customary editorial:
“I live two blocks from where Alex was killed. I could see the protesters being attacked with tear gas and flash bang grenades from my window on Saturday. I visited the memorial site on Sunday, hundreds of people in the bitter cold singing and holding each other. Those are the people this administration calls their enemies.” Stuart Stephen
“These are the same people who suggested arming our teachers to combat school shootings and fight tooth and nail anytime a whisper of gun control laws are heard. Each day is a new low to avoid accountability.” Dagasm
“Honestly, it’s been such a heavy week for all of us. I’m just so grateful for Jon because he makes the truth feel a little more human. Sometimes a bit of shared perspective is exactly what we need to get through the day. Wishing you all peace and safety.” Global Paws
“Alex Pretti really was a threat, because he was brandishing a weapon: a handheld, aluminum, 1080p, 60fps high definition video recorder, a weapon of mass illumination. Because there is nothing more dangerous to a regime predicated on lies, than witnesses who capture the truth.” Matt Judge
“Imagine how they lie when there is no evidence to contradict them.” Cue Laugh
The crackdown on American citizens’ right to protest is not a new phenomenon. One can go back to the university campus protests of the Sixties, against the illegal Vietnam war and many others since, all brutally dispersed by armed government thugs called troopers. Of one thing we can be sure, ordinary Americans who care about the values of their democracy, they will gather to protest. In Minneapolis troops faced a nonviolent fightback. Tens of thousands across Minneapolis turned out week after week to protest, even when it was so cold, wrote one reporter, that he couldn’t take notes: “The ink in my pens had frozen.” When others went into hiding rather than face the immigration gangsters, their neighbours made sure they got food and supplies. And yet others acted as ICE-watchers, monitoring the violence and barbarism of armed thugs whose salaries are paid by US taxpayers. Two innocent protesters have been executed so far, murdered by their own government, then slandered by it. Their corpses were tagged as “domestic terrorists”. What has taken the troops by surprise is how well organised activists have been, providing training to newbies, turning restaurants into field hospitals, running elaborate networks to get provisions to those Minnesota families in fear for their own safety. If this isn’t a civil war caused by the mad, bad Sun King, I do not know what is.
A document in the Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files illustrates several people who handled Epstein’s financial affairs, or who were close to him.Photo: Jon Elswick
The scandal of a trade in trafficked young women is of interest to Scots – hence this site keeps watch of developments – because those involved are Brits, people in the higher echelons of British politics and business right up to and including the English royal family. Even Elon Musk is caught up in the naming of names. This site’s interest includes the mysterious deaths of people close to the criminal acts who were about to give evidence, and some of the women too, not the least of which was the sudden death of Virginia Guiffre, chief accuser of Epstein, his muse and pimp, Ghislaine Maxwell, (currently imprisoned for 20 years) and the then Prince Andrew, now simply known as Randy Andy.
While the Sun King keeps his nation and others on this troubled planet running around in circles to avoid his mercurial wrath, the Epstein scandal is back in the news. Three million more papers have been published, with Trump’s loaded Justice Department claiming that is the last of them, and lawyers and politicians saying no, there’s a ton more to publish. House Judiciary Democrat committee member, representative Jamie Raskin, cites the department’s claims to have identified over 6 million pages but only about half of those have been made public. The ones out now are so heavily and ham-fisted redacted it’s a wonder journalists can extrapolate more than the date of a meeting between two unknowns in an unidentified cafe there for a cup of coffee.Nevertheless, Trump’s grubby fingers are all over them, of course.
As well as 3 million new papers, in reality only 2.7 million) there are released 180,000 images, (photographs) and 2,000 videos, all posted publicly on Friday 30 January.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has added her voice to those calling for a more complete release of the Epstein files following the latest batch to drop from the justice department. “Even with everything in this Epstein drop, remember: this is a minority of the files,” she wrote on social media. “This is STILL just what they were *willing* to release – in violation of the law, which requires release of all files. Pam Bondi’s DOJ is still hiding most of them. We need them all.” Ocasio-Cortez has called for the impeachment of Bondi due not only to her handling of the Epstein files, but also yesterday’s arrest of ex-CNN journalist Don Lemon as well as the “attempted extortion” of voter files from Minnesota.
A letter from the Department of Justice to Congress on Friday explained that the documents were drawn from primary sources spanning over 20 years, including the Florida and New York cases against Epstein, the Ghislaine Maxwell prosecution, investigations into Epstein’s death, and multiple FBI investigations. The department has also filed court motions to release additional materials currently covered by protective orders from a civil lawsuit and grand jury materials from a case against corrections officers who worked where Epstein died.
In a testynews conference, Blanche said that the release would include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, which will have “extensive redactions”. He added that the Trump administration had produced roughly 3.5m pages in an effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He said that they include large quantities of commercial pornography and images “that were seized from Epstein’s devices”. No one knows what was pulled, hidden or destroyed from the cache.
“The department’s collection effort resulted in more than 6 million pages being identified as potentially responsive, including Department and FBI emails, interview summaries, images, videos and various other materials collected and generated during the various investigations and prosecutions that the act covered,” Blanche said. Trump promised during the 2024 campaign to release the Epstein files, but after taking office, he spent months downplaying the files’ significance and at times lashing out at Republicans who demanded their release.
Trump’s ratings
The files became Trump’s “worst issue by far”, according to the CNN analyst Harry Enten, who noted that while 87% of Republicans approved of his overall job performance in a September NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, only 45% approved of his handling of the Epstein files. Under mounting pressure from both parties, Trump abruptly reversed course in November, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act while dismissing the controversy as a “Democrat hoax”.
Blanche said that what was withheld were personal and medical files, documents depicting death, physical abuse and injury, as well as any depiction of child sexual abuse “that would jeopardise an active federal investigation”. He shared that the department will submit to the House and Senate judiciary committees a report listing “all categories of records released and withheld”. When asked if there were new names in the document drop, Blanche said he did not have anything to share.
What about the victims?
Approximately 200,000 pages were redacted or withheld based on various legal privileges including attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine, according to the letter to Congress.
The justice department also established an email inbox for victims to report redaction concerns – to their horror, many discovered their names were left to read, and not redacted as promised, while the guilty remain blanked out. Democratic congressman Ro Khanna, who co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act to secure their official release, said the redactions are potentially suspicious.
“The DoJ said it identified over 6 million potentially responsive pages but is releasing only about 3.5 million after review and redactions,” Khanna said in a statement. “I will be reviewing closely to see if they release what I’ve been pushing for: the FBI 302 victim interview statements, a draft indictment and prosecution memorandum prepared during the 2007 Florida investigation, and hundreds of thousands of emails and files from Epstein’s computers.”
Just ahead of the files being released to the public, Blanche told Fox News Digital that “in none of these communications, even when doing his best to disparage President Trump, did Epstein suggest President Trump had done anything criminal or had any inappropriate contact with any of his victims”. Later in his press conference, the deputy attorney general said he wanted to dispel rumors about Trump and the justice department working hand-in-hand on Epstein. “What we told our reviewers, is that that was the goal … there’s this mantra out there that, oh, you know, the Department of Justice is supposed to protect Donald J Trump, and that’s what we were telling that’s not true,” Blanche told reporters. “That was never the case. We are always concerned about the victims.” This last statement runs counter to the DoJ’s promised not to expose the victim’s names.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
Documents released in prior batches under the act have detailed systemic failures by law enforcement officials to stop Epstein’s abuse and included graphic testimony about the recruitment methods used to ensnare victims. Earlier disclosures under the act included grand jury testimony describing how Maxwell allegedly asked one victim to recruit other girls, telling her “they have to look young at least”, though the victim refused, saying she “didn’t want anyone else to go through that”.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor attended an intimate party with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein months after he was released from prison, files suggest. The papers include emails from the Hollywood publicist Peggy Siegal to several high-profile figures in relation to a “last-minute casual dinner” for Mountbatten-Windsor, who was in New York on an “unofficial private visit” in December 2010. The gathering appears to have taken place at Epstein’s New York home, where Mountbatten-Windsor was staying.
Mountbatten-Windsor previously said the purpose of his trip was to sever ties with Epstein, who was jailed for child sexual abuse offences in July 2009. During the visit, Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein were pictured walking together in Central Park. The former prince said in his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview in 2019 that he chose to meet Epstein in person to end the friendship as he felt breaking the news “over the telephone was the chicken’s way of doing it”. However, newly released emails indicate that Siegal drew up a guest list for what she described as a “very interesting, fast, fun dinner” involving Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein.
She invited the film director Woody Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn; the political strategist George Stephanopoulos and his wife, the actor Alexandra Wentworth; the journalist Katie Couric and the talkshow host Charlie Rose. (In November 2017, Rose was fired from PBS, Bloomberg, and CBS after The Washington Post published multiple in-house allegations of sexual misconduct from the late 1990s to 2011.) It is not clear who ultimately attended, but the emails suggest Wentworth withdrew because her children were sick. In the emails, Siegal told Stephanopoulos: “Come on time and you will have private time with Andrew as he is staying at the house.”
In 2022, he paid a reported £12m settlement to Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre, who claimed she was forced to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor after being trafficked to him by Epstein. He has always strenuously denied these allegations and made the payment without admitting liability – a weird thing to do if innocent. Where he obtained £12 million is another question.) The files released on Friday also show that Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell sent an email to an address which is believed to have belonged to Mountbatten-Windsor, expressing her condolences on the loss of his grandmother, the queen mother, who died in 2002. It read: “Sweat pea – sorry you had to rush home, and also under such sad circumstances. However much the passing was to be expected in one so old, it does not make it any less sad. She was wonderful, and I am happy that I managed to meet her and speak with her. We shall reschedule. Love you. Gx.”
A reply the next day from the account believed to belong to Mountbatten-Windsor – in which the sender calls themselves The Invisible Man – reads: “Got your message this morning. Sorry to have missed you yesterday I will ring later today to chat. A xxx.” In another email from the same account, the sender asks someone, whose name has been redacted, if they are having more children and labelling them “super sperm”. The email said: “Sorry – I am in LA on my way to Hawaii. Is it true you are having more children? I shall have to refer to you as super sperm!”
Sarah Ferguson
When Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, was confronted in 2011 about her closeness to the paedophile billionaire Epstein she could not have been more fulsome in her regret. “I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me,” she said. “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgment on my behalf. I am just so contrite I cannot say.” In the interview with the Daily Telegraph, Ferguson admitted that she allowed Epstein to pay off £15,000 of her debts. “Whenever I can I will repay the money and will have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again,” she added.
The new tranche of files released on the late child sex offender reveal how he tried to leverage what he felt was his close relationship with Sarah Ferguson to bounce back from the disgrace of his conviction for soliciting underage girls in Florida. Emails disclosed by the US justice department on Friday show that Epstein and his publicist detailed a plan to persuade Ferguson to release a statement saying he was “not a pedo” after she publicly distanced herself from him in the interview. Epstein’s confidence that he could make Ferguson U-turn on her criticism may be born of the close relationship they shared, and of the many favours he had done for her down the years. An insider claimed he had been “blindsided” by the interview, adding: “They were very close until this point.”
As well revealing Epstein’s reputation redemption plot, files released yesterday show the extent to which Ferguson flattered and benefited from her relationship with the banker. Ferguson continued her relationship with Epstein after he was jailed for child sex offences in 2008 and, while he was under house arrest the following year, described him as the “brother [she] always wished for”.
A strange letter mentioning torture
Meanwhile, as well as a photograph of Andrew kneeling over a young woman, the document below emerged with mentions of ‘torture’ in its contents, opening up yet another can of worms.
NOTES
Some material culled from various American newspapers published since Friday.
Meltwater from the Kolahoi glacier has sustained local agriculture for centuries.
Kolahoi is one of many glaciers whose decline is disrupting whole ecosystems – water, wildlife and human life that it has supported for centuries. Even the Indigenous animals seem confused.This is number 65 in our Climate Crisis series.
From the slopes above Pahalgam, the Kolahoi glacier is visible as a thinning, rumpled ribbon of ice stretching across the western Himalayas. Once a vast white artery feeding rivers, fields and forests, it is now retreating steadily, leaving bare rock, crevassed ice and newly exposed alpine meadows. The glacier’s meltwater has sustained paddy fields, apple orchards, saffron fields and grazing pastures for centuries. Now, as its ice diminishes, the entire web of life it supported is shifting. Alpine flowers bloom earlier, confusing pollinators. Musk deer and ibex lose grazing grounds, and snow leopards are increasingly spotted near villages as they run out of food to hunt.
For scientists, Kolahoi represents one of the most dramatic ecological changes in the region. Shepherds report shrinking grasslands and shifting streams that affect livestock.
“Even the animals seem confused by the changing landscape,” says Mohammad Siraj Khan, a 55-year-old shepherd. Historical records show that Kolahoi has been shrinking since the mid-19th century. A 2020 satellite assessment found it had lost almost a quarter of its area over nearly six decades, while its snout had retreated about 900 meters since 1978. Between 1980 and 2018, agricultural land in the glacier’s Lidder watershed fell by almost 40%, reflecting the direct link between glacial retreat and water availability. “This glacier is the lifeline of the Lidder and Sind rivers,” says researcher Labeeb Gulzar. “Its loss could reshape the future of Kashmir’s water, agriculture and ecosystems.”
The shifts are transforming landscapes and communities across the region, says Dr Talib Bashir Bhat, a research scholar at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir (Skuast). “Changes in glacier melt and snowline elevation alter river flows, affecting irrigation, orchards and pastures, linking the glacier directly to biodiversity and livelihoods.”He says alpine plants face changes as lower-elevation species move into newly exposed land, altering the delicate balance of ecosystems.
Rising temperatures and pollution from vehicles, wood burning and construction all darken the ice, accelerating its melt. Deforestation and growing tourist infrastructure in the upper catchment have worsened the problem.
Habitat of the Kashmir stag is degraded as the glacier shrinks. Photo: Hindustan Times
For local farmers, the changes are tangible. “The canal dried up by late June, much earlier than usual,” says Abdul Gani Dar, from Pulwama. “We couldn’t irrigate even half the crop. This didn’t happen even during the worst years of the 1990s. Now the snow is gone, and the streams vanish before summer starts.”
Scientific observations underline these concerns. Prof Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, vice-chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology, says Kolahoi’s mass balance is highly sensitive to temperature. “For every 1C rise, it loses about 0.65 metres of ice thickness annually,” he says.
All 18,000 glaciers in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh are melting, and the pace of retreat is increasing. “We have lost 25-30% of glaciers in the past 60 years and could lose up to 70% by the end of this century if the trend continues,” says Dr Irfan Rashid, assistant professor at the University of Kashmir. He says projections indicate a temperature rise of 4C to 7C by century’s end, making further retreat inevitable.
Animal habitats are being lost as the makeup of vegetation shifts. Only about7% of the western Himalayas is now suitable musk deer habitat, and this may shrink further by 2030 due to grazing and deforestation. “Human activity is shrinking the spaces where musk deer can survive,” says forest guard Danish Ahmad. The Kashmir stag, or hangul, has also been affected, says Dr Mir Muskan Un Nisa, who studies forestry at Skuast.
“Shrinking glaciers change water systems, forests and grasslands, causing wetlands to dry and vegetation patterns to shift,” she says. “These changes degrade habitats that the hangul relies on for food and shelter. Reduced water availability and altered climatic conditions push animals closer to human settlements, increasing risks of conflict, poaching and habitat loss. Glacial melting threatens the survival of sensitive species and disrupts the balance of ecosystems in the region.”
Researchers build a weather station on Yala glacier. Photo: Jitendra Raj Bajracharya
The pattern is mirrored across the Himalayas. In Nepal, the Yala glacier has lost more than 66% of its volume and is expected to vanish by 2040.
Across mountain ranges, ice loss creates a new world: rivers that run earlier in spring, alpine meadows colonised by pioneer species, and wildlife adjusting to shrinking habitats. Some species retreat upward, others move toward villages, and humans adapt to water shortages and changing landscapes. The glacier’s fading ice is not just a retreat of frozen water but a reminder of the inter-connectedness of water, wildlife and human life in Kashmir.
Each summer, the silence above Pahalgam deepens: fewer birds, fewer grazing animals, less snow.
Fettes College – where they ‘do not teach Scots history’
The old jokes about boys in private schools being made to take cold showers first thing in the morning, and bare their backsides for a caning by the master or principle of their very expensive private school, turn out to be close to the truth. While Tory oppressors in Scotland berate Scottish education with exaggerations and downright lies, they too may have been a product of Scotland’s private schools for the entitlement. The myth is, only the most gifted teachers work in fee paying schools. This is bullcrap. King Charles was sent to a Scottish private boarding school, Gordonstoun School, from 1962 to 1967. He recounts how his time there saw him thoroughly miserable most of the time. Any number of these – here to make the best contacts for adult life – have harboured pedophiles, the subject of a police inquiry, and been in court from time to time. Now it’s the turn of the biggest to face the wrath of Scots justice – Fettes College in Edinburgh.
Here is the report of the Inquiry into Fettes College:
The college is considered the pinnacle of the league of expensive fee [paying schools in Scotland, most established on the model of English ‘public’ schools, the subject of many a Charles Dickens novel. Fettes College is such an establishment, now suffering the fll public glare of failing to protect pupils from sexual and physical abuse, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has found.
Inquiry chairwoman Lady Smith said children at Fettes College in Edinburgh were regularly abused by both teachers and other pupils from the 1950s until the end of the 1980s. An official inquiry has just published its report, the proceedings presided over by Lady Anne Smith
She named several staff members who were complicit in sustained and unchallenged (by staff) physical abuse, mental as well as physical, including ex-headmaster Anthony Chenevix-Trench, who she said had been employed at the school “despite having a severe problem with drink, leading to a propensity to beat boys excessively” at Fettes, and at his former school, Eton.
The unnamed governors of Fettes said the school apologised “unreservedly” to those who suffered abuse. This is a characteristic apology from such schools, made in the hope no sanctions are brought down on the school, by law or fine, though the school is as culpable as the individual teachers who meted out the abuse.
Lady Smith said, “Children were wholly failed by the school. They could have been protected, and it is shameful that did not happen. Had complaints been listened to and acted upon at the outset, many children would have been saved from abuse. The suffering they still endure, over 50 years later in the 2020s, could all have been prevented.
She said some victims were still suffering the effects of being targeted by Iain Wares, (pictured) a former teacher at the school who is now the subject of extradition proceedings from South Africa.
The imposing Fettes College was founded in 1870 and stands in 300 acres of private grounds in the north half of the city centre, in fact, taking into account its grounds and playing fields, it dominates a sizeable area of the city centre of Edinburgh. Alumni include former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair, who was a pupil there between 1966 and 1971. Perhaps any beatings Blair took may have had a bad affect on his character in relation to his political collaboration in the bloody carpet bombing and ultimate oblivion of Iraq, together with the then President Bush Jnr, and the USA.
Lady Smith published her findings in relation to residential care at the school as part of an overall case study into Scottish boarding schools. She said that Chenevix-Trench had also protected abusers and had “protected two, and possibly more, members of staff who had, to his knowledge, abused children at Fettes”. She added that he was unfit for the job he was appointed to in 1971, with his previous conduct being “expressly disclosed” to Fettes by Eton. Fettes board of governors allowed him to stay in the role until his death in 1979. Chenevix-Trench had been “attracted to young blond teenagers at Eton”, adding that it was something the provost of Eton College had been aware of.
Teacher Iain Wares had been asked to leave other jobs due to incidents involving small boys and this had become the “norm” in his career. But he had secured teaching jobs in Edinburgh after moving to the city from South Africa in 1967. He had been referred to a consultant at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for treatment, Professor Henry Walton, to “cure” him of a condition described at the time as “homosexuality,” that is, specifically a liking for young boys.”
Iain Wares, accused by former pupils of Fettes College and Edinburgh Academy
Of Fettes College Inquiry, Lady Smith said: “Wares was employed as a teacher in Edinburgh between 1968 and 1979, first at The Edinburgh Academy and then at Fettes. He was not ‘cured’. Rather, he was and remained a prolific abuser of children.” He “preyed” on children and had a “predilection for touching young boys sexually that he could not control. “At times, he could not control his temper either, resulting in children being subjected by him to brutal assaults.
She said the consultant psychiatrist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Professor Henry Walton, repeatedly failed to take action. “Walton wholly failed to prioritise the protection of children and failed to lead his team appropriately.” Alas, the Inquiry was not told and seemingly knew nothing of Walton. He had form. He had appeared at a London High Court charged with stealing women’s underwear from Liberty’s store. (Only the best stores, mind.) When the judge asked if Walton was the same who had written the book, “The Discipline of the Mind“, he answered yes, to which the judge said,” Is their a chance you could read it your self?”
MISOGYNY AND RACISM
Lady Smith also noted emotional abuse of children by other children was common. When the school became co-educational in the early 1980s, there were regular instances of misogyny which persisted into the 21st Century. Racism was also present at the school well into the 21st Century. Lady Smith said the school’s current leaders now recognised shortcomings at the school in past decades.
In 2017, a submission from the school to the inquiry did not accept there were any systemic failures. This is the usual response when a large educational establishment wants to protect its privileged reputation. Lady Smith said: “Applicants and other witnesses continue to come forward to the inquiry with relevant evidence about boarding schools and this will be considered as part of a continuing process. I would encourage anyone who has relevant information on any aspect of our work to get in touch with our witness support team.”
The Fettes College girl’s hockey team
MISTAKES MUST NEVER BE REPEATED
Lady Morag Wise, chairwoman of the governors at Fettes, said the school apologised “unreservedly” to those who suffered abuse. “There can be no excuse for the behaviour that we heard about at the inquiry hearings,” she said. “We applaud the extraordinary bravery of everyone who shared their experiences.” Following the well-worn path of upright whitewashing with a mere apology, she added that the actions of staff had fallen “well below the standards expected and would be utterly unthinkable at the Fettes of today. The culture of safety and welfare at our school now is unrecognisable from the past,” she said.
“Although Lady Smith’s report notes the positive findings of the 2025 inspections by Education Scotland and the Care Inspectorate, we must never be complacent, and we are united in our resolve to ensure that the mistakes of the past are never repeated,” she added.
Laura Connor, a partner with Thompsons Solicitors, which represents some of the victims of abuse at the school, called the findings “extraordinary”, adding they confirmed the “horrific abuse suffered unnecessarily by so many children at Fettes. The school had shamefully failed to protect the pupils and appeared to have knowingly exposed them to teachers with a history of abusing children.”
FIRST VICTIM AWARDED DAMAGES
A former pupil who was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a teacher at Edinburgh’s Fettes College has been awarded damages. The man, who was granted anonymity, brought an action against the school’s governing body – the Governors of the Fettes Trust – at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
Judge Lord Young said the victim, who started at the private school when he was aged nine, estimated the abuse happened two or three times a week from 1977 until 1979. Lawyers acting for the victim had argued he was entitled to receive a £2.5m payout in compensation because of the consequences of the wrongdoing. Judge Young said, “The defenders (the trust) accept vicarious responsibility for the criminal actions of their former employee. The defenders also accept that they are liable to pay damages for the pursuer’s loss. What is not agreed is the extent of those losses. (Fettes argued for a lesser amount on the basis the pursuer managed to earn income as an adult though affected by the childhood abuse.”
Fettes argued that action damages should only be awarded for pain and suffering caused to the victim’s earnings – which it valued at £15,000 along with interest. This sum was dismissed. The judge said the victim did develop symptoms which met the diagnosis for post traumatic stress disorder at the time of the abuse but in time shook off the trauma.The pursuer was awarded £97,604.
This award signifies millions of pounds will be paid to other victims, lining up for justice.
The folly of simply proclaiming that the abuse of children “should not continue” is obvious, when human nature warns us predatory pedophiles go unidentified for years because they are clever at covering their intentions, acts and tracks. This includes using threats of force if a child speaks out. We can be certain abuse continues in other private schools now, teachers employed without full, detailed background screening, or who are protected by colleagues who share their sexual compulsions.We get to know about the abuse years after the event when adults step forward to speak the truth.But that is far too late.
NOTES
Fettes College: Despite the inclusion of the word “college” in its name, it is a secondary, or high, school, not a tertiary college or part of a university. It is a co-educational private boarding and day school in Craigleith, Edinburgh, with over two-thirds of its pupils in residence on campus. The school was originally a boarding school for boys only and became co-ed in 1983. In 1978 the College had a nine-hole golf course, an ice-skating rink used in winter for ice hockey, and in summer as an outdoor swimming pool, a cross-country running track, and a rifle shooting range within the forested 300-acre (120-hectare) grounds. It goes without saying, the college is focused on games and sports.
The school was founded with a bequest of Sir William Fettes in 1870, admitting girls in 1970. It follows the English and not the Scottish education system – hence its reluctance to teach Scots history, traditions and political ambitions. It has nine ‘houses’. The main building, called the Bryce Building, was designed by David Bryce. The school is included in The Schools Index as one of the 150 best private schools in the world and among top 30 senior schools in the UK, but that criterion was built upon its facilities, rather than the quality of its teachers and tutors, and promoted by former pupils and wealthy supporters.It’s early history was for the sons and daughters of poor families, but like other similar establishments it gradually took children from wealthy families who could pay the fees.
Fettes is sometimes referred to as a public school, although that term is traditionally used in Scotland for state schools. Correctly, is is a private boarding school and is a registered Scottish charity: (SC051259). It operates under a statutory corporation/charity structure, specifically established to maintain and develop the school. It holds charitable status, having passed the Scottish charity test by providing public benefit through bursaries, and is not a traditional trust in the legal sense.
The Scottish Information Commissioner taking the Scottish Government to court,over its failure to release documents from the ministerial code inquiry into Nicola Sturgeon, is unedifying for the administration and concerning for democracy.
Scotland has prided itself on openness and transparency, with access to information viewed as a citizen’s right. Freedom of Information rules have been brought in over past years by administrations of all hues and with cross-party support. The Scottish governments which I was honoured to serve in under Alex Salmond sought to adhere to those principles. For sure, there were times when FOI requests could be challenging.
Often there could be much gnashing of teeth and sullen gripes, but there was always an acceptance that it went with the turf. As with parliamentary questions, it’s part of the democratic framework allowing for governments to be scrutinised by opposition parties and the public. The way civil servants operated and what they recorded changed, but all within the legislation.
It was simply to minimise the documentation which might have to be trawled through. What didn’t need to be recorded would be deleted as a matter of course.
The administration in which I served dealt with the Lockerbie decision I made, to release the terminally-ill Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. That has probably come under greater scrutiny than any other government action has or ever will.
Ironically, it was Salmond who decided that as much openness as was possible would be provided. Knowing that the eyes of the world watched, it was agreed, [to follow Salmond’s instruction] that is, to release documents with no need for a formal FOI, instead detailed on the government website. That remains the case to this day, with the only information remaining undisclosed being correspondence and documentation which the US or UK governments have denied us permission to release.
The information commissioner is not some jobsworth seeking to grandstand. He is seeking to carry out the mandate he has been entrusted with to represent citizens and public interest against officialdom – whether that involves national government, local government or any other agency within his scope. He is following in the tradition of his predecessors, all of whom served with distinction.
David Hamilton, the current incumbent, is a former police officer who was previously chair of the Scottish Police Federation, showing the trust and faith he was held in by his peers. He is a man of not only ability but also integrity.
Scottish Governments under Sturgeon, Humza Yousaf and now John Swinney have been anything but open and transparent on matters relating to Salmond. This is the latest in a long line of actions taken or information denied which has required to be challenged by the SIC.
It also appears that Hamilton’s doubts about what has been redacted or is undisclosed caused concern for his namesake, James Hamilton. Hamilton – is no relation to the SIC but a senior barrister and former Director of Public of Prosecutions from Ireland. He investigated complaints alleging that Sturgeon had breached the ministerial code over the investigation of Salmond. Hamilton cleared her, but it has been widely reported that he had grave doubts about what had been redacted from his report.
The excuse put forward by Swinney is that releasing the documentation could allow for “jigsaw identification” of witnesses from the Salmond trial. David Hamilton has been quite clear that he would not allow that to happen and would view redactions on that basis as being reasonable. But still the Scottish Government refuses to release the files.
There are also questions to be answered about the anonymity order imposed after the Salmond trial on those witnesses under the Contempt of Court Act. Senior prosecutors told me how surprised they had been at the order being made.
The legislation was brought in to provide anonymity for the likes of undercover police officers infiltrating criminal gangs. They were brave people who faced threats to their lives and families. But it is not and never has been standard practice, even in serious sexual cases. I know several judges who have never made such an order and yet are senior on the criminal bench. Moreover, every member of the press corps knows who the individuals are, and finding out isn’t particularly difficult. Accordingly, I had inquiries made about how many such orders have been made. Not an unreasonable request you’d think – after all, ministers can reel off statistics on the number of football banning orders made, the number of under-16s caught carrying knives and so on.
But seemingly not this. Reference to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service doesn’t elicit a clear answer either, simply a reference to a website where information is all mixed in and far from clear – all very surprising and possibly concerning.
President Richard Nixon, when speaking about Watergate, said: “There can be no whitewash at the White House.” But it seems there can be stonewalling from Bute House.
Sturgeon and Cherry, two peas in a pod, but one was cuckoo spit
“Unionists depend entirely on us being ill-informed. Otherwise no one would vote for them. Sadly we do not have an MSM … to call out their lies and misinformation.” Laura Cameron
Readers will be interested to be given insight into why the SNP never challenged the status quo, that chasm unwittingly laid bare in an outburst by former MP, Joanna Cherry. It is a pointer to why she was never fit for the role of first minister in a Scotland one step away from autonomy.
MP Joanna Cherry KC was once marked out as Nicola Sturgeon’s successor as first minister. Indeed, the chatter among independence supports reached fever pitch when she fell out of friendship with Sturgeon. The fracture happened over the wholly artificial and commercial trans ideology. Cherry found herself at odds with Sturgeon, she taking the majority side of women’s rights, and Sturgeon striding on to her fateful end pushing a tiny minority’s right to access female toilets. A former divorce lawyer, Sturgeon was never one to listen to wise colleagues. (See link below for essay on Sturgeon’s character.)
For months Cherry took the outrageous and often libellous slings and arrows posted on the Internet from aggressive and sociopathic members of the trans community, so much so that she had to retire for a while to recharge emotional batteries. Matters became so intense that SNP colleagues began to shun Cherry’s company, with one undiplomatic administrator describing her as ‘a pain’. (In what part of the body he did not explain.) But her courageous stand raised respect for her from the general public, and of course, especially among women.
Her antipathy for the ludicrous excesses of trans demands, and the SNP’s lethal policy backing them, deserting its elected role as the army of liberation, had the peculiar result of some regarding Cherry as Scotland’s first minister in waiting. This set the curious to check her record, this site included. An extensive study found no evidence that she held a different view from Sturgeon of how to attain this nation’s long awaited freedoms. There was, however, evidence Cherry was another advocate of the steady as we go rule, someone not keen on abandoning Westminster’s leaky boat.
Like JK Rowling, and the Wings blog, eradicating anti-biological trans ideology became the main obsession overriding all else. If ever their was a case of switching off the computer keyboard and taking time off, permanently wound up is a good moment to step back. Wolves and wild dogs know better. They have one alpha dog in the pack lead until it tires, falls back, and a second takes over the chase at the front, and so on and so forth, until the prey is caught. To embrace an all-consuming hunt as sole pack leader ends in posting a photo on the Internet, glass of wine in one hand, a cigar in the other, gloating at one’s triumph over opponents.
Cherry was one of fifteen MPs who wrote an open letter to Nicola Sturgeon, asking her to reconsider the party’s position. She was concerned broadening trans rights had bleak and unacceptable repercussions for women’s rights. In that opinion she was correct and voluble. But Sturgeon had had enough of Cherry and sacked her. Announcing her departure from Westminster’s frontbench on Twitter, Cherry said: “Despite hard work, results and strong reputation, I’ve been sacked today from the SNP frontbench. My constituents and fellow party members who gave me a resounding mandate in recent NEC elections should rest assured that I will continue to work hard for them.” But not for Scotland’s independence.
At this point it helps to mention an aspect of human nature related to this topic. Captain Ahab warns us, hunting the Great White Whale to the exclusion of all else, including the safety of his crew, (a genuine event) prolonged deep obsession is cognitively extremely unhealthy. It can tilt a person’s outlook so far they lose sight of everyday reality, and begin shooting any opposing view that comes their way. But trans rights are not Scotland’s civil and constitutional rights, the very reason the SNP exists. Salmond had already awarded trans people equality under Scots Law, their additional demands best left until after independence was sealed and we had plenty of time to debate the society we want to create.
And then one day, chronic liar Boris Johnson, torrid Tory and inveterate shagger, tried to prorogue Westminster Parliament, (suspend it for a time) so that he was free to push his extreme policies through without having to bother with opposition MPs or his own rebellious backbench, an entire swathe he had fired earlier leaving the others to quake in their Russell and Bromley brogues and power dress suits.
Here was a great opportunity for Scots MPs to allow Westminster corruption to fall in on itself, flat on its face. This was the perfect moment for Scots to exploit the loss of England’s sovereignty by using the mandates given at elections to us and withdraw from the hoax Union. Instead, Cherry joined forces with a vain English lawyer, another QC, Jolyon Maugham, to poke Boris in the eye by saving Westminster from itself. They won, delighted at the mass press photo opportunity outside London’s Supreme Court.
Looking at the event impartially, a Scot had been instrumental in saving Westminster – one for the empire! – putting MPs back in power to demean Scotland another three-hundred years. Perhaps Cherry thought if our Parliament was ever in jeopardy, Englishmen would leap to the Supreme Court to defend its existence and ensure Jocks remained “grievance monkeys”, to quote one of their many racist phrases thrown at us.
Not long after, high on his new-found popularity, Maugham told the tale of how he battered a fox to death caught in his garden fence. He took time to explain he was wearing his Japanese kimono when he wielded the club. For that cruelty, his fame fell away instantly. Cherry returned to Scotland her standing greater than before.
I had met Cherry, for the first time, at an independence rally in Edinburgh, where I noticed there was a pecking order of Indy celebrities. Too low, and those above did not speak to you. The fleeting encounter was just after being harassed by the press and their unionist knuckle draggers, an attempted smear by the then misogynist GMB boss, Tim Roache. (There was delight in nicknaming him Tim Cockroach.) I introduced myself, and recognising me, Cherry answered, “Oh, I’ve no idea what the SNP is up to these days.” Naturally, I felt her reply inadequate, hollow from a renowned lawyer. She didn’t extend the chance encounter more than a couple of minutes. I put it to the back of my memory.
Weeks later, aware public popularity continued to see her as the next SNP leader, I wrote to Cherry to question why she had spent so much time riding to Westminster’s rescue. (Others did the same.) Her action felt no different from Sturgeon taking time off from Scotland’s pressing ills, to carry a megaphone to London, and preach to the rapturous crowd of the harm that leaving the EU would cause ‘Britain’.
In those days, Sturgeon thought an island called Britain really existed. Anyhow, the letter never got a reply. Sometime later, I received a DM, (direct mail) on my Twitter account from a man telling me Cherry was keen to meet me, and she wanted my address. Bliss! A meeting of minds at last, but it was not to be. A few sharp questions asking why she did not write herself, left me suspicious of the enquiry. I suggested Cherry respond via her DM facility or my email. Nothing transpired. I tried a few more times to make contact. No reply. Perhaps my tweets coincided with her distrust of men and their dreaded mansplaining.
The next encounter with Cherry came a few years later. A department assistant at London’s Royal Academy of Art, (RA) – of which I am a member – wrote to a fabric artist to advise the RA shop was not going to renew another year’s sales contract because the artist in question rejected Trans Gender gobbledygook. All hell broke lose. And in a habit Cherry had acquired by then, she popped up at the tale-end of the Internet stramash to append her name to the frantic calls for revenge caused by this heinous crime of rejection.
Her welcome appearance by her many admirers inflamed the righteous to greater effort. It was in the last months of Covid. There was only few staff in the RA and fewer visitors. The assistant made the decision without consulting absent senior colleagues. In an attempt to save Cherry public embarrassment, I recounted, via the Internet topic, the true situation, and that it was not RA policy to deny a person sales on account of their gender politics. In this I was absolutely vindicated. But Cherry refused to back down, and depicted my contact as ‘mansplaining’, that is, the dismissal of any male opinion that seems unlikable and doesn’t fit one’s prejudices. Her obduracy rang a need to be seen, and not a search for truth, an odd thing for a feminist to defame female assistants. She had whipped up so much vitriol fired in my direction, pleas fell on fiery ears. It was not a pleasant experience. I gave up.
This was the reason I walked past her when she was in Edinburgh’s busy Stockbridge, and then, thinking it unjust, felt she was owed an explanation. Reasoning was not accepted one-to-one, but thrown to fellow harpies to munch on. She told her readers she was rarely impressed by high-minded men. Rapport was nowhere to be found. This is what happens when an individual is constantly coiled up, ready to spring on anyone perceived as a threat to their self-perception. They cannot tell friend from foe.
This was not all that disappointed about the woman once touted as Scotland’s Boadicea. Ostracized by the SNP, vilified by the odious trans lobby, she did not join Alex Salmond’s new ALBA party, the natural home for disaffected SNP members. Many people hoped she would, myself included. Here was an opportunity to lead from the front ignored. Salmond was disappointed that a woman he admired, as he admired the footloose Ash Regan, had shunned a new party of great promise and great determination.
Of all the events related here, it is probably only the rebuke of walking past her in the street that caused her, out of the blue, to get in touch finally and show her mettle. The tweet quoted below was sent unsolicited. It does not relate to, or address, the points I was making to a different person about the anti-independence stance taken by our press. The intervention. came as a surprise. Here is her tweet:
“Don’t you understand how newspapers work? Aren’t journalists entitled to be paid for their work? Don’t we want to encourage people like Kevin [McKenna] to expose corruption in Scotland?”
What it illustrates perfectly is what so many have struggled against, namely the colonial-minded attitude of the SNP. Her comments were of the kind logicians describe as false negatives, encapsulated in the phrase, ‘when are you going to stop beating your wife?’ She had never read a thing I had published yet had an opinion. (See ‘The Scottish Press’, link below.) Stung, I answered in my own way:
“Your fatuous diversion is wasted on me. Are you trying to convince readers our press is owned by impoverished newspaper barons? Your party handed £9 million to our British press in Scotland, [not a penny to Indy bloggers] – boy, were you suckered – and your party employed the editor that co-authored the infamous ‘Vow’, created to defeat Scotland’s progress. Is that what you mean by, “paying the wages of journalists“?
Her reply came from the intellectually impoverished side of Tail-End Cherry: “Gosh, you really are a bore and ill-informed.”
Yes, we all say things we regret in the cold light of day. I pressed the Send key:
“You have a book to promote. I understand you will need to ingratiate yourself with our awfully nice colonial press as much as you can.“
Readers can take from this account what they wish of a once promising KC, to one who protected the status quo, and helped extend Scotland’s subjugated role under imperial England. Questioning Cherry’s motivation is fair, a woman who described her assistant military fashion as ‘Chief of Staff’. How sad to note her limited knowledge of the Treaty of Union. In that. she is like many another of Scotland’s law officers. Cherry fails to comprehend our colonial condition, which, as an informed friend points out, is understandable “given her privileged background and what we know of the colonial mindset”.
More recently, Cherry has been doing what we hoped she might do years ago, exercising her skills in Edinburgh’s Court of Session arguing Scotland’s Claim of Right out-classes any English Law imposed on us, and therefore, Westminster’s proscription of the Palestine Action group is null and void in Alba. At the time of writing, the judge has yet to make a decision.
Cherry has the penultimate word: “Westminster is increasingly irrelevant to Scotland’s constitutional future. SNP would do well to radically rethink our strategy.” But Joanna, you saved Westminster!
Her autobiography is entitled, “Keeping the Dream Alive: An Insider’s Account of a Tumultuous Decade in Scottish Politics’. It sounds like good old revenge politics. Believe me, to call tail-end Cherry a disappointment is mild criticismby any measure. But to be so naive about our press is indicative of the SNP’s scant understanding of our colonial realityand what to do about it.
Post script: The title Prunus Emarginata is a type of cherry bitter to taste, best boiled with sugar.
Joanna Catherine CherryKC is a Scottish lawyer and former politician who was the Member of Parliament for Edinburgh South West from 2015 until 2024. A member of the Scottish National Party, she was the party’s Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice in the House of Commons from 2015 to 2021. She was born on 18 March 1966 in Edinburgh to Mary Margaret (née Haslette) and Thomas Alastair Cherry. She was educated at Holy Cross primary school, then at St Margaret’s Convent School, before studying at the University of Edinburgh. Following her graduation, Cherry worked as a research assistant with the Scottish Law Commission (1990) before practicing as a solicitor with the Edinburgh legal firm Brodies WS until 1995. She also worked as a part-time tutor in constitutional law, family law and civil court practice at the University of Edinburgh from 1990 to 1996. Cherry was admitted as an advocate in 1995, with a particular interest in employment and industrial relations, health and safety, mental health, personal injury and professional negligence. Cherry set up the “Lawyers for Yes” group, which campaigned for a “Yes” (pro-independence) vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. The group has since disbanded.
Icebergs and ice sheets floating off Nuuk, Greenland, 2025. Photo: Odd Andersen
The Arctic region known as ‘world’s refrigerator’ is heating up as much as four times as quickly as global average. Climate scientists warn of winter being redefined.This article is number 66 in our Climate Crisis series.There are bulbs sprouting up in my garden vases, not snowdrops, this early growth unknown in past years.And one large shrub has buds on it two months early.
The Arctic endured a year of record heat and shrunken sea ice as the world’s northern latitudes continue a rapid shift to becoming rainier and less ice-bound due to the climate crisis, scientists have reported.
From October 2024 to September 2025, temperatures across the entire Arctic region were the hottest in 125 years of modern record keeping, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said, with the last 10 years being the 10 warmest on record in the Arctic. The Arctic is heating up as much as four times as quickly as the global average, due to the burning of fossil fuels, and this extra heat is warping the world’s refrigerator – a region that acts as a key climate regulator for the rest of the planet.
The maximum extent of sea ice in 2025 was the lowest in the 47-year satellite record, Noaa reported on in its annual Arctic report card. This is the latest landmark in a longer trend, with the region’s oldest, thickest ice declining by more than 95% since the 1980s as the Arctic becomes hotter and rainier. This year was a record for precipitation in the Arctic. Much of this is not settling as snow – the June snow cover extent over the Arctic today is half of what it was six decades ago.
“This year was the warmest on record and had the most precipitation on record – to see both of those things happen in one year is remarkable,” said Matthew Langdon Druckenmiller, an Arctic scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, and an editor of the Arctic report card. “This year has really underscored what is to come.”
Scientists have been struck by how exceptional warmth in other seasons, particularly summer, is now becoming evident in winter too, affecting the annual growth of sea ice across the Arctic in its coldest months. In the past month or so, sea ice extent has been the lowest on record, potentially heralding another reduced maximum for sea ice next year.
“There’s been a steady decline in sea ice and unfortunately we are seeing rain now even in winter,” said Druckenmiller. “We are seeing changes in the heart of winter, when we expect the Arctic to be cold. The whole concept of winter is being redefined in the Arctic.”
These changes are acutely felt by people and wildlife in the Arctic – rain falling on to snow can freeze into a barrier that makes it harder for animals to forage for food, while also making for more slippery, hazardous conditions for people traveling by road. The retreat of glaciers can also cause potentially dangerous flooding, as seen in Juneau, Alaska, this year.
The loss of sea ice is opening up vast areas of dark ocean, which is absorbing, rather than reflecting, more of the heat that is raising global temperatures. While the melting sea ice isn’t itself causing the seas to rise, the loss of land-based glaciers is, with Noaa reporting that the huge Greenland ice sheet lost 129bn tons of ice in 2025. This will add to sea level rise that will menace coastal cities for generations to come.
“We are seeing cascading impacts from a warming Arctic,” said Zack Labe, a climate scientist at Climate Central. “Coastal cities aren’t ready for the rising sea levels, we have completely changed the fisheries in the Arctic which leads to rising food bills for sea food. We can point to the Arctic as a far away place but the changes there affect the rest of the world.”
NOTES
This is No 65 in our Climate Crisis series, articles and scientific papers gathered from around the world, so long as they are in English.
The welcoming reception area of the independent Dominion Cinema, Edinburgh
Clare Binns, the creative director of Picturehouse Cinemas, says directors should make shorter films if they want their work screened in cinemas. She made the comments after being named the recipient of this year’s Bafta award for outstanding British contribution to cinema, amid concern over steadily lengthening film run-times.Readers of film reviews on this site will know the length of films has been one of my constant gripes.Some are self-indulgent, often no more than extended television dramas, but none so far are a Kurosawa or a David Lean.
Recent blockbusters have pushed well beyond the three-hour mark, including Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, (206 minutes) and Brady Corbet’s ‘The Brutalist’, (215 minutes), a trend festival chiefs have warned is creating substantial scheduling problems.
Directors need to ensure a comfortable viewing experience for audiences if they want to people to return to the big screen, Binns says.“I talk to producers about this and say: ‘Tell the director you’re making the film for an audience, not the directors,’” she said. “There’s always exceptions, but I look at a lot of films and think: ‘You could take 20 minutes out of that.’ There’s no need for films to be that long.”
Picturehouse programmes intervals when they are built into a film – as with ‘The Brutalist’ – but extended run times limit how cinemas can operate. “It means you only get one evening show,” Binns said. “I think it’s a wake-up call to directors. If they want their films in cinemas, people have to feel comfortable about what they’re committing to.”
Over a four-decade career, Binns has built a reputation for championing diverse and independent film-making, working with directors including Danny Boyle, Steve McQueen, Charlotte Regan and Alice Winocour. She began as an usher at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton, south London, in 1981, later running Zoo Cinemas before joining Picturehouse in 2003.
Like much of the sector, Picturehouse has endured a turbulent few years. Cinemas were badly hit by Covid closures and the slow return of audiences, pressures compounded by the 2023 Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes, which disrupted release schedules. This month, Leonardo DiCaprio questioned whether audiences still had an “appetite” for cinema after his critically acclaimed film ‘One Battle After Another’ failed to break even at the box office.
Binns said cinemas were “in a much better place” than they were two years ago. “It’s been very tough for cinemas. During Covid, everybody got used to sitting on couches and watching streaming services. But that’s changing. We’re working with the streamers to bring people in.”
She pointed to repertory programming as evidence of renewed interest. “We’re seeing young audiences coming in to watch Hitchcock and Agnès Varda on the big screen.” Concerns remain about industry consolidation, including Netflix’s bid to buy Warner Bros Discovery. “Any studio transformation is unsettling,” Binns said. “But people have predicted the end of cinema many times – when television arrived, when we went digital. We’re still standing.”
For cinemas to remain sustainable, she said, originality and commitment were crucial. ‘Anora’, ‘Hamnet’, ‘Marty Supreme’ were all original stories. And when film-makers engage properly, doing questions and answers and working with cinemas, audiences respond.”
Binns has also led initiatives embedding cinemas in their local communities, including partnerships with Brixton Soup Kitchen and Poetic Unity. She warned that the closure of local cinemas was “definitely something to worry about” and called for VAT reductions. “Local cinemas are fantastic resources. They get people out of their houses, they’re community hubs. If that disappears, it’s a tragedy,” she said.
Binns will receive her Bafta at the film awards ceremony on 22 February. Calling the award an “incredible honour”, she said it recognised the cultural and commercial importance of cinemas. “I’m one of many of an army of people doing the best they can to get great films into cinemas and keep cinemas working.”
Emily Stillman, the chair of the Bafta film committee, said: “Clare Binns’ impact on the British film industry is profound – she is a hugely talented and beloved visionary. [Her] unwavering commitment to bring a diverse range of storytelling to the big screen, her belief in the power of cinema and her ongoing work championing emerging independent film-makers is inspirational.”
NOTES
Clare Binns has worked in the film industry for 30 years and joined Picturehouse in March 2003. She is now Acquisitions & Programming Director. As well as acquiring titles for Picturehouse Entertainment, she is responsible for overall programming policies at the company. Winner of the 2009 WFTV Award for Contribution to the Medium, Clare is a member of both the London Film Festival Industry Liaison Committee and the BAFTA Learning and Events Committee. Variety named her one of the 25 people driving the London entertainment scene, and she is no. 70 in The Guardian Film Power 100 list.
Darién, known then as the Darién Gap, was one of the most dense rainforests on the planet
To begin with, there were three attempts to build a harbour. Second, the terrain was terrible, an impenetrable rainforest. (See photo) And third, the scheme was never planned as a colony, but as a port to get around England’s trade blockade of Scotland. Events have been used by unreliable historians ever since to depict Scots as stupid and Scotland bankrupt, so much so, we begged to become North England and throw ourselves at the beneficence of our imperial masters.
The visionary behind the scheme Darién Scheme was Scottish financier William Paterson, who conceived the plan for a Scottish trading colony in Panama to link Atlantic and Pacific trade. While Paterson was the architect and promoter, the actual expeditions were led by various figures like Captain Charles Forbes (who died en route) and later commanders on the ground, though it was Paterson’s grand idea that set the tragic events in motion, ending in failure, failure because of the terrain, disease, Spanish opposition, and sustained brutal English trade embargoes.
The biggest myth – repeated with glee by various people in the media – was that the scheme bankrupted Scotland. It did no such thing. It bankrupted a few get-rich-quick earls, who later sold off Scotland to pay their debts. It reality is cost almost £400,000, (equivalent to over 20% of Scotland’s wealth at the time) but two-thirds of Scotland funds remained in circulation.
However, when it came to a vote on a Union only the top three percent of gentry and aristocracy had a vote. The vast majority of Scots had no vote to sway as much as an ear of corn, let alone the kidnapping of their own country. Scots lived only 7% in towns and cities. The rest of us lived an agrarian life, spread across Scotland. It was almost impossible to bring people together swiftly to protest in Edinburgh in Parliamentary Square. Edinburgh folk, Dunediners, did riot, while others wept and wailed, or set fire to property in anger. Protesters were described as a ‘mob’ by our detractors, including the spy Daniel Defoe. (Dunediner from Dùn Èideann)
It is most likely the three Darién schemes would have been a success were it not for England’s determined attempts to undermine them, aided by King William’s sell out of Scotland.
On 26 June 1695 the Scottish Parliament passed an act establishing the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. Its capital was to be £600,000 sterling, half to be subscribed in London and half in Scotland.
English investors soon raised their share, but the powerful directors of the East India Company, fearing that their monopoly would be broken, their business ruined, used their influence to turn King William and the English Parliament against the venture. Indeed, the King did not need much persuading; he was anxious to be on good terms with Spain, simultaneously conscious the proposed Scottish port would be located on Spanish-claimed land. The directors of the Company of Scotland were threatened with impeachment and English investors quickly withdrew their money. This is the usually way of an imperialist state, it detests competition. It feels it owns everything in which it comes in contact.
Darién was, to use the popular term, a maritime trade hub, (not colonial in intention) which was actually repeated by USA in 1914, (the Panama Canal, essentially the same idea). But Paterson utterly misjudged how people from a temperate country of cold winds and harsh winters could cope with a rainforest and choking heat. Food provisions, medical provisions and building materials were in short supply, and protection from the heat, mosquitoes and downpours incessant. Tropical fever soon took down Scots in large numbers.
Here is a quotation from the NatWest Bank’s Heritage version of events, for once an accurate study: “Although the proposed location of the Company’s first colony was a closely-guarded secret, preparations for the expedition were public and extensive. Ships, provisions and trading stock were bought in cities across Europe, crews were recruited and the expedition’s five ships assembled in the Firth of Forth. Apart from the former French vessel Dolphin, their names – Caledonia, St Andrew, Unicorn and Endeavour – reflected Scots patriotism and hope. On 18 July 1698 this first expedition left the port of Leith with around 1,200 people, including William Paterson, on board. At a time when the total Scottish population amounted to only about one million, the amount of manpower committed to the venture was every bit as staggering as the financial commitment.”
Even as they departed from Leith, the people on the expedition still did not know where they were going. It was not until the ships had passed Madeira that their captains were allowed to open their sealed orders which revealed the ultimate destination of the expedition. They were ‘to proceed to the Bay of Darién, and make the Isle called the Golden Island…some few leagues to the leeward of the mouth of the great River of Darién…and there make a settlement on the mainland’.
Darién failed because of sabotage by the English government, with help from Spanish colonisers in the area, who wanted the region. The Scots had no plan to subjugate the local natives. Their plan was in “full and free Consent of the Natives”. Agreements were sought and agreements were signed, locals paid to help build the port and clear away trees around it.
The plan did not include exploitation or displacement of the Cùna (Guna) but rather relied on their consent and cooperation. Initially, English and Dutch people’s investment was withdrawn under political pressure from the English government, particularly influenced by the East India Company, which as already mentioned, saw the Darién Company as a competitor.
Withdrawal of foreign investment failed to stop the Darién schemes, so the English government, (with Crown agreement) sent the navy to threaten traders, and instructed English and Dutch colonies, (on pain of sanctions) not to cooperate or provide assistance to the Scots.
Scotland experience similar treatment at the hands of the English government over withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit, consequently saw its trade opportunities greatly reduced East and West. to ensure we rely on England to sell our whisky and goods.
As time passed, and ships failed to appear, this meant the Scots were cut off from supplies and died from starvation and disease, (resulting from malnutrition), hence the outcome was more of a massacre than a fiscal failure. The agreement was as allies for trade and protection against Spanish forces. Once the Scots were gone, the Spanish moved in as full-time colonisers.
The actual result, in addition to the death of those who volunteered to build a port and small settlement to support it, was humiliation in the face of England, a situation repeated many times down the ages to this very day. You can hear it when our enemies jeer saying, “You cannot survive as a country, you were bankrupt once.
In reality England has been near bankrupt three times in the last 80 years. For example, it took until 2002 for England to repay the loan from the US Marshal plan, and we reneged on payment three times since given the money. By the way, despite fighting the German army, Greece got no money from the Plan, it was deemed too socialist.
Cue racists to post drivel about the events, no study or historical accuracy needed, hoping to keep us thinking we are a poor nation, happy to give away our oil and electricity power for free to England. Never lose sight of the irrefutable fact that Scotland had no national debt in 1707. The Treaty of Union caused us to accept a portion of England’s national debt. We have shouldered their debt ever since. But independence throws off that debt, it belongs to England, or ‘rUK’ in full.
Remember, the best lies are the biggest lies, and a bankrupt Scotland is one of the greatest lies Scotland has been subjected to spread over these last 300 years. It suits our oppressor’s colonialism perfectly.
Grouse Beater 
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