Cockenzie harbour on a cold lunchtime, February 18th 2021

Lunchtime walks are more fun in the snow.

This is Lockdown. The people were more of my focus than the Bass Rock.

All parties in power make mistakes. The changes to gambling is down to Labour.

But this Conservative goverment managed to:

• Turn providing meals for poorer families into a profitable contract for their cronies.

• Managed to turn the Grenfell disaster legislation into a profitable “risk management” culture forcing poorer families out of their homes. Also managed to remove the financial hit from the developers and push it back to the tax payer and the occupants – neither of whom was responsible for the problem. It is an act of genius this one. Not only do they manage to profit from repairing the buildings, they profit from the contracts to monitor the buildings prior to repair and when occupants are forced to sell – they can buy the properties cheap and start the whole cycle all over again.

• Created more multi millionaires from PPE and Test and Trace contracts than the National Lottery.

I am tired of people pretending you can be a Tory and care. You can be a Tory and care about yourself. Other people having more dignity and comfort does not threaten you. It is too easy to believe the class-based hate spewed out in Channel 5 docu-soaps of social deprivation and extrapolate that to all humanity.

That has improved the look of the garden for a short while.