Media consultant, providing PR and web services, social media management and training, blogging and web content. Ex-radio broadcaster.
Glasgow, UK
Joined August 2011
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David G Boyes retweeted
John Swinney won't be able to pop into his local for a pint any more.
Brown & Blacks in Scone is run by an entrepreneur called Katie Long.
Her story sums up everything that's wrong with business rates.
Katie put around £140,000 of her own money into the business. She's done everything she can to make it work.
Her energy costs have risen from £25,000 a year to over £100,000. But the real stinger is that her business rates have gone up from under £20,000 to over £52,000.
How is anyone supposed to make a living with that?
Now think about the knock-on effect: potential job losses at a time of high unemployment, which means less tax coming in and a greater burden on the state.
The First Minister has appointed Jonathan Murphy to look at rates. So here's my offer to Jonathan: let's spend a day together visiting the businesses whose livelihoods are threatened by the current system.
Uganda team manager has 'no idea' why boxers have disappeared. Well, I do. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yv…
David G Boyes retweeted
In 2016, the Netherlands Meteorological Institute adjusted temperatures at De Bilt, the country's main climate station. Daily maximums from 1901 to 1950 were lowered by up to 1.9C, which removed 16 of 23 heatwaves from the record.
The altered data were then used to claim modern heatwaves were unprecedented.
Four researchers challenged the changes, but the institute dismissed the criticism, so the analysis went to peer review. In 2021, it was published, conclusively demonstrating the method systematically erased historical heat extremes.
Today, the Meteorological Institute has quietly changed its approach, and as a result, seven erased heatwaves have been restored, including the extreme summer of 1947.
Here again, we have a government agency caught rewriting climate history. The Netherlands Meteorological Institute erased heatwaves of the past, ignored critics, and reinstated the truth only when the evidence became impossible to ignore.
Policies were built on that manipulated record.
Dutch farmers lost livelihoods.
Industry and the wider economy paid the price.
But accountability is coming.
David G Boyes retweeted
The lax treatment of Angela Rayner by HMRC has brought into focus how arbitrary the tax authority can be in its treatment of ordinary citizens.
Too often, HMRC has pursued individuals and small businesses for vast sums of money in error. HMRC are masters of using process as punishment, making themselves increasingly difficult to contact while torturing people with demand letters and bankruptcy notices.
Victims of these errors are often forced to spend huge amounts of time and money to prove HMRC wrong. This sometimes runs to hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees, many times the actual amount in dispute. They also find their names and details published in a list of deliberate tax defaulters, in effect a "name and shame" list.
I have to question whether this meets citizens' privacy rights, since these do not appear to be court rulings but HMRC opinions.
HMRC's excesses must be brought under control. It is time ministers took a grip of this.
telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/ne…
David G Boyes retweeted
It's been revealed that far-left Green party leader Zack Polanski is currently living in a £2m 5-bedroom Hackney townhouse.
Data says 0.5% of the population live in a house worth more than £2m.
He is part of the 1% he is constantly banging on about. You can't make it up.
Amend electoral eligibility rules in Scotland - Sign the Petition! c.org/r4GfM5wWyH via @UKChange
David G Boyes retweeted
Most people don’t realise where the £180 million actually went at the A303 Stonehenge tunnel project.
It wasn’t construction.
It was years of:
• Environmental impact assessments
• Heritage & archaeological studies
• Legal challenges and consultations
• Design, engineering and traffic modelling
• Public inquiries and revisions
All before a single shovel hit the ground.
This is the real problem in Britain:
We don’t just waste money, we build systems that guarantee it.
£180 million to build nothing.
Hitting the nails on their various heads. Well said, @afneil
You want the NATO allies to join you in a war you started without ever consulting these allies about the war or explaining your war aims. We’re meant just to meekly fall in line.
You recently supported a US invasion of a NATO ally (Denmark/Greenland) but now you want these same allies to join your war.
Your president disparaged and misrepresented the role of NATO allies in Afghanistan. But now you want them to join with you again in a war of your making.
You went to war with Iran without a thought of how to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and without involving your allies in the matter. But now you want the NATO allies to bail you out, even though there’s still no plan for Hormuz.
You want the NATO allies to join you in a war in which you still cannot articulate the endgame. Or what victory would look like.
You went to war thinking the Iranian regime would quickly topple, that Tehran would not attack the Gulf States or close Hormuz. Why would we align with such Epic Stupidity?
You and other know-nothing blowhards started this war all on your own. You can finish it on your own. If you’re able to …
David G Boyes retweeted
Hi @GlasgowCC this is Cresswell Lane off Byres Road in Glasgow. A beautiful cobbled area bringing unique charm and character. Please tell me you’re not leaving it like this?!
Justice for the 29: Expose the Chinook ZD576 Cover-up - Sign the Petition! chng.it/ZZDrKrV6Pb via @UKChange
David G Boyes retweeted
I have written an open letter to Sean Doyle, CEO of British Airways about the recent changes to the Executive Club. If you agree with me, please retweet! @British_Airways @SimonCalder @lisaminot turningleftforless.com/an-op…
It’s that old queue till you lose the will to live experience at @LidlGB yet again.
@EastRenCouncil Any chance someone could empty this please? Huntly Park/playing fields.
Is this ancient site in Glasgow haunted? youtu.be/9K8DX18_0A0?si=TDA-… via @YouTube
Time to lose this self-confessed liar. Sign the petition now and demand #Mone is expelled from the House of Lords: 38d.gs/qhjk
@Morrisons Why has your clock at #Giffnock never worked? Or, to put it another way: why not repair it?
So @heraldscotland does a piece about saving this neglected piece of #Scottishheritage via journalist #marksmith and then suddenly it goes on fire. How strange. #ayr #heraldscotland bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-g…
