THERE’S BEEN A MURDER
The fallout from the Malcolm Webster murder conviction will dominate the news in Scotland today.
Blanket coverage of the sensational case fills most of the newspapers this morning, and both the BBC and STV ran lengthy pieces last night.
Correctly so, as it featured quite horrific events that thankfully we only hear about once in a generation, as one cop put it.
The question as to why Webster almost got away with ‘the perfect murder’ in Aberdeenshire in 1994 has already been raised. Police and fire services in Grampian seem more than a little troubled in their answers so far.
Despite the fact that Webster was English and so was his murder victim, and that the case had international implications and was ‘the biggest investigation since Lockerbie’ as one detective said, it hardly caused a ripple in the media down south.
In a way, that’s good. The case for Scottish-owned and Scottish-run media has been amply made.
COMING UP
Scottish and Southern Energy releases its latest figures this morning.
Expect a storm of criticism of SSE over its recent and planned price increases while making a £2.1 BILLION profit last year.
BBC Scotland is reporting that the UK Borders Agency has been criticised in an independent report into its operations in Scotland.
That story should continue to make the headlines today.
The count gets under way this morning following yesterday’s council by-election in Aberdeen caused by the death of long-serving Liberal Democrat Ron Clark. All five parties in Holyrood contested the Dyce, Bucksburn and Danestone seat, along with an independent candidate.
It is the first test of voters since the landslide win for the SNP at Hoylrood earlier this month.
The opening of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland takes place in Edinburgh tomorrow (Saturday). Newsnetscotland.com will be looking at one aspect of its deliberations later today.
MEDIA DIGEST
A new Cabinet was appointed in Scotland yesterday. Read the English editions of our so-called national newspapers and you would not know it.
Just keep taking your eye off the Scottish ball, you chaps and chapesses inside the M25 media circus, and don’t come greetin’ to us when the referendum says yes to independence…
As well as the Webster murder conviction, today’s papers in Scotland heavily feature the end to Sir Fred Goodwin’s superinjunction following the intervention of Lord Stoneham in Parliament yesterday.
We now know that Fred The Shred was having an affair with a senior colleague while he was turning the Royal Bank of Scotland into a giant casino. The identity of the colleague – technically, we are not even allowed to say whether it was a he or a she – remains secret under the privacy injunction, which frankly seems unfair.
There’s also a case, surely, for an inquiry into the effects of testosterone on bankers. Funny Sun headline, though – ‘The Royal Bonk of Scotland.’
The Daily Record reports that Celtic manager Neil Lennon has been cleared of racially abusing Rangers player El Hadji Diouf during the stormy Scottish Cup replay at Parkhead.
It almost beggars belief that, even after Diouf said he was not called the N word by Lennon, the police apparently employed lip readers to check footage of the clash. Any chance of the clipes who called in the cops being charged with wasting police time, and putting an end to the tit-for-tat nonsensical complaints to the police by fitba’ fans? About as much chance of certain Old Firm types living in the real world…
