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Electric Scotland News
This assisted dying bill is dangerous
On Friday, MPs did not vote on the principle of assisted dying, but whether they wanted this dangerous Bill, following this process, to become law.
A Bill so flawed that the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Psychiatrists – neutral for six years – were forced to oppose it because major deficiencies remain.
A Bill built on shaky foundations, with policy shaped by a single MP and a prominent, well-funded lobby group.
For the Abortion Act, the Labour Government appointed the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Sir John Peel, to chair a medical advisory committee that reported in favour of passing the Bill. For the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Act there was the Warnock Commission.
Here, there was no consultation, no formal engagement with those affected, no testing of provisions with professional bodies. Instead, over 400 written submissions sit largely unread, and a few dozen oral evidence sessions where the witnesses chosen were overwhelmingly those who favoured assisted dying.
Not only did this undermine the legitimacy of the decisions taken, it deprived MPs of certainty that the policy is as good as it needs to be.
Especially given that, as Gordon Brown put it, the Bill will ‘privilege the legal right to assisted dying without guaranteeing anything approaching an equivalent right to high-quality palliative care for those close to death’.
Had MPs – as advocates for this change – have done enough to protect the vulnerable and ensure this is a free choice, not a default for those with no other options?
No MP can claim ignorance of the problems. They can only say they chose to ignore the warnings, favouring a high-gloss, celebrity-driven campaign and those for whom this will be a free choice, over those marginalised and vulnerable who will feel compelled to end their lives in this way.
They will have known that the Bill allows the state to help end the lives of those motivated not by their terminal illness, but by depression or mental illness, feeling that they are a burden, their inability to access health or social care or because they are in financial distress.
From last week’s votes, they will have known that any doctor may raise ending a patient’s life, regardless of the patient’s vulnerability. That doctors and panels need only be ‘51% sure’ the patient wasn’t coerced and meets the criteria.
They knew the High Court oversight had been stripped out and replaced by administrative panels with no power to call witnesses or take evidence on oath.
They knew they were signing off government-backed education campaigns before the 2029 election promoting assisted dying. From leaflets in surgeries to posters in hospitals to targeted mail, the campaign outlined in the impact assessment will address ‘all professionals… family, friends, unpaid carers and other support organisations and charities’.
They have knowingly given any government, now and in the future, the power to change any aspect of the NHS – including its founding principles and the Government’s duty to promote a comprehensive health service – with MPs having little further say.
They have confirmed that they are content for private, for-profit contractors to be used to end lives, and that there is no limit to the profit that can be made, despite promises of a cap to prevent the commodification of a life-ending service.
They knew they are leaving hospices and care homes open to funding cuts and legal action if they decline to participate.
And they said yes to experimental drug combinations with no minimum safety requirements nor state duty to minimise unintended suffering, distress or prolonged deaths from the lethal drugs.
All of this was clearly acceptable. They chose to harden their hearts and say with assisted dying advocate Henry Marsh, that if a few patients get bullied into it, that might just be ‘a price worth paying’ to let others end their lives with dignity.
The price will not be paid by the affluent, usually white, middle-class advocates of this change, but by the poor, disabled, marginalised and abused.
Those MPs who gambled – hoping others will have the courage to say no where they have not – or simply voting with their friends, should have considered how they’ll feel in years to come when the scandals emerge of how the safeguards failed. As they have so often in our NHS.
MPs should have rejected this Bill. Not because they oppose assisted dying, but because it risks far more harm than good. Something this significant needs firmer foundations.
Nikki da Costa
---------
LiveMemory™ Now Available on the MyHeritage Website
LiveMemory™ uses cutting-edge AI to turn full photos into video clips. You can let it automatically reenact the scene or choose from fun effects like underwater, zero gravity, or a T-Rex chase. Two new effects just launched — “Hair raiser” and “Whispering a secret” — and they’re a lot of fun.
Learn more at:
https://blog.myheritage.com/2025/06/...itage-website/
---------
Getting warm in Chatham this week... Good time to do some painting of my porch.
This time I'm trying a stain rather than paint in the hope it will last more than 2 years.
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Here is what caught my eye this week...
