Why it feels like there are more f-words in Shetland

The Herald Scotland05-06-2025

All of a sudden, people were phoning up the broadcaster to say there were 'lots more' f-words in the Sunday night police drama.
'So I went through the compliance forms from the previous series,' Allen said — in remarks first reported by comedy site Chortle — 'and it was the same [amount]. But it's just that this series there was a female detective, and people get worked up more about a woman swearing.'
DI Jimmy Perez, played by Douglas Henshall, was replaced by Ashley Jensen as DI Ruth Calder. And that, for some viewers, made all the difference.
I thought of that — though without the underlying current of misogyny — when I read a recent blog by former Labour MP Tom Harris.
He was in the party for 34 years, joining under Neil Kinnock, becoming a minister under Tony Blair, and staying loyal (if sometimes uneasily) through Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband.
It was Jeremy Corbyn who finally broke him.
In 2017, he quietly voted Conservative. By 2019, he was publicly backing Boris Johnson — to the horror of some of his family.
This year, he is back voting Labour — though it is fair to say his support is hardly enthusiastic.
It's weird that this is worth noting, but it is.
Parties and, to be fair, we political hacks often forget this: most voters are not like activists.
They do not pick a team and stick with it no matter what.
They switch. They weigh up who makes sense. They ask:
Has this party fixed the thing I care about? Are they listening? Do they seem like they know what they are doing? Are they better than the other lot?
While there may not have been more f-words in Shetland, one word I've heard a lot more of recently — especially in relation to Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse- is scunnered.
It has been the word of the by-election campaign.
How much Thursday's vote tells us about the 2026 Holyrood election is hard to say. It is a snapshot of where people in South Lanarkshire are just now. We should be careful about overanalysing.
There has been relatively little scrutiny of the SNP's long record in government — something they will not be able to avoid next year.
And by then, Sir Keir Starmer's Labour government will have been in office for two years, making more of their tough choices - the Chancellor's spending review next week might tell us more than anything said in this campaign, about their chances in Holyrood.
All that said, if there is one clear message from the battle in South Lanarkshire, and from Tom Harris' blog and from the TV exec in Belfast, it's this: There might not be more f-words. But sometimes, it feel like there are.
Right now, voters feel like there are. The party who wins next year, will be the one who convince the scunnered that they're on their side.

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Opponents of assisted dying vow to fight on as MPs back Bill

North Wales Chronicle

an hour ago

North Wales Chronicle

Opponents of assisted dying vow to fight on as MPs back Bill

Ms Leadbeater's Bill passed what could be its final Commons hurdle by 23 votes, down from the majority of 55 it secured when MPs first voted on it in November. The Spen Valley MP declared 'thank goodness' after the result while Rebecca Wilcox, daughter of campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen, said it was 'wonderful' the result had come ahead of her mother's birthday. But opponents vowed to fight on against what they called a 'deeply flawed Bill'. A group of 27 Labour MPs who voted against the legislation said: 'We were elected to represent both of those groups and are still deeply concerned about the risks in this Bill of coercion of the old and discrimination against the disabled, people with anorexia and black, Asian and minority ethnic people, who we know do not receive equitable health care. 'As the Bill moves to the House of Lords it must receive the scrutiny that it needs. Not about the principles of assisted dying but its application in this deeply flawed Bill.' But Ms Leadbeater told the PA news agency she hoped there would be no 'funny games' in the Lords, as her Bill faces further tough hurdles in the upper chamber. She added: 'I would be upset to think that anybody was playing games with such an important and such an emotional issue.' Meanwhile, one of the leading opponents of the Bill, Conservative Danny Kruger, described its supporters as 'enemies', saying he felt 'like Evelyn Waugh at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939'. In a series of tweets on Friday night, the East Wiltshire MP accused assisted dying campaigners of being 'militant anti-Christians' who had failed to 'engage with the detail of the Bill'. He added: 'It's the revenge of the middle-aged against their dependents.' Ms Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End Of Life) Bill will now proceed to the House of Lords, where it will undergo further scrutiny before becoming law, should peers decide to back the legislation. But some peers have already spoken out against the legislation, with the Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, saying they 'must oppose' the Bill as 'unworkable and unsafe'.