Pete Wishart

@petewishart.bsky.social

MP for Perth and Kinross-shire. Musician. Writer.

At an eye watering £850K Labours botched BritCard is the most expensive imaginary card in history. We defeated Blair on this and now Starmer. It was a blatant Westminster attack on basic liberties and privacy. Off to the digital dustbin it now goes.... www.heraldscotland.com/news/2587477...

'Most expensive imaginary card in history': Cost of scrapped digital ID plan revealed

The UK Government's scrapped mandatory digital ID scheme cost taxpayers £843,743 before ministers were forced into a U-turn.

heraldscotland.com

'Somebody think of the Scottish Labour MPs' said absolutely no-one. Caught in a nasty civil war they neither desired or anticipated they are the nobody's children of UK politics. Read about their week from hell. My National column. www.thenational.scot/politics/258...

Pete Wishart: Who’d be a Scottish Labour MP, professing loyalty to opposing leaders?

SCOTTISH Labour MPs must now be the most forlorn, despondent and politically adrift parliamentarians across these isles

thenational.scot

The re-emergence of the far right is the most sinister development in UK politics. This time they have a bigger pool to fish from with the political normalisation of a hostility to asylum seekers and immigration. This is how we stop them. petewishart.com/how-to-take-...

How to take on the far-right - Pete Wishart

It was on 30 April 1978 that an aspiring 16-year-old musician joined around 100,000 people in Trafalgar Square for a march to Victoria Park in…

petewishart.com

The levels of aggression and hate from the far right activists who came to Perth today was totally unacceptable and distressing. We really need to seriously consider safe buffer zones at protests at asylum hotels. We can't go on like this. www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/5409...

Anti-immigration protesters rush towards Perth hotel during tense stand off

Police had to step in during a clash between protesters outside the Radisson Blu Hotel.

thecourier.co.uk

We have reached the beyond chaos stage now. They've been playing a cynical and dangerous game with people's finances and they don't even know if they've u-turned on their u-turn. What an absolute mess and any credibility they might still possess shredded. news.sky.com/story/starme...

Budget 2025: Starmer and Reeves ditch plans to raise income tax

The prime minister and chancellor have spent weeks laying the groundwork to make the manifesto-breaking announcement on 26 November, but won't go ahead with it amid fears it would further anger Labour...

news.sky.com

For years music fans have been ripped off by the spivs, touts and profiteers. And for years we have fought to have fans protected. The Government pledged to take action. Now is the time for that pledge to be put into place. www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottis...

Scots music giants call on Keir Starmer to end ticket touting

Scots rockers join big guns to demand an anti-tout bill in the next King's Speech - that would wreck business for tout sites like Viagogo and StubHub

dailyrecord.co.uk

What has happened here is totally shocking and appalling. Grok has already conceded that it has been defamatory. I am fortunate that I have the agency to take them on. Imagine what they are doing to those who have no means to seek redress. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2559924...

Pete Wishart seeking legal advice after Grok claims he is 'rape enabler'

Pete Wishart of the SNP said he was ‘genuinely shocked’ to have been smeared with the ‘deeply distressing’ comment.

heraldscotland.com

I've just been called a "rape enabler" by the X AI tool Grok. This is a shocking allegation which has totally taken me aback & beyond anything I've ever encountered in normal political discourse. These AI tools are supposed to be there to serve us honestly with facts. Disturbing.

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The fact that Reform & the Tories so desperately want to tear us out of the ECHR tells us everything about why we need it. It is there to protect us from tinpot populists like Farage and its protections are everything they despise. Now available to all on my blog. petewishart.com/why-nigel-fa...

Why Nigel Farage's assault on human rights should reassure us - Pete Wishart

It should come as no surprise that the latest assault on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is being led by Nigel Farage. His…

petewishart.com

We know the European Convention on Human Rights is doing the job it's designed to do when tinpot populists like Farage want to abolish it. It's there to protect us from the likes of him. My column on his campaign to deprive us of human rights protections. www.thenational.scot/politics/255...

Nigel Farage's assault on human rights should reassure us. Here's why

IT should come as no surprise that the latest assault on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is being led by Nigel Farage ...

thenational.scot

There was a debate about 'Scottish Devolution' in Westminster tonight where Scots Labour MPs queued up to 'attack' the Scottish Gov. it was like being savaged by wet highland coos. Rarely heard such a poor debate and such inarticulate rubbish.... Terrible.

Like we did under Tony Blair the SNP will lead the opposition to the data -grabbing, liberty-eroding, multi-billion-pound waste of time Brit-card. Let's confine it to the great digital dustbin of history. My column in the National. www.thenational.scot/politics/255...

Pete Wishart: We can end scheme to resurrect Tony Blair’s digital ID card dream

WELL, here we go again. It has taken 20 years, but ID cards are back, this time in a shiny new digital format, turbocharged by modern technology.

thenational.scot

Managed to secure the first House of Commons debate on their Brit cards. We will vigorously oppose their data storing, privacy encroaching, multi billion pounds costing, digital white elephant.

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Challenging the UK Government about the lack of any UK funding for Perth and Kinross. We are the only local authority in Scotland never to secure any UK programme support. I asked what the UK Government has against the people of Perth? I got gibberish in response.

On Politics Live today talking about our plans to secure another independence referendum. I actually get an answer from a Labour politician on how we could leave this 'voluntary union'. Be set to be disappointed....

Expressing solidarity with the victims of the attack on Heaton Park Synagogue. But we don't give the haters and anti semites succour by restricting our right to protest or long established civil liberties.

This is exactly the kind of hate-filled politics that Reform thrives on — spreading lies, sowing distrust, and turning neighbour against neighbour. It is dangerous and reckless, and it has no place in our democracy. Farage has built his career on this brand of fearmongering.

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This is better from the Courier. Helping to tackle misinformation and defuse tensions. One of the most common lies peddled by those trying to divide our communities over asylum is this rubbish about criminality. The police in Perthshire confirm - there is absolutely no evidence.

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The Courier wrote an awful headline and article about asylum seekers in Perth this week and today they published an editorial about me denying a right to reply. Here's one anyway. This is a fragile situation. Words matter. petewishart.com/why-words-ma...

Why words matter in the local asylum debate - Pete Wishart

‘Fear of disorder behind asylum secrecy’ screamed The Courier’s front page on Monday morning.  Inside, the article suggested that Perth and Kinross Council had deliberately…

petewishart.com

How long before Labour backdown on this 'Reform is racist' stuff? I give it until the close of play tomorrow. Then it will be back to the familiar territory of accommodating and copying them again.

Awful headline on the front page of the Courier. They are inflaming community tensions by trying to suggest that criminal activity by asylum seekers is being 'withheld'. P&K Council are simply following Home Office protocols and the police tell us no incidents have been reported

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