Scotland's Ancient DNA Revealed
A YouTube video
Watch this at:
https://youtu.be/p09TSiW5YM8?si=se6IVpZcjBScQeHS
Plans to honour 'birthplace' of Europe's commandos
A charity has unveiled plans for a £7.4m heritage centre honouring the birthplace of many of Europe's commando and special forces units. Thousands of soldiers from the UK and its allies, including Norway, Poland, France and Belgium, trained in commando warfare in Lochaber during World War Two. The area's role in the war is recalled by the Commando Memorial, which was unveiled near Spean Bridge, north of Fort William, in 1952.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vdpkvx9vno
Conrad Black: Israel is delivering a lethal blow to global terrorism
Eliminating Hamas and keeping Iran from developing nuclear arms is honourable work
Read more at:
https://archive.is/Mb4NA
The problem with career civil servants
Officials have little incentive to deliver
Read more at:
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-problem-...ivil-servants/
Sexual crimes in Scotland rise to second-highest rate in more than 50 years
New Scottish Government figures showed that sexual crimes - which include rape and sexual assault - increased by three per cent between 2023-24.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...econd-35441834
Housebuilding slumps by 11% as First Minister John Swinney admits 'emergency'
There has been a fall in the number of homes built and completed over twelve months.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...ister-35441939
Cancer waiting times in Scotland at worst level on record as SNP NHS record attacked
Only 68.9 per cent of patients on an urgent referral for a suspicion of cancer started treatment within 62 days.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...worst-35443170
The Scotsman’s 2025 Edinburgh Festival coverage: everything you need to know
The Scotsman has been proud to cover the Edinburgh festivals since they began in 1947, and as the festivals have grown, our coverage has grown too.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cu...o-know-5156194
How the people of Nairn cope with hungry urban gulls
Like other Scottish seaside communities, Nairn is no stranger to gulls. But residents and businesses in the former fishing port on the Moray Firth coast believe they have become a serious problem.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c307mqvg81ro
Oxford English Dictionary is hoaching with new Scottish words
The Oxford English Dictionary is hoaching with new Scottish words - with beamer, bummer and tattie scone among 13 new entries.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crenw75rlr1o
Teaching union, MSPs and expert condemn new Education Bill
Opposition MSPs, Scotland’s biggest teaching union, and a government-appointed expert have condemned the newly passed Education Bill, The Herald can reveal.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/VlRq7#selection-1665.3-1673.12
Reform threatens to smash Yes/No divide in Scotland - here's how
The first time that Nigel Farage campaigned in Scotland he ended up barricaded in an Edinburgh pub. He was portrayed the quintessential Little Englander, a man made out of tweed who’d struggle to place Scotland on the map. But in the 2014 European Parliament election it was the Ukip candidate, not the SNP, who won the extra seat for Scotland. That was a sign of what was to come.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/ecDhz#selection-1669.3-1685.76
SNP ministers to axe public sector jobs as near £5bn funding black hole emerges
SNP ministers are poised to shed public-sector jobs after bracing for a near £5 billion funding black hole by 2030 - amid a warning more than 10,000 workers could be tossed on the scrapheap
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politi...merges-5194993
Scots civil servants’ 77,500 sick days in one year costing taxpayers £17.4m
Scottish Government staff are taking record numbers of sick days, according to new figures that have sparked a heated debate about its workplace culture.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/scotti...xpayers-17-4m/
People with severe diabetes cured in small stem cell trial
The cure for diabetes is a life free from daily insulin injections. Based on that criterion, ten out of 12 people (83%) in a new clinical trial were cured of their diabetes one year after receiving an advanced stem cell therapy.
Read more at:
https://theconversation.com/people-w...l-trial-259569
Does Trump know what the f**k he's doing?
Frustrated by the breakdown of a ceasefire he brokered between Iran and Israel, Donald Trump told the media that the two states 'don't know what the f**k they are doing'. That's where he's wrong. Despite what Trump thinks, not everyone is content with cutting a deal.
Read more at:
https://capx.co/donald-trumps-geopolitical-weakness
Electric Canadian
Wonders of Ontario | The Most Amazing Places in Ontario
A video which I've added to the top of our Ontario page.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ario/index.htm
Welcome To Canada's Incredible Wilderness City
A video about the Yukon which I added to the foot of our Yukon page.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/yukon/index.htm
Winnepeg to London via The Hudson Bay
By the Reverend W. H. Cassap, B.A. (1936) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...egtolondon.pdf
Churchill and The Hudson Bay Route
Earlier History (1610-1847) (1935) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...nbay-route.pdf
The Eskimo Museum
Churchill, Manitoba (pdf)
You can read this one page account at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...chur00vola.pdf
Forgotten Northern Fortress
By Hon. John Schultz, M.D. (1894) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...a/fortress.pdf
The Founding of Churchill
Being the Journal of Captain James Knight, Governor-in-Chief in Hudson Bay, from the 14th of July to the 13th of September, 1717 by James F. Kenney, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S., Director of Historical Research and Publicity in the Public Archives of Canada (1932) (pdf)
You can read this journal at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...a/founding.pdf
Our North Land
Being a full account of the Canadian North-West and Hudson's Bay Route together with a narrative of the experiences of the Hudson's Bay expedition of 1884 by Charles R. Tuttle (1885) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...00tuttgoog.pdf
Hudson Bay
Part IV Reports of Superindendent E. J. A. Dewers, Commanding Churchill, 19th September, 1913, to 4th July, 1914.(pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...erin00unse.pdf
Seventh Annual Northern Manitoba Trappers' Festival
February 2nd to 5th, 1954 (pdf)
You can read this large publication at:
https://tinyurl.com/4cfw8cw6
Inuvik: Canada's Land Of The Midnight Sun
Added a video to the foot of our North West Territories page and a second one I found a bit later.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/nwt/index.htm
Vikings, Windmills & Waterfalls: Canada’s Untold Border Tales
A video which I've added to the foot of our Manioba page and also added two further videos about Port Nelson and Churchill.
You can watch these at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...toba/index.htm
Canada Over The Edge: The Rolling Plateaus of Saskatchewan
A video which I've added to the foot of our Saskatchewan page
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ewan/index.htm
Life and Labours of The Rev. Wm. McClure
For more than forty years a Minister of the Methodist New Conneion, chiefly and autobiography edited by Rev. David Savage (1872) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/Reli...00mccluoft.pdf
Paul Kane
Life & Work by Arlene Gehmacher (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make..._Paul-Kane.pdf
He Raised a Black Bear and a Stray Dog as Family — Now They Swim Together Like Siblings
Added this video story to the foot of our Children's page.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/children/index.htm
Canadians Turning to Portugal
Added a video about how Canadians are turning to Portugal instead of going to the USA. Added this to the foot of our Portual page.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/portugal.htm
Canadian War Cuts & Clippings
A. C. Evans Scrapbook Volume XI
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forces/clips.htm
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 22nd day of June 2025 - The Bucket List
By The Rev. Nola Crewe
You can watch this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...he-bucket-list
My Canadian Experience
Updated this months entry to reflect some developments.
Lots of videos this month... in some ways it provides a lot more information but not sure how you'll find the time to go through them all. I'd suggest you take advantage of fast forwarding through a video where you find it too much or not of interest. That way you'd get at least some information on what is happening in Canada and what might affect Canada in the world.
I'd also be interested in hearing what you think on this new way of presenting information.
You can see the work in progress at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/canada_add22.htm
The Beaver Magazine
Added No. 1 Outfit 258 June 1927 (pdf)
You can read this issue at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...erJune1927.pdf
Electric Scotland
The Connection Between Scotland and Greece (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/scotsandgreeks.pdf
John De Duns
Added an article and a book about him to his page in our Famous Scots section.
You can read these at:
https://electricscotland.com/history.../duns_john.htm
Scottish Independence and British Identity
An unusual Late-Medieval Perspective by Dauvit Broun, University of Glasgow (pdf)
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/indepen...erspective.pdf
My journey to Jerusalem
Including travels in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt by Rev. Nathan Hubbell (1890) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/travel/...erus00hubb.pdf
Origins of the Celts
By Cryfris Llydaweg (2022) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/OriginsCelts.pdf
The Numbers Are In – And So Is the Denial
Minimum Pricing, Maximum Spin: Scotland’s Booze Policy Post- Mortem by Annemarie Ward, Jun 25, 2025 (pdf)
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/indepen...mumpricing.pdf
Wonders of Scotland | Most Amazing Places in Scotland
Added this video to our Travel page as the first one down the page.
You can watch this at:
https://electricscotland.com/travel/index.htm
Mamma Mia Restaurant in Stirling.
Scotland's 'best restaurant' crowned and it is not in Edinburgh or Glasgow
The Italian eatery has won the prize two years in a row.
You can learn more about them at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/scotla...d-not-35441782
Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain
Volume 3 & 4 (1907) (pdf)
You can read these volumes at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...34greauoft.pdf
Glasgow's Drug Room Is Failing, and We Were Warned
By Annemarie Ward, June 23, 2025 (pdf)
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/indepen...h/drugroom.pdf
The Arbroath Smokie
A video which I've added to the foot of our Arbroath page.
You can watch this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/arbroath/index.htm
Struggling Rancher Bought 7 Orphans at Auction, What He Built Next Made History
A video story from YouTube
You can watch this at:
https://youtu.be/m2sAW02Y2mU?si=ib0h-q6lSCp79fqF
Scots Schooll Kids' Vital "Time Out" from their Digital Lives
"Children's Rights & Six Lesson AI Teaching Pack Released Nationwide" by Bill Magee.
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/magee/article0033.htm
Hebridean History
An overview (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...eanhistory.pdf
Memoir of The Reverend David Wilson
The late Pious and Lamented Minister of the United Associate Congregation of Old Cumnock, also, an account of his funeral and an Elegy to his Memory with a selection of his favourite Sonnets from the Rev. Ralph Erskine's Works (1825) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/f...hapbook465.pdf
Tristan da Cunha
Added a page for this country.
You can watch two videos at:
https://electricscotland.com/indepen...tandaCunha.htm
Story
Scotland’s Great Educational Lie:
The Price of “Free" by Annemarie Ward Jun 18th, 2025
By now, it should be obvious, but in Scotland, the obvious must be restated with tedious frequency that when the Scottish Government declares something to be “free,” it is almost always disguising the fact that someone, somewhere, is being made to pay through the nose. In the case of higher education, it is the Scottish student. Bright, ambitious, qualified and quietly shafted.
The SNP, still basking in the glow of its long-expired moral mandate, proudly declares that higher education in Scotland is “free at the point of delivery.” This, of course, is a fiction. It is paid for, inadequately and unsustainably, by the state, which then imposes rigid caps on the number of Scottish students allowed into their own national universities. Why? Because Scottish students are too expensive.
You read that correctly. A Scottish student is, under this magnificent regime of “equity,” a financial liability. Their places are capped. Their presence is penalised. And all this is carried out in the name of “inclusion.”
It gets worse. The universities, squeezed between financial realism and political dogma, have responded predictably: they have turned away from the Scottish applicant and turned towards the fee-rich plains of England and the global market. International students are not just welcomed, they are wooed, because they pay ten times what a Scot pays. Or rather, what the government permits a university to charge for a Scot. It’s not “free” education. It’s rationed access to a failing bureaucracy masquerading as egalitarianism.
Let me illustrate, lest the abstractions lull us into apathy. Picture two young women. Both cousins. Both from Scotland. One lives in a comfortable postcode, a postcode, mind you, not a palace. She studies hard, achieves all the necessary grades, and applies for medicine at Glasgow. The other, from a so-called “deprived” area, achieves below the stated requirement for her desired course, teaching but is accepted anyway. Why? Because postcode now outweighs preparation. Because one’s geographical location is now a moral credential.
This grotesque inversion of justice is then paraded as progress. But what it actually represents is something far more sinister, the institutionalisation of patronage. The codification of a caste system in which ability is secondary to bureaucratic virtue-signalling.
One can almost admire the brazenness. The architects of this system will look you square in the face, with their most compassionate expressions, and tell you that rejecting students who exceed the academic threshold is, in fact, a form of fairness. Orwell, if he were available, might have called it doublethink. I’d call it gaslighting with a government grant.
What we are witnessing is not the pursuit of excellence, nor the expansion of opportunity. It is the managed decline of merit, a levelling-down operation overseen by a class of administrators and politicians who would rather boast about inputs than outcomes. They call it widening access. In practice, it is the deliberate constriction of aspiration.
But this degradation doesn't begin at university. It starts far earlier, in Scotland’s hollowed-out school system now in its eighteenth year under SNP rule. New data shows the attainment gap between the poorest and richest pupils is at a five-year high. In Scotland’s wealthiest areas, just 3 per cent of school leavers fail to reach a “positive destination” (education, training, or employment). In the poorest areas, it’s more than 10 per cent. That’s not an attainment gap it’s an opportunity chasm.
Nicola Sturgeon once asked to be judged on closing this gap. A decade on, the verdict is brutal. The poorest pupils are 23 per cent less likely to leave school with even one National 5 qualification. At Higher level, the gap stretches to 38 per cent. Violence, truancy, absenteeism, and classroom weapons are surging. Scotland’s Pisa scores have dropped in every subject, science, maths, reading. If this is what “progressive” leadership delivers, it’s a wonder there are any aspirations left to widen at all.
And where, one might ask, are the so-called university leaders? The chancellors and vice-chancellors who know precisely what is happening, who admit, in whispers, over conference coffee, that this cannot last? They are busy issuing press releases about “diversity” while the institutions they supposedly steward sink into deficit. Edinburgh and St Andrews, swimming in foreign fees, ride high. The University of the West of Scotland, home to the very students this policy claims to help, sinks into the red. Austerity for the many; affluence for the few.
One thing to bear in mind is that Scotland’s Russell Group universities are now feeling the pinch, too. Their over-reliance on the international student market particularly Chinese enrolments is beginning to backfire. As global numbers contract, these elite institutions have pivoted sharply toward the ‘widening participation’ agenda, suddenly discovering a benevolent interest in Scottish students they previously ignored. But this is not a renaissance of national opportunity it is a strategic play for funding survival. And it deepens the crisis for Scotland’s post-92 institutions, which now find themselves further squeezed by the very policy designed to empower them.
To call this equality is not merely delusional, it is malevolent.
And what of the young woman, let us return to her, who earned her place but was denied it? What do we say to her? “Sorry, dear, wrong postcode”? Are we now so morally compromised, so ideologically corrupted, that this passes for social justice?
The SNP’s tuition-free façade is not just economically unsound, though it is that, it is a moral failure. It sells the illusion of fairness to the public, while enshrining unfairness in policy. It flatters the poor while entrenching their segregation. It punishes the diligent while rewarding the accidental geography of birth.
And all of this is propped up by an educational system in freefall a system that cannot produce equity because it no longer produces excellence. The very children the policy claims to uplift are being failed at every stage, failed in classrooms plagued by violence and disruption; failed by narrowing subject choice; failed by standards that fall while slogans rise. This is not the egalitarian dream, it is the bureaucratic smothering of potential, from school gate to graduation hall.
It is time, past time, that we stopped calling this system “progressive.” It is regressive in the most literal sense: it drags Scotland back into a tribal allocation of privilege, where merit must kneel before metrics, and success is something to be administratively redistributed.
A country that punishes its best in order to flatter its worst instincts will not remain a country of opportunity for long. And Scotland, for all its myth-making about egalitarianism, is fast becoming a cautionary tale, a land where equality is a slogan, merit is a liability, and the word “free” is the most expensive lie of all.
END.
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair
This assisted dying bill is dangerous
On Friday, MPs did not vote on the principle of assisted dying, but whether they wanted this dangerous Bill, following this process, to become law.
A Bill so flawed that the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Psychiatrists – neutral for six years – were forced to oppose it because major deficiencies remain.
A Bill built on shaky foundations, with policy shaped by a single MP and a prominent, well-funded lobby group.
For the Abortion Act, the Labour Government appointed the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Sir John Peel, to chair a medical advisory committee that reported in favour of passing the Bill. For the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Act there was the Warnock Commission.
Here, there was no consultation, no formal engagement with those affected, no testing of provisions with professional bodies. Instead, over 400 written submissions sit largely unread, and a few dozen oral evidence sessions where the witnesses chosen were overwhelmingly those who favoured assisted dying.
Not only did this undermine the legitimacy of the decisions taken, it deprived MPs of certainty that the policy is as good as it needs to be.
Especially given that, as Gordon Brown put it, the Bill will ‘privilege the legal right to assisted dying without guaranteeing anything approaching an equivalent right to high-quality palliative care for those close to death’.
Had MPs – as advocates for this change – have done enough to protect the vulnerable and ensure this is a free choice, not a default for those with no other options?
No MP can claim ignorance of the problems. They can only say they chose to ignore the warnings, favouring a high-gloss, celebrity-driven campaign and those for whom this will be a free choice, over those marginalised and vulnerable who will feel compelled to end their lives in this way.
They will have known that the Bill allows the state to help end the lives of those motivated not by their terminal illness, but by depression or mental illness, feeling that they are a burden, their inability to access health or social care or because they are in financial distress.
From last week’s votes, they will have known that any doctor may raise ending a patient’s life, regardless of the patient’s vulnerability. That doctors and panels need only be ‘51% sure’ the patient wasn’t coerced and meets the criteria.
They knew the High Court oversight had been stripped out and replaced by administrative panels with no power to call witnesses or take evidence on oath.
They knew they were signing off government-backed education campaigns before the 2029 election promoting assisted dying. From leaflets in surgeries to posters in hospitals to targeted mail, the campaign outlined in the impact assessment will address ‘all professionals… family, friends, unpaid carers and other support organisations and charities’.
They have knowingly given any government, now and in the future, the power to change any aspect of the NHS – including its founding principles and the Government’s duty to promote a comprehensive health service – with MPs having little further say.
They have confirmed that they are content for private, for-profit contractors to be used to end lives, and that there is no limit to the profit that can be made, despite promises of a cap to prevent the commodification of a life-ending service.
They knew they are leaving hospices and care homes open to funding cuts and legal action if they decline to participate.
And they said yes to experimental drug combinations with no minimum safety requirements nor state duty to minimise unintended suffering, distress or prolonged deaths from the lethal drugs.
All of this was clearly acceptable. They chose to harden their hearts and say with assisted dying advocate Henry Marsh, that if a few patients get bullied into it, that might just be ‘a price worth paying’ to let others end their lives with dignity.
The price will not be paid by the affluent, usually white, middle-class advocates of this change, but by the poor, disabled, marginalised and abused.
Those MPs who gambled – hoping others will have the courage to say no where they have not – or simply voting with their friends, should have considered how they’ll feel in years to come when the scandals emerge of how the safeguards failed. As they have so often in our NHS.
MPs should have rejected this Bill. Not because they oppose assisted dying, but because it risks far more harm than good. Something this significant needs firmer foundations.
Nikki da Costa
---------
LiveMemory™ Now Available on the MyHeritage Website
LiveMemory™ uses cutting-edge AI to turn full photos into video clips. You can let it automatically reenact the scene or choose from fun effects like underwater, zero gravity, or a T-Rex chase. Two new effects just launched — “Hair raiser” and “Whispering a secret” — and they’re a lot of fun.
Learn more at:
https://blog.myheritage.com/2025/06/...itage-website/
---------
Getting warm in Chatham this week... Good time to do some painting of my porch.
This time I'm trying a stain rather than paint in the hope it will last more than 2 years.
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Here is what caught my eye this week...
Scotland's Ancient DNA Revealed
A YouTube video
Watch this at:
https://youtu.be/p09TSiW5YM8?si=se6IVpZcjBScQeHS
Plans to honour 'birthplace' of Europe's commandos
A charity has unveiled plans for a £7.4m heritage centre honouring the birthplace of many of Europe's commando and special forces units. Thousands of soldiers from the UK and its allies, including Norway, Poland, France and Belgium, trained in commando warfare in Lochaber during World War Two. The area's role in the war is recalled by the Commando Memorial, which was unveiled near Spean Bridge, north of Fort William, in 1952.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vdpkvx9vno
Conrad Black: Israel is delivering a lethal blow to global terrorism
Eliminating Hamas and keeping Iran from developing nuclear arms is honourable work
Read more at:
https://archive.is/Mb4NA
The problem with career civil servants
Officials have little incentive to deliver
Read more at:
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-problem-...ivil-servants/
Sexual crimes in Scotland rise to second-highest rate in more than 50 years
New Scottish Government figures showed that sexual crimes - which include rape and sexual assault - increased by three per cent between 2023-24.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...econd-35441834
Housebuilding slumps by 11% as First Minister John Swinney admits 'emergency'
There has been a fall in the number of homes built and completed over twelve months.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...ister-35441939
Cancer waiting times in Scotland at worst level on record as SNP NHS record attacked
Only 68.9 per cent of patients on an urgent referral for a suspicion of cancer started treatment within 62 days.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...worst-35443170
The Scotsman’s 2025 Edinburgh Festival coverage: everything you need to know
The Scotsman has been proud to cover the Edinburgh festivals since they began in 1947, and as the festivals have grown, our coverage has grown too.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cu...o-know-5156194
How the people of Nairn cope with hungry urban gulls
Like other Scottish seaside communities, Nairn is no stranger to gulls. But residents and businesses in the former fishing port on the Moray Firth coast believe they have become a serious problem.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c307mqvg81ro
Oxford English Dictionary is hoaching with new Scottish words
The Oxford English Dictionary is hoaching with new Scottish words - with beamer, bummer and tattie scone among 13 new entries.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crenw75rlr1o
Teaching union, MSPs and expert condemn new Education Bill
Opposition MSPs, Scotland’s biggest teaching union, and a government-appointed expert have condemned the newly passed Education Bill, The Herald can reveal.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/VlRq7#selection-1665.3-1673.12
Reform threatens to smash Yes/No divide in Scotland - here's how
The first time that Nigel Farage campaigned in Scotland he ended up barricaded in an Edinburgh pub. He was portrayed the quintessential Little Englander, a man made out of tweed who’d struggle to place Scotland on the map. But in the 2014 European Parliament election it was the Ukip candidate, not the SNP, who won the extra seat for Scotland. That was a sign of what was to come.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/ecDhz#selection-1669.3-1685.76
SNP ministers to axe public sector jobs as near £5bn funding black hole emerges
SNP ministers are poised to shed public-sector jobs after bracing for a near £5 billion funding black hole by 2030 - amid a warning more than 10,000 workers could be tossed on the scrapheap
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politi...merges-5194993
Scots civil servants’ 77,500 sick days in one year costing taxpayers £17.4m
Scottish Government staff are taking record numbers of sick days, according to new figures that have sparked a heated debate about its workplace culture.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/scotti...xpayers-17-4m/
People with severe diabetes cured in small stem cell trial
The cure for diabetes is a life free from daily insulin injections. Based on that criterion, ten out of 12 people (83%) in a new clinical trial were cured of their diabetes one year after receiving an advanced stem cell therapy.
Read more at:
https://theconversation.com/people-w...l-trial-259569
Does Trump know what the f**k he's doing?
Frustrated by the breakdown of a ceasefire he brokered between Iran and Israel, Donald Trump told the media that the two states 'don't know what the f**k they are doing'. That's where he's wrong. Despite what Trump thinks, not everyone is content with cutting a deal.
Read more at:
https://capx.co/donald-trumps-geopolitical-weakness
Electric Canadian
Wonders of Ontario | The Most Amazing Places in Ontario
A video which I've added to the top of our Ontario page.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ario/index.htm
Welcome To Canada's Incredible Wilderness City
A video about the Yukon which I added to the foot of our Yukon page.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/yukon/index.htm
Winnepeg to London via The Hudson Bay
By the Reverend W. H. Cassap, B.A. (1936) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...egtolondon.pdf
Churchill and The Hudson Bay Route
Earlier History (1610-1847) (1935) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...nbay-route.pdf
The Eskimo Museum
Churchill, Manitoba (pdf)
You can read this one page account at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...chur00vola.pdf
Forgotten Northern Fortress
By Hon. John Schultz, M.D. (1894) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...a/fortress.pdf
The Founding of Churchill
Being the Journal of Captain James Knight, Governor-in-Chief in Hudson Bay, from the 14th of July to the 13th of September, 1717 by James F. Kenney, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S., Director of Historical Research and Publicity in the Public Archives of Canada (1932) (pdf)
You can read this journal at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...a/founding.pdf
Our North Land
Being a full account of the Canadian North-West and Hudson's Bay Route together with a narrative of the experiences of the Hudson's Bay expedition of 1884 by Charles R. Tuttle (1885) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...00tuttgoog.pdf
Hudson Bay
Part IV Reports of Superindendent E. J. A. Dewers, Commanding Churchill, 19th September, 1913, to 4th July, 1914.(pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...erin00unse.pdf
Seventh Annual Northern Manitoba Trappers' Festival
February 2nd to 5th, 1954 (pdf)
You can read this large publication at:
https://tinyurl.com/4cfw8cw6
Inuvik: Canada's Land Of The Midnight Sun
Added a video to the foot of our North West Territories page and a second one I found a bit later.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/nwt/index.htm
Vikings, Windmills & Waterfalls: Canada’s Untold Border Tales
A video which I've added to the foot of our Manioba page and also added two further videos about Port Nelson and Churchill.
You can watch these at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...toba/index.htm
Canada Over The Edge: The Rolling Plateaus of Saskatchewan
A video which I've added to the foot of our Saskatchewan page
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ewan/index.htm
Life and Labours of The Rev. Wm. McClure
For more than forty years a Minister of the Methodist New Conneion, chiefly and autobiography edited by Rev. David Savage (1872) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/Reli...00mccluoft.pdf
Paul Kane
Life & Work by Arlene Gehmacher (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make..._Paul-Kane.pdf
He Raised a Black Bear and a Stray Dog as Family — Now They Swim Together Like Siblings
Added this video story to the foot of our Children's page.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/children/index.htm
Canadians Turning to Portugal
Added a video about how Canadians are turning to Portugal instead of going to the USA. Added this to the foot of our Portual page.
You can watch this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/portugal.htm
Canadian War Cuts & Clippings
A. C. Evans Scrapbook Volume XI
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forces/clips.htm
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 22nd day of June 2025 - The Bucket List
By The Rev. Nola Crewe
You can watch this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...he-bucket-list
My Canadian Experience
Updated this months entry to reflect some developments.
Lots of videos this month... in some ways it provides a lot more information but not sure how you'll find the time to go through them all. I'd suggest you take advantage of fast forwarding through a video where you find it too much or not of interest. That way you'd get at least some information on what is happening in Canada and what might affect Canada in the world.
I'd also be interested in hearing what you think on this new way of presenting information.
You can see the work in progress at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/canada_add22.htm
The Beaver Magazine
Added No. 1 Outfit 258 June 1927 (pdf)
You can read this issue at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...erJune1927.pdf
Electric Scotland
The Connection Between Scotland and Greece (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/scotsandgreeks.pdf
John De Duns
Added an article and a book about him to his page in our Famous Scots section.
You can read these at:
https://electricscotland.com/history.../duns_john.htm
Scottish Independence and British Identity
An unusual Late-Medieval Perspective by Dauvit Broun, University of Glasgow (pdf)
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/indepen...erspective.pdf
My journey to Jerusalem
Including travels in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt by Rev. Nathan Hubbell (1890) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/travel/...erus00hubb.pdf
Origins of the Celts
By Cryfris Llydaweg (2022) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/OriginsCelts.pdf
The Numbers Are In – And So Is the Denial
Minimum Pricing, Maximum Spin: Scotland’s Booze Policy Post- Mortem by Annemarie Ward, Jun 25, 2025 (pdf)
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/indepen...mumpricing.pdf
Wonders of Scotland | Most Amazing Places in Scotland
Added this video to our Travel page as the first one down the page.
You can watch this at:
https://electricscotland.com/travel/index.htm
Mamma Mia Restaurant in Stirling.
Scotland's 'best restaurant' crowned and it is not in Edinburgh or Glasgow
The Italian eatery has won the prize two years in a row.
You can learn more about them at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/scotla...d-not-35441782
Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain
Volume 3 & 4 (1907) (pdf)
You can read these volumes at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...34greauoft.pdf
Glasgow's Drug Room Is Failing, and We Were Warned
By Annemarie Ward, June 23, 2025 (pdf)
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/indepen...h/drugroom.pdf
The Arbroath Smokie
A video which I've added to the foot of our Arbroath page.
You can watch this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/arbroath/index.htm
Struggling Rancher Bought 7 Orphans at Auction, What He Built Next Made History
A video story from YouTube
You can watch this at:
https://youtu.be/m2sAW02Y2mU?si=ib0h-q6lSCp79fqF
Scots Schooll Kids' Vital "Time Out" from their Digital Lives
"Children's Rights & Six Lesson AI Teaching Pack Released Nationwide" by Bill Magee.
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/magee/article0033.htm
Hebridean History
An overview (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...eanhistory.pdf
Memoir of The Reverend David Wilson
The late Pious and Lamented Minister of the United Associate Congregation of Old Cumnock, also, an account of his funeral and an Elegy to his Memory with a selection of his favourite Sonnets from the Rev. Ralph Erskine's Works (1825) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/f...hapbook465.pdf
Tristan da Cunha
Added a page for this country.
You can watch two videos at:
https://electricscotland.com/indepen...tandaCunha.htm
Story
Scotland’s Great Educational Lie:
The Price of “Free" by Annemarie Ward Jun 18th, 2025
By now, it should be obvious, but in Scotland, the obvious must be restated with tedious frequency that when the Scottish Government declares something to be “free,” it is almost always disguising the fact that someone, somewhere, is being made to pay through the nose. In the case of higher education, it is the Scottish student. Bright, ambitious, qualified and quietly shafted.
The SNP, still basking in the glow of its long-expired moral mandate, proudly declares that higher education in Scotland is “free at the point of delivery.” This, of course, is a fiction. It is paid for, inadequately and unsustainably, by the state, which then imposes rigid caps on the number of Scottish students allowed into their own national universities. Why? Because Scottish students are too expensive.
You read that correctly. A Scottish student is, under this magnificent regime of “equity,” a financial liability. Their places are capped. Their presence is penalised. And all this is carried out in the name of “inclusion.”
It gets worse. The universities, squeezed between financial realism and political dogma, have responded predictably: they have turned away from the Scottish applicant and turned towards the fee-rich plains of England and the global market. International students are not just welcomed, they are wooed, because they pay ten times what a Scot pays. Or rather, what the government permits a university to charge for a Scot. It’s not “free” education. It’s rationed access to a failing bureaucracy masquerading as egalitarianism.
Let me illustrate, lest the abstractions lull us into apathy. Picture two young women. Both cousins. Both from Scotland. One lives in a comfortable postcode, a postcode, mind you, not a palace. She studies hard, achieves all the necessary grades, and applies for medicine at Glasgow. The other, from a so-called “deprived” area, achieves below the stated requirement for her desired course, teaching but is accepted anyway. Why? Because postcode now outweighs preparation. Because one’s geographical location is now a moral credential.
This grotesque inversion of justice is then paraded as progress. But what it actually represents is something far more sinister, the institutionalisation of patronage. The codification of a caste system in which ability is secondary to bureaucratic virtue-signalling.
One can almost admire the brazenness. The architects of this system will look you square in the face, with their most compassionate expressions, and tell you that rejecting students who exceed the academic threshold is, in fact, a form of fairness. Orwell, if he were available, might have called it doublethink. I’d call it gaslighting with a government grant.
What we are witnessing is not the pursuit of excellence, nor the expansion of opportunity. It is the managed decline of merit, a levelling-down operation overseen by a class of administrators and politicians who would rather boast about inputs than outcomes. They call it widening access. In practice, it is the deliberate constriction of aspiration.
But this degradation doesn't begin at university. It starts far earlier, in Scotland’s hollowed-out school system now in its eighteenth year under SNP rule. New data shows the attainment gap between the poorest and richest pupils is at a five-year high. In Scotland’s wealthiest areas, just 3 per cent of school leavers fail to reach a “positive destination” (education, training, or employment). In the poorest areas, it’s more than 10 per cent. That’s not an attainment gap it’s an opportunity chasm.
Nicola Sturgeon once asked to be judged on closing this gap. A decade on, the verdict is brutal. The poorest pupils are 23 per cent less likely to leave school with even one National 5 qualification. At Higher level, the gap stretches to 38 per cent. Violence, truancy, absenteeism, and classroom weapons are surging. Scotland’s Pisa scores have dropped in every subject, science, maths, reading. If this is what “progressive” leadership delivers, it’s a wonder there are any aspirations left to widen at all.
And where, one might ask, are the so-called university leaders? The chancellors and vice-chancellors who know precisely what is happening, who admit, in whispers, over conference coffee, that this cannot last? They are busy issuing press releases about “diversity” while the institutions they supposedly steward sink into deficit. Edinburgh and St Andrews, swimming in foreign fees, ride high. The University of the West of Scotland, home to the very students this policy claims to help, sinks into the red. Austerity for the many; affluence for the few.
One thing to bear in mind is that Scotland’s Russell Group universities are now feeling the pinch, too. Their over-reliance on the international student market particularly Chinese enrolments is beginning to backfire. As global numbers contract, these elite institutions have pivoted sharply toward the ‘widening participation’ agenda, suddenly discovering a benevolent interest in Scottish students they previously ignored. But this is not a renaissance of national opportunity it is a strategic play for funding survival. And it deepens the crisis for Scotland’s post-92 institutions, which now find themselves further squeezed by the very policy designed to empower them.
To call this equality is not merely delusional, it is malevolent.
And what of the young woman, let us return to her, who earned her place but was denied it? What do we say to her? “Sorry, dear, wrong postcode”? Are we now so morally compromised, so ideologically corrupted, that this passes for social justice?
The SNP’s tuition-free façade is not just economically unsound, though it is that, it is a moral failure. It sells the illusion of fairness to the public, while enshrining unfairness in policy. It flatters the poor while entrenching their segregation. It punishes the diligent while rewarding the accidental geography of birth.
And all of this is propped up by an educational system in freefall a system that cannot produce equity because it no longer produces excellence. The very children the policy claims to uplift are being failed at every stage, failed in classrooms plagued by violence and disruption; failed by narrowing subject choice; failed by standards that fall while slogans rise. This is not the egalitarian dream, it is the bureaucratic smothering of potential, from school gate to graduation hall.
It is time, past time, that we stopped calling this system “progressive.” It is regressive in the most literal sense: it drags Scotland back into a tribal allocation of privilege, where merit must kneel before metrics, and success is something to be administratively redistributed.
A country that punishes its best in order to flatter its worst instincts will not remain a country of opportunity for long. And Scotland, for all its myth-making about egalitarianism, is fast becoming a cautionary tale, a land where equality is a slogan, merit is a liability, and the word “free” is the most expensive lie of all.
END.
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair