
Ex-Highlands and Islands Tory MSP Sir Jamie McGrigor dies aged 75
He added: "I'm deeply saddened to hear of Sir Jamie's death, and, on behalf of everyone in the Scottish Conservatives, send my condolences to his family and friends."Sir Jamie excelled in a number of frontbench roles, including fisheries, and was popular and respected by colleagues from across the political spectrum."First Minister John Swinney also paid tribute to the veteran politician.He posted on X: "Very sorry to hear of the passing of Jamie McGrigor."We came from different political traditions and often held opposing views, but as an MSP, Jamie was a warm, engaging presence and was deeply committed to the Highlands and Islands."My thoughts are with his family and friends."
Political career
Sir James Angus Rhoderick Neil McGrigor was born in London in 1949, to a family with connections to Argyll, where he was raised, and educated at Eton College.He graduated with a degree in commercial French at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, before working in finance in London, and in the commodities sector in Glasgow.He was also a farmer, and started a trout farm in Argyll in the 1970s.Sir Jamie stood as the Conservative candidate in the Western Isles in the 1997 general election, before being elected to the Scottish Parliament two years later.He was a Scottish Conservative spokesman on fisheries, communities and sport.He stood down in 2016, becoming a councillor for the South Oban and Islands Ward on Argyll and Bute Council between 2017 and 2022.
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BBC News
7 minutes ago
- BBC News
Teenage Warwickshire council leader George Finch 'wanted to teach'
George Finch had planned to be at university studying to become a history at the of 19, he has become the youngest council leader in the UK, running Warwickshire County Council with a budget of £ Reform UK councillor still lives at his family home and cannot yet drive. Facts which have led to jibes in public and private from some opposition became the largest party on the previously Conservative-led authority with 23 seats in May's local elections. Speaking exclusively to the BBC, he hit back at criticism about his lack of life and professional experience – labelling those turning their noses up at his appointment as "ageist" and "not relevant".Sitting down in the leader's office, shortly after scraping through a leadership vote at the council's Shire Hall headquarters, Finch called out his said: "All I see is age… I don't care about my age. Would people be questioning if there was a 70-year-old at the helm? Probably not."Joe Biden, Donald Trump, presidents that are older – no-one questions it. But they're questioning someone who is 19." But leading a £2bn organisation is not a typical job for a 19-year-old, and Finch admitted he had had other plans."I wanted to be a history teacher. I loved history and I loved teaching but the problem was the curriculum, especially history. Universities and colleges are a conveyor belt for socialist wokeism."Finch said he had been inspired by Reform and former Conservative MP Lee Anderson, who has previously criticised educational establishments for what he perceives as teachers pushing "dog whistle divisive politics" on April, National Education Union members called for funds to be used to help campaign against Reform UK candidates. The organisation, Britain's biggest teaching union, branded Reform UK "a racist and far right" party. In his time as interim leader, Finch said he had used his new "influence" over education by calling Anjit Samra, CEO of Stowe Valley Multi-Academy Trust, to his office after a row over a union jack dress at Bilton School, in Rugby."I don't have the power to tell him what to do as he's an academy, but I do have that influence. "I asked him simple, I said 'I would like to see, and I think it's in your best interests, if you have a school assembly on the importance of British culture'."Asked what his friends made of his new job, he said: "They love it, when I have to go to the pub I don't have to buy a pint." But why did Reform appeal to him and why is it gaining momentum with some young people?"People can't afford homes, they can't have a car, postgraduate jobs are decreasing. It's getting harder for us to see a good future, a better future. And with Reform UK, that's what gives people that hope."He said he thought his appointment would probably help attract people to the party."It shows that anyone can do anything in this party, if you're up to the task. If you've got that merit-based system - and that's where we've gone wrong for far too long in the private and public sector."He added: "It's 'oh, here's a job because of your skin colour or your creed or your religion'. No, you get the job because you're good at it." A keen rugby player, Finch is used to battling on the pitch. But it was in the corridors of power where he faced his first public fight, in a row with the council's chief executive Monica Fogarty, after he asked for a Progress Pride Flag to be removed from outside Shire Hall in UK leader Nigel Farage even waded into the row calling out what he perceived as "obstructionism" by council officials saying "Warwickshire is a very, very good example".Asked if he could work with the council chief executive and other officers, Finch said: "We have done. We have to have that professional working relationship."Pushed on whether it was professional to publicly call out the council's chief executive, he said: "We're working together, the council is running. I think you're looking too deep into this." Talking about his priorities for Warwickshire over the coming months and years, Finch said having a sister with special educational needs and disabilities meant he had a keen interest in the area which has been labelled a financial threat to the future of the has pledged to cut wasteful spending and improve the efficiency of the councils it runs. But some of its spending decisions have faced criticism, while opponents say there has been little concrete action to reduce Warwickshire, opposition parties have criticised Finch and his party for planning to hire political assistants at a cost of up to £190,000 a year, saying the money should be spent on front-line services contentious area is the potential scrapping of lower-level councils as part of the Labour government's devolution said he wanted to look at these ideas in his county and he would like to see areas such as Nuneaton and Bedworth given their own town councils.


Telegraph
7 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Why is James O'Brien recycling an anti-Semitic lie?
What kind of person would unquestioningly believe that British Jewish children are taught that 'one Jewish life is worth thousands of Arab lives and that Arabs are cockroaches to be crushed'? Step forward James O'Brien, LBC's prince of the bien pensant. Today, the radio presenter received a message from a listener calling himself 'Chris' who made these overtly anti-Semitic claims. O'Brien apparently duly repeated them on air without so much as a how's your father, prefaced by the baffling statement: 'I'm fascinated by objectivity, which is why I'm going to read out this from Chris'. The listener's message began by pointing out that 'warped views are not just an Israeli problem'. What? So it's OK now to smear an entire nation as holding 'warped views'? The fact that this alone did not set off alarm bells in O'Brien's mind was worrying enough. Make such a claim about any other people and the author of How To Be Right would surely be the very first to cry racist. But that was only the prelude. 'Chris' went on to extend this 'Israeli problem' to include Jews in this country as well as their cousins in Tel Aviv. 'My wife was brought up Jewish and at shabbat school in a leafy Hertfordshire town…' his message continued. Let's press pause again there. For one thing, it just sounded phony. 'My wife was brought up Jewish'? Yeah, right. But the mention of a 'shabbat school' was hilarious. There is, of course, no such thing. Jews do not go to school on the sabbath. These red flags also fluttered too high above O'Brien's head for him to notice. He continued to read out the message to his 1.5 million listeners. Thus, middle Britain was treated, in O'Brien's honeyed tones, to Chris's claim that at 'shabbat school', his 'wife' had been introduced to the aforementioned bigotry towards Arabs. The fact that O'Brien at no point realised the nature of what he was reading is downright disturbing. Let's make this absolutely clear. Of the 15 million Jews in the world, you'll be hard pressed to find any who holds such repugnant views of anybody, including Arabs. Attend any pro-Israel rally and you'll never hear anything like it. Especially not in Britain. It is true that a handful of extremists, especially in Israel, sometimes chant disgraceful things about their enemies. Jews have their thugs and nutters just like any other people. But these are in the vanishingly small minority, like the BNP in Britain. To suggest that this amounts to an institutional indoctrination, akin to the brainwashing in Gaza, is quite obviously an anti-Semitic lie. Obvious, at least, to anybody with common sense. In concluding his shameful monologue, O'Brien intoned: 'Whilst young children are being taught such hatred and dehumanisation, undoubtedly on both sides, as Chris points out, then they will always be able to justify death and cruelty.' He added: 'There is a danger, perhaps, that we only ever hear one side of the dehumanisation and propaganda.' No, there isn't. Not everything has two sides, James. There is such a thing as right and wrong. Obviously Israel, being a real-life country in the real world, isn't perfect; obviously it has its own extremists and criminals, like every other state on Earth. But to compare the Middle East's only democracy to Gaza, where every strata of society is poisoned with the toxic ideology of the death cult, is frankly abhorrent – let alone suggesting that British Jews are engaged in the same thing. Think of the scenes on October 7, when the half-naked corpses of Jewish women were paraded through Gaza while mobs spat at them, jeered and beat them with sticks. Could you imagine such a thing happening in Tel Aviv? Could you imagine Israelis cheering as children and the elderly were taken hostage? Of course not. But I wonder whether O'Brien can. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. In 2014 and 2015, the author of How They Broke Britain gave vast amounts of airtime to the bogus claims of the VIP sex ring based on testimony by Carl Beech, who was later imprisoned both for sex offences and for perverting the course of justice. He later expressed regret. But in August last year, he caused outrage by praising a video on social media that blamed 'Zionist backers' for the Southport riots. He later claimed not to have watched the clip in full and condemned it. A certain pattern is emerging here. As inexplicable as it might be, O'Brien has a huge listenership and more than a million followers on social media. LBC has removed the 'warped views' clip from the internet. For untold numbers of people, however, the damage has already been done.


Daily Mail
7 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Labour's tax raids on wealthy 'already backfiring' as Reeves prepares to come back for more: CGT revenue drops as Goldman Sachs boss warns London's status as global financial hub is at risk
Labour has been warned that tax raids on the wealthy are already 'backfiring' amid signs that Rachel Reeves is preparing to come back for more. Analysts have pointed to figures showing capital gains tax receipts dipping in the first half of the year, despite the Chancellor hiking rates. Meanwhile, the boss of Goldman Sachs has raised concerns that further efforts to bring in revenue could fuel an exodus, with London 's status as a financial hub 'fragile'. Ms Reeves is desperately hunting for options to increase taxes as she faces an estimated £30billion black hole in the public finances at the Autumn Budget. The tax burden is already set to hit a new high as a proportion of GDP after the last Budget imposed a £41billion increase - the biggest on record for a single package. Labour has ruled out increasing income tax, employee national insurance or VAT. The Chancellor again refused to rule out a wealth tax yesterday, with backbenchers floating a percentage charge on assets to raise billions of pounds a year. However, Shaun Moore, tax and financial planning expert at investment firm Quilter, warned such moves could actually cause more harm to revenues after a crackdown on 'non doms'. At the Budget last year Ms Reeves increased the lower rate of CGT from 10 per cent to 18 per cent and the higher rate from 20 per cent to 24 per cent. But in the first six months of this year the tax raked in £11.8 billion, compared to £13.5billion during the same period in 2024. The receipts for 2024-25 were around £200million lower than the Treasury's OBR watchdog had anticipated. The body has forecast that revenues will surge in 2025-26. 'The government's decision to slash capital gains tax allowances and hike rates has backfired,' Mr Moore said. 'The policy may have been designed to raise revenue, but it's instead prompted behavioural shifts that have dented the tax take.' He added: 'While taxing the wealthiest may sound politically appealing, the CGT experience shows that people will change behaviour or adjust their financial plans to mitigate the tax bills.' Goldman Sachs chairman and chief executive David Solomon told Sky News presenter Wilfred Frost's The Master Investor Podcast that talent in the financial industry was 'much more mobile' than 25 years ago. 'London continues to be an important financial centre. But because of Brexit, because of the way the world's evolving, the talent that was more centred here is more mobile,' Mr Solomon said. 'We as a firm have many more people on the continent. Policy matters, incentives matter. 'I'm encouraged by some of what the current government is talking about in terms of supporting business and trying to support a more growth oriented agenda. 'But if you don't set a policy that keeps talent here, that encourages capital formation here, I think over time you risk that.' Mr Solomon cautioned that the status of the City of London was 'fragile' and could 'fray' if not treated with care. The public sector borrowed £20.7billion last month, far higher than the £17.6billion analysts had pencilled in 'Incentives matter if you create tax policy or incentives that push people away, you harm your economy,' he said. 'If you go back, you know, ten years ago, I think we probably had 80 people in Paris. 'You know, we have 400 people in Paris now... And so in Goldman Sachs today, if you're in Europe, you can live in London, you can live in Paris, you can live in Germany, in Frankfurt or Munich, you can live in Italy, you can live in Switzerland. 'And we've got, you know, real offices. You just have to recognise talent is more mobile.'