Humza Yousaf’s foreign trips bankrolled by Qatar and Turkey

The former first minister is accused of neglecting his Holyrood duties to attend the Doha Forum and an event in Istanbul paid for by Turkey’s sta...

Humza Yousaf has been funded by Qatar’s authoritarian government and a broadcaster accused of being a propaganda outlet for President Erdogan of Turkey to travel the world. The former first minister has disclosed that he accepted funding from the Qatari regime, accused of widespread human rights abuses, to attend the Doha Forum in the Gulf state this month. Yousaf also attended an event in Istanbul, at the expense of Turkish state broadcaster TRT, between October 30 and November 2. TRT is now widely seen as a mouthpiece for the Erdogan government, which is accused of targeting political opponents, restricting press freedom and eroding democracy. The Scottish Tories and Reform UK contrasted the former SNP leader’s extensive interventions overseas with his lack of contributions at Holyrood, where he remains an MSP. https://archive.ph/U6Rdw

Having to fake your PhD? That’s so Seventies

The sheer quantity and declining quality of postgraduate degrees makes them easier to obtain but increasingly worthless

The lure of getting prestige on the cheap has always been a problem in higher education, but the threat is evolving. These days, to pretend to have an MA would be fairly pointless as it wouldn’t confer any meaningful edge. Last year, taught postgraduate degrees awarded by UK universities outnumbered undergraduate ones for the first time, unleashing 467,765 master’s-holders on to the career ladder. The sector has risen a staggering 67 per cent in five years. Though most of these degrees went to international students, 29 per cent went to domestic ones. That’s a lot of competition. And it’s not sheer quantity that has lowered the status of many courses; it’s also the quality. As domestic fees have stayed capped, the lucrative taught postgraduate degree business has become indispensable to the survival of universities. In practice this means that for some courses you would have to write your application in green crayon not to get in; and even then, rejection is not guaranteed. The few exceptional students who apply, believing the experience will be more intellectually satisfying than undergraduate days, often arrive to find a set of dissolute, mediocre classmates trying to spin out student life for as long as possible — not so much gaming the jobs market as hiding from it completely. Teaching, meanwhile, is typically done as cheaply as possible. This can mean students on different MA courses converging for shared modules or just recycling undergrad teaching but with longer assessments. Partly for such reasons, doing a master’s in fields such as politics, history and English significantly reduces your earning power in the medium term, compared with doing undergraduate study only. https://archive.ph/2mYfV

seems to be working again.

Peers urge Streeting to scrap puberty blocker trial for children

Young people joining the NHS Pathways trial will be advised on fertility preservation before treatment begins

A group of peers have urged Wes Streeting to halt an NHS-backed puberty blocker trial, saying that it will put children on a pathway of “lifelong medical support”. About 250 girls and boys aged between 10 and 16 will be recruited to a trial of hormone-suppressing drugs from the new year, run by King’s College London. But 11 cross-party members of the Lords have written a letter to The Times urging the health secretary to intervene and get the trial halted. They said: “Most children with concerns about gender grow out of it. But once placed on puberty blockers, the majority proceed to cross sex hormones — and then to the Wild West of our adult gender clinics. We know the resultant harms: reduced bone density, possible impact on brain development, loss of fertility, sexual dysfunction, a requirement for lifelong medical support, often serious pain and medical complications. “How can anyone justify placing a further cohort of vulnerable children on a pathway to this future?” The letter was signed by 11 members of the House of Lords, including the Conservative peer Baroness Jenkin of Kennington and the Labour peer Lord Glasman. https://archive.ph/FfQVU

The Critic Magazine

Enduring delights | John MacLeod | The Critic Magazine

It was first broadcast over forty years ago and has only twice, ever, been repeated. Yet The Box of Delights has proved so definitive — a scr...

It is, of course, inconceivable that the achingly woke BBC would make such a drama today. Indeed, after a repeat in 1986, it took thirty-eight years before it was rebroadcast and, to the fury of fans, it has just been pulled from BBC iPlayer. But thirteen-something young Kay Harker, after all, is a plummy-voiced lad bouncing around Worcestershire in a Norfolk suit. Orphaned — though we are not told how — but unmistakably of gentlefolk, with a pleasant country house and sometimes just a little lordly with the servants. They deferentially address him as “Master Kay.” His guardian, the glamorous Caroline Louisa, is draped in fox-fur; the young Jones siblings, joining Kay for the hols, likewise attend frightfully good schools. There isn’t a person of colour in sight, no one is bi-curious or out to decolonise anyone’s curriculum, and central to The Box of Delights is foiling a dastardly plan to prevent the 1000th annual Christmas service at Tatchester Cathedral. One can readily imagine Adjoa Andoh’s curled lip. But no less important is Kay’s custody of a small magic box — entrusted to him by a mysterious old. The box must, at all costs, never fall into the hands of Abner Brown — a villain in charge of a cabal of pretend-clergy who can shapeshift into wolves, and who desperately wants that box – when he isn’t kidnapping (“scrobbling”) choirboys, conjuring up demons, or plotting badness with Kay’s old governess, Sylvia Daisy Pouncer. The dialogue is remarkably faithful to Masefield’s original, complete with the boarding-school slang of his day — the enjoyable is “splendiferous”, anything unpleasant or vexatious damned as the “purple pim” — and the stunning snowscapes our heroes must wade through in the second episode were filmed on location in Scotland.

Such an arse of a woman.

Scottish Daily Express

Maggie Chapman turns shoppers against businesses who back anti-Israel crusade

The controversial Scottish Green MSP wants businesses to boycott Israeli goods - but may have sparked another boycott altogether

But Ms Chapman has been savaged on social media for focusing on the war in Gaza rather than issues in her own North East region. Many users vowed to carry out their own boycott while the prominent anti-nationalist account Graeme From IT said: "Just wondering if she would be able to tell me what she have achieved for her constituents - the actual people in the streets, who work everyday? Not on the international stage, not to do with independence or LGBT, but to do with medical services, potholes." The Brian Spanner account joked: "I guarantee 47 are folk on Etsy selling cards," while one person said: "The irony of naming yourselves as Apartheid Free Zones as you try to cut out Jewish produced goods and services is obviously lost on this gang. I hope all the businesses targeted in this discriminatory manner sue you." businesses in Aberdeen have committed to boycott Israeli goods and services — making our city apartheid free!" An event was held on Saturday to give the initiative a boost. Ms Chapman sparked outrage in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 when she described the murder of over 1,000 Jews as "a consequence of apartheid, of illegal occupation and of imperial aggression by the Israel state". Earlier this month, she was criticised for submitting a motion at Holyrood supporting Palestine Action, a proscribed terrorist group. It has been backed 24 MSPs, including former first ministers Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf.