As the hostilities go on between Israel and Iran we try and get beneath the "We support the right of Israel to defend itself" to why Israel decided to launch its attacks, why now , and the realities of nuclear proliferation in the region.
Meanwhile a report by the Centre For Media Monitoring has forensically examined the BBC's coverage of Gaza. The results are damning in terms of revealing BBC bias.
We take a look at the spending review not only the decisions made but especially what impact Labour's decisions may have on Scottish politics.
Lesley's latest article in The National not only covers this but asks if the SNP’s old attack lines are now almost gone and its claims of success belong largely to the old glory days. Will John Swinney's Scotland 2050 speech bring them back?
Despite Deputy Leader Keith Brown committing to an independence convention before the Holyrood elections at the 2024 SNP Annual Conference this has now been knocked firmly on the head by Angus Robertson. Was this a mistake?
The trial of Kneecap member, Mo Chara, under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act will go ahead at Westminster Magistrates’ Court tomorrow. What does this tell us about the nature of the state and its decisions on who and who not to prosecute under the Act's provisions?
As per usual there's other meanderings and maybe a wee mention of the golf.

In this week's episode we discuss the U turn by the Westminster Government on the winter fuel allowance. Where is the money coming from and how is it going to be paid for? We ask what happend to the accusations levelled at the SNP when they rose to the challenge and reinstated the payment ahead of the Westminster Government. We look too at the impact on the SNP's policy, with Labour trying to make it look as if the Scottish payment will just be £100? It won't. We try to clear some of that up.

We talk about the aftermath of the Hamilton by-election and that there's no getting away from it, it was a really bad loss by the SNP. There was no mention of independence and the candidate was not as local as the truly local David Russell. We look at how the election played out and wheter that local connection is what mattered in an era where people have lost trust in parties.

We examine what that says about the candidates chosen so far by the SNP in the Scottish election. We look as well at Israel and Gaza. Breaking news that the British government has taken sanctions out against two Israeli cabinet members. But that's not going to go anywhere near placating the 300 civil servants who've written a letter objecting to the British government's support of the Israeli government and have been told that if they want to keep objecting, they can resign.

That and much more.

Links
Watch The Applecross film on YouTube https://youtu.be/J0kUgdms368
Remember to click subscribe on YouTube and click the Bell icon to get notified when new videos are released

Scotland 2070: Healthy Wealthy and Wise
https://scotland2070.org/

Common Weal: Common Home Plan
https://www.commonweal.scot/policies/the-common-home-plan/

Build Canada Homes
https://liberal.ca/housing-plan/

Sam Cotes - Sky The five considerable problems with the chancellor's U-turn on winter fuel payments
https://news.sky.com/story/the-five-key-issues-from-chancellors-winter-fuel-payment-u-turn-13381413

SSE Press Release
Critical Skye electricity transmission upgrade granted planning consent
https://www.sse.com/news-and-views/2025/05/critical-skye-electricity-transmission-upgrade-granted-planning-consent/

Scottish Government planning case and documents
https://www.energyconsents.scot/ApplicationDetails.aspx?cr=ECU00003395

In this podcast special we speak with two energy experts Rhys Stanwix and David Pearson. The cost of energy has dominated our own far-from-expert musings for the last few weeks. So we thought it might be an idea to pull in some expertise for a special about district heating, locational pricing, why we are stuck with such high prices, poor grid connections ,the march of the pylons across much of north eastern Scotland. Do we need the better connectivity or is this just horsing Scottish renewable energy south?
We tackle all these questions, and more, in an in depth and highly informative special.