The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday 02 July 2025 #Fatbergs

The Scotsman

Dale and David discuss the challenges Fatberg blockages pose to infrastructure and the environment.  #FatbergAwareness #SewageSystems #EnvironmentalProtection #WasteManagement

Transcript

00:00Hello welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin for this Wednesday my

00:05name is Dale Miller I'm deputy editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by David

00:09Boll our deputy political editor firstly just want to touch on the front page of

00:15today's Scotsman a lovely picture of King Charles at the Palace of Holyrood

00:20house as he kicked off a royal week yesterday he's in Kirkcotti today in

00:27Fife some more pictures and coverage to come to you from that event also the

00:34splash gender-critical academics harassed at universities Katrina Stewart who

00:40wrote this piece basically spoke to an academic from Robert Gordon University

00:46that just talked about the extent that academics are needing to to go to to be

00:51protected including taking ducking cover maneuver almost self-defense

00:57instructions while attending one particular university here in Scotland

01:02it's a real talkie you can read that story at scotsman.com and also on the wing

01:08there we had the vote on Sir Keir Starmer and his government's welfare bill last

01:14night we'll talk through that a bit in a bit more detail David because there's

01:19another story there from you that we're going to touch on first which is the

01:24issue of fatbergs they have pretty disgusting things if you say a picture of

01:29them in person but they're a real problem and they're costing the Scottish

01:34water and the Scottish government a lot of money yeah they are they are pretty grim

01:38things but they're basically just a build-up of stuff that shouldn't get put

01:42into the sewers wet wipes one of the big contributors to this about 80% of these

01:47things are caused by people flushing wet wipes essentially and it costs a lot

01:54like you said seven and a half million a year it's about 20 grand a day for the

01:58wet wipe associated ones and the SNP government have been kind of accused of

02:03kind of sitting on their hands a little bit and leaving it to Scottish water to

02:07set out to sort out environment is obviously devolved mostly to the Scottish

02:13government and single-use plastics has been a thing the Scottish government has

02:18has vowed to kind of eradicate and we've seen a bit of slow progress on that we

02:22were looking for those called the latte levy to kind of stop people using single

02:26use cups for coffee it's been delayed a little bit and basically Scottish

02:32conservators are calling on the Scottish government to kind of get a move on and

02:36get regulations in place that was kind of penalize people or companies from

02:42selling these sort of plastic containing wet wipes and more awareness really

02:48about about what's going on the Scottish government says there's plenty of

02:51awareness out there and they are just waiting for a process where they can bring

02:55in some sort of regulations that words kind of outlaw these things a bit more

02:59but at the moment it's costing a lot and they are pretty disgusting

03:0320,000 pounds a day is a lot of money to go towards this there's something that we

03:08could collectively stop from happening David some some sort of breaking or

03:14updated news this morning about former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell I know for

03:21legal reasons there's certain elements of the case we may not be able to discuss but

03:25just update us on what's been confirmed today yes so this morning it's been

03:31confirmed that he's had an application for legal aid where his kind of legal cost

03:35will be paid by the state the taxpayer and he's had his application granted we

03:41don't we still don't know if he's going to go to a trial anything he's not he paid in

03:45court in March and didn't enter a plea and all we know is that he's been charged

03:49with embezzlement so still a lot to work out what's that what's really going to

03:54happen here but the fact that he's been kind of approved legal aid to cover his

03:59legal costs for this very high profile case will kind of surprise a lot of people I

04:04suppose you can read that story at scotsman.com from David right now just

04:09lastly I know it's recess at Holyrood but down at Westminster there's a big vote

04:16last night the government needed to make a last-minute concession they did get

04:21through but it was the biggest rebellion we've seen of the circus as

04:25premiership so far and there were a couple of Scottish MPs including one

04:29particular perhaps agitator is not the right word but someone that's happy to

04:34speak up against the government voted against the bill as well can you feel

04:37a sense? Yeah so you'll be talking about Brian Leishman who has consistently

04:42basically held his own and just spoke with his mind rather than the whip probably

04:48the only part Scottish Labour MP that's been able to do that or felt free to do

04:53that since he came in and it started with he's the MP for Grangemouth so it gave him a

04:58good platform to kind of shout for more action on that and yeah he was very

05:02scathing of the Prime Minister at the weekend said he wasn't proud of the first

05:06year in government also was asked whether Kirsten was the person to lead the party

05:13into the next election which seems a mad question given what happened a year ago

05:17and he said he wasn't really interested in personnel so this vote last night

05:22although the government won it is pretty humiliating stuff they've had not just one

05:26new turn on this but they've had to do it twice the second time minutes an hour or so

05:32before before the vote just because they weren't sure they were going to get the

05:36numbers it's a huge dent to Keir Starmer's authority when he's got a huge majority it

05:41shouldn't really have got to this and how he's handled it will be criticized

05:46heavily I imagine that PMQs today there'll be more calls for the bill to just to be

05:51withdrawn because it's fundamentally changed is the thing that they're basically

05:54going to have a review over the the pip element of of the proposals which doesn't

06:00count in Scotland but it's got huge political capital across the UK and it's

06:06just been a complete car crash how it's been handled that if you're going to do a

06:09U-turn you make sure you do it properly so you get enough support to to end the

06:14kind of standoff and they weren't able to do that and it's just dragged on and on

06:18and it's not going to go away anytime soon by the looks of it as your colleague

06:23Rachel Amy reports this morning we've got a story on the side the savings that the

06:29Chancellor is trying to make out of these moves have effectively almost disappeared

06:34entirely and the suggestions that tax sorry tax rises certainly south of the border

06:42will be likely to make up for the difference in terms of what they were trying to

06:46say that will obviously then have implications for what the Scottish

06:51government ends up with to work with in its own budgets later this year David

06:56thanks for joining us you can read all those stories at scotsman.com if you ever

07:01can't find our political coverage just go to the politics tab in the navigation bar

07:06and we'll have full coverage in our print edition of the Scotsman tomorrow

07:09including the best pictures and words from Royal Week as King Charles visits

07:16Kirkcotti in Fife and the Queen makes more visits into the community as well

07:20thanks to you David thanks everyone else for joining us

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