Employment and new orders in Britain’s key services sector have risen at their fastest rates for almost six years, suggesting the economic recovery gained traction last month.

Data from the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply and Markit today showed that the services sector purchasing managers’ index recorded 56.9 in June, up from May’s 54.9, to give its highest reading for 27 months.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said: “Surging growth in the service sector accompanied a resurgent manufacturing sector and modest growth in construction in June for an increasingly broad-based economic upturn.

“Growth in services and manufacturing is now the strongest for just over two years, while the construction sector is enjoying the fastest pace of expansion for over a year.”

Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “This is a really encouraging survey; the services sector is currently serving the UK economy very well.

“We now expect gross domestic product growth in the second quarter to be at least 0.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter which would be double the 0.3 per cent rate achieved in the first quarter.

“We doubt that this growth rate will be sustained through the second half of the year given still significant domestic growth headwinds and an uncertain global economic environment.”

A LEADING Scottish anglers organisation today claimed that wild sea trout are being “eaten alive” by fish-farm parasites in a sea loch in Wester Ross.

The Salmon and Trout Association Scotland (STAS) has revealed that samples of trout recovered from Little Loch Broom, near Ullapool, show that some fish are infested with “huge and probably lethal” numbers of the parasitic sea lice Lepeophtheirus salmonis.

And the association has blamed the high infestation levels on the failure of a fish farm to control lice numbers on farmed salmon

An STAS spokesman said: “Forty-six juvenile sea trout were monitored over six days. The average number of sea lice per fish was 133 with many carrying over 200 and two over 500. A burden in excess of 13 pre-adult sea lice is known to compromise severely the survival of juvenile sea trout.”

He blamed the infestation on the failure of a fish farm to control lice numbers on farmed salmon. But he admitted that the source of the infestation could not be positively identified.

The spokesman said: “Little Loch Broom is part of the Kennart to Gruinard area within which in both February and March this year the average number of adult female sea lice on farmed salmon at the seven fish-farms in the area was nine times over the threshold set under the salmon farming industry’s own Code of Good Practice (CoGP).

“These numbers, based on data supplied by the farms themselves, have just been published by the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation (SSPO) in the first in a series of Fish Health Management reports which provide area, but not farm-specific, sea lice count data. The first report recorded that in the Kennart to Gruinard area, which includes Little Loch Broom, on average each farmed salmon was carrying 4.61 adult female sea lice in February and 4.57 in March. Figures for subsequent months have yet to be published.”

Hughie Campbell Adamson, chairman of the STAS, claimed: “There can be no doubt that the appalling sea lice infestations now being seen on wild sea trout in Little Loch Broom are related to the fact that the numbers of adult sea lice per fish on the hundreds of thousands of farmed salmon in the vicinity earlier this year were in effect out of control. Such a reservoir of adult breeding female lice will have produced literally billions of juvenile sea lice to populate the local marine environment. Inevitably wild sea trout, migrating from local rivers, are being infested with devastating consequences.”

He said: “Lice feed by grazing on the surface of the fish and eating the mucous and skin. Large numbers of lice on fragile small sea trout soon cause the loss of fins, severe scarring, secondary infections and, in time, death. Quite literally, these young fish, which do not usually experience such heavy lice burdens, are being eaten alive – a direct consequence of the failure by salmon farms to keep on-farm sea lice numbers in check.”

Mr Campbell Adamson continued: “Juvenile sea trout remain in local waters and accordingly can be monitored. Juvenile salmon however, which also leave the rivers in spring and must pass through the same lice-infested coastal waters before heading out to sea, are virtually impossible to monitor.

“If they pick up similar numbers of sea lice as the juvenile sea trout, then their prospects of marine survival will be similarly bleak. The chances of many of those young salmon which left Little Loch Broom this spring, given the lice burdens they would have picked up, actually surviving to return in the future are poor.”

Guy Linley-Adams, solicitor to the association’s Aquaculture Campaign, said: “The current problems in Little Loch Broom underline just why we need publicly available weekly sea lice data on an individual farm basis - so that individual farms cannot hide behind averages - and why Scottish Ministers were so wrong to prevent such a measure being included in the recently passed Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill.

“Furthermore, we need to know why, given that there were clearly massive breaches of the industry’s CoGP for sea lice earlier this year, no salmon farm company been held to account either by statutory agencies or by the SSPO.”

The spokesman for the STAS said: “The Wester Ross District Salmon Fishery Board formally reported the situation in Little Loch Broom to the Fish Health Inspectorate on 14 June, asking them to investigate. To date there has been no response.”

A fisherman has cheated death after his boat sank in seconds, leaving him clinging to wreckage until a lifeboat found him.

The 55-year-old managed to make a mayday call to coastguards when his boat started taking in water off the Berwickshire coast. Before the mayday was finished the 25ft boat rolled over, throwing its owner into the sea.

Coastguards requested emergency help from Dunbar’s RNLI all-weather lifeboat. Dunbar lifeboat Coxswain Gary Fairbairn said the stricken boat was about four miles south east of the lifeboat’s berth at Torness Power Station.

“When we got there the front of the boat was sticking upright out of the water,” he said. “I had to put one of our crew over the side in case the man was trapped inside. Crewman Alistair Punton was banging on the outside of the hull to see if there was a response from inside when one of the other lifeboat crew saw the man floating in the water about 300 yards away.

“The casualty was extremely cold, possibly hypothermic, and so we got him below and started warming him up.”

The fisherman was checked but declined hospital treatment.

TO ALL sorts of people, from international tour operators to the manufacturers of souvenir tea towels, the recent celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest must have seemed like a mouthwatering marketing opportunity.

As it turned out, though, the whole shebang was beset by PR disasters from start to finish. Most obviously there was the bout of high-altitude fisticuffs between three European climbers and a group of Sherpas just a few weeks before the big day, which rather dented Everest’s image as a sort of GORE-TEX-sponsored UN - a place where wholesome, slightly malodorous folks from all over the world can come together to work towards a common goal in peace and harmony. Then the Indian and Nepalese armies went and cleared four tonnes of rubbish from the mountain, highlighting the fact that the wealthy tourists who climb here don’t tend to “bag it and bin it” quite as fastidiously as they might back home.

But perhaps the most serious damage to the Everest brand was done by the revelation that two of the supposed heroes of ‘53 - summiteer Sir Edmund Hillary and expedition leader Sir John Hunt - had chosen to almost completely ignore a key member of their team in their official accounts of the 1953 climb. As Q is to James Bond, so the physiologist Griffith Pugh was to Hillary and Tensing. He designed everything from their super-warm, super-light boots to their tents, mattresses and cooking stoves, and - crucially - his research into how the human body works at high altitude meant that the climbers knew all about the importance of hydration and acclimatisation, as well as the optimal amounts of oxygen to use in the final stages of their ascent. Had the Swiss Everest expedition of 1952 had the benefit of Pugh’s expertise, it’s likely they would have made it to the top first and the big “Everest at 60” party would have taken place 12 months ago, mostly in Geneva. Yet, for reasons we will probably never know, Hunt and Hillary decided against giving Pugh the credit he deserved.

All of which got me thinking: is Pugh, in fact, the most ripped off person in the history of exploration and adventure? Has anyone more deserving of praise for achievements in the field ever been so comprehensively done over on his or her return home? It’s a struggle to think of anyone who has been shafted to anything like the same degree, but a trawl of the section of The Scotsman’s archives marked “derring do” throws up a couple of contenders. One is John Rae, the Scottish explorer who solved one of the great puzzles of his day when, in 1854, he found out what had happened to Franklin’s lost expedition of 1845 (they’d eaten each other), but was subsequently ostracised by polite society for daring to tell the truth. The other is John Hanning Speke, the mild-mannered Englishman who discovered the source of the Nile - more or less - when he stumbled on Lake Victoria in 1858, but whose theories were rubbished back in Blighty by Richard Burton, the jealous leader of the expedition he was part of. Do let me know of any other contenders for this dubious honour - I’ll choose a winner on a whim and then fail to report my decision in a future issue.

Remember last week’s column? All that stuff I said about how adventuring nowadays should be less about following the herd and more to do with creativity and coming up with novel ways of challenging yourself? Well, two Edinburgh teachers are about to set off on an epic, multi-disciplinary journey from the south coast of Scotland to the north, never deviating more than a kilometre from a single grid line, the 93rd easting. Sean Fallon, a PE teacher at Woodlands School in Currie, and Darren Burns, a PE lecturer at Edinburgh College, have selected the 93rd easting as their guide on this adventure, and - as eastings go - it’s a pretty decent pick. Starting at Mersehead Nature Reserve on the Solway Firth, their route will see them bike through Mabie Forest, swim the rivers Clyde and Spey, hike through the Cairngorms and the Ochils and kayak across the Moray Firth. They intend to start out next Saturday, and hope to arrive at Redpoint in Caithness 18 days later.

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ARE trafficking victims suffering miscarriages of justice in Scotland? This week, in the Old Bailey, seven men were sentenced for a total of 95 years. They groomed and subjected seven young girls to horrendous sexual, psychological, and physical abuse, over a prolonged period, committing child sexual exploitation, rape, and sex slavery: as Judge Peter Rook said, they had robbed the girls of their adolescence.

The wheels of justice turned for the survivors, and whilst the severity of the sentences is welcome, we should not be blind to the fact that with these types of crime real justice never stops at court; rather true justice is for the long term, entailing professionals working with survivors and their loved ones towards recovery, as well as striving to prevent such abuses in future.

However, what about when justice goes into reverse, when survivors of modern slavery are criminalised for offences that were a manifestation or a direct result of their trafficked predicament? Surely, this doesn’t happen in Scotland; but, unfortunately, there is mounting evidence that, regardless of whether corroboration stays or goes, we may unconsciously be criminalising slaves and not slavery.

Jenny Marra MSP raised this possibility in the Scottish Parliament in February, as did I through the media, and since then three national reports have expanded the concern, which is that we may well have children and young people in our young offender institutions, prisons, or detention centres today - many of whom of Vietnamese heritage on drugs convictions – who may not deserve to be there.

So, in March, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, in its follow-up report to its authoritative Inquiry into human trafficking in Scotland led by Helena Kennedy, recommended that:

“There would appear to be enough concern and ambiguity to undertake a review of cases where victims of trafficking may well have been prosecuted despite being coerced into illegal activity.”

In May came the evaluation of the pioneering and exemplar Scottish Guardianship Service for unaccompanied asylum seeker children, which revealed:

“Nearly a third … of young people had trafficking indicators associated with domestic servitude, sexual exploitation and cannabis cultivation. Two of those in cannabis cultivation were serving custodial sentences at Polmont Youth Offenders Institute (YOI) when the referral was made.”

Then this month we learned from the first dedicated analysis of the UK’s criminal justice response to human trafficking, published by the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group, that in relation to Scotland:

“Most seriously, was information of potential victims of trafficking … being penalised and held in young offenders’ institutions or prisons on remand. … This seems, in particular, to be a problem for Chinese or Vietnamese persons being exploited by organised criminals”.

Now, of course, I cannot say definitively that there is a widespread problem in Scotland of trafficking victims being prosecuted or penalised for offences that but for the control of their traffickers they would never have committed. However, I am highly sceptical of those who venture that it isn’t presently and won’t in the future happen. On the contrary, the evidence mounts that something is just not quite right.

Therefore, to even begin to bottom this one out, our criminal justice institutions must be relentless in raising awareness of the indicators of modern slavery; they must challenge their own preconceptions of victimhood; and they must continue with intelligence profiling, including on hardened criminals may be engaged in trafficking vulnerable youth from south-east Asia into organised cannabis cultivation.

However, the rules of the game have changed, such that as a matter of obligation, not being relentless is no longer an option. For a decade it has been European, not Scots, legislation that has fundamentally driven progress in anti-trafficking.

This presumption has already been felt in English courts and it may be but a matter of time before an appeal is laid in a Scottish court by a trafficking victim citing their conviction as unsafe or sentence as disproportionate.

So, to ensure compliance with the EU and ECHR, I strongly recommend that either the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service or the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission should now seriously consider initiating a review of all convictions and sentences involving those in groups known to be vulnerable to human trafficking in Scotland andwhich involve offences known to be associated with forced criminality. Only this may resolve any past and help prevent any future miscarriages of justice.

HEALTH chiefs have admitted a huge cash injection of at least £50 million is needed to sort out the region’s NHS, after it emerged the number of Lothian patients waiting excessive time for treatment is once again on the rise.

More than a year after the waiting times scandal was exposed, which revealed figures had been manipulated to make it appear thousands of patients had not been waiting beyond a 12-week target to be seen, repercussions are continuing for the Lothian population and taxpayers.

In 2012-13, £27m was spent hiring staff, boosting theatre spaces and sending patients to the more expensive private sector for pre-planned appointments as there was no space to treat them in the NHS.

In March, it was predicted £14m would have to be spent in the current financial year to tackle the problem, but today it emerged the figure will have to more than double to £29.75m, once private sector spending is factored in.

It is believed that a further £20m will be needed next year to boost internal capacity, although the amount needed to send patients to non-NHS hospitals in 2014-15 is not yet known.

The admission came as it emerged, despite the multi-million-pound investments which have succeeded in driving down waiting times, progress has ground to a halt, with numbers waiting beyond 12 weeks once again on the rise in some areas.

Although far lower than a high of 2000 at the peak of the crisis in April last year, 441 Lothian patients were waiting for inpatient and day case procedures in May – a rise of one-third in two months. And the number of outpatients waiting too long rose in May to 2747, a surge of more than 20 per cent in one month.

It means that hundreds of patients are having their legal guarantee to prompt treatment breached and that previous NHS Lothian predictions that the inpatient backlog would be clear by the turn of the year and outpatient lists under control by March have been proven to be wildly optimistic.

NHS Lothian admitted that too many people were still facing excessive waits and issued a fresh apology.

Although inroads have been made after hundreds of extra staff were taken on and plans are in place to develop new beds, open hospitals at evenings and weekends and bring in more workers as part of a second phase of investment, health bosses have admitted that ramping up the NHS to treat more patients had thrown up even more complicated challenges than first feared.

The recent resurgence in patients waiting beyond the 12-week target has been partially blamed on staffing pressures in eye medicine, challenges in colorectal surgery and continuing problems in seeing enough urology patients. A set of patients with tricky conditions who may need to see a specific specialist have also been harder to treat promptly.

Health board chief executive Tim Davison said: “In ophthalmology, we are dealing with conditions of age. If you walk around the Eye Pavilion, you can hardly move for staff and patients. We need a solution that reprovides the Eye Pavilion, either on that site or another site.

“How quickly would we come up with a plan, consult on it and then get the new capacity in place? We won’t be able to do that quickly. But the referrals will keep coming in, week after week. It’s similar in orthopaedics, we need more theatres and beds and to decide where they are going to be based, but it takes time and demand is continuing to pour in.”

Mr Davison arrived in the wake of the waiting times scandal and has previously admitted being frustrated at the speed at which patients spending too long on waiting lists had fallen.

But he insisted the recovery remained “in good order” and added: “I think the progress we are making and the fact that we are making short-term investments while starting to consider strategic issues is tremendous compared to where we were a year ago.”

NHS Lothian said in May more than 95 per cent of patients had been seen within the treatment time guarantee, a flagship Holyrood policy that enshrines a legal right to treatment in law. But there were still 340 patients who saw their guarantee breached the same month across the Lothians.

It is hoped that as internal NHS capacity expands, reliance on the private sector will decrease, but this year it is predicted that almost £14m will be paid out to the private providers and contractors. While it is hoped that the current round of investments will make the NHS self-sufficient in a number of specialities, it has been admitted that not all will be fixed by the multi-million-pound plan.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said patients were continuing to suffer due to the “disgraceful” episode in NHS Lothian’s history.

He said: “It was allowed to go on for far too long, and we’re still waiting for answers to many of the important questions posed. It completely blurred subsequent figures, and makes it very difficult to ascertain exactly where NHS Lothian is when it comes to waiting times targets.

“The only real losers in this are the patients who face increased waits, and the taxpayers, who will have to shell out at least another £50m over two years to mop up the 
scandal.”

Labour Lothians MSP Sarah Boyack warned that the recent rise in patients breaching the 12-week target had shown that there was “no room for complacency.” She added: “Although progress has been made over the last year, there is much more to do and it is vital that old habits do not creep back in. It’s also shocking that the board is now paying the majority of the additional money to address capacity to the private sector and other contractors. The scale of investment needed to recruit new staff once again demonstrates the serious stretch on resources at NHS Lothian.”

Of £12.9m of internal investments over 2013-14, £5.9m will be spent on anaesthetics and theatres, £1.4m has been earmarked for endoscopy services and £3.8m will be used for specific problem specialities.

David Forbes, a regional organiser for Unison, said the amount being spent in the private sector as “obscene” but said he was broadly behind the Lothian plan.

He said: “We don’t like the fact that we are having to use the private sector so much and we want to stop as quickly as possible. But we are trying to play catch-up and agree with the plan to increase their own capacity to meet demand.”

In addition to the NHS Lothian investment in its own capacity and the private sector, £3m will go on 
sending patients to external NHS services, including the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Clydebank.

NHS Lothian previously indicated patients could be flown to European hospitals to prevent breaches of the Treatment Time Guarantee, although it is not believed that any cases have materialised.

A Scottish Government spokesman said health boards had been set “challenging targets” and that it was working with NHS boards to meet the guarantee for all patients.

A spokesman said: “NHS Lothian has considerably improved overall waiting time performance over the past year but challenges remain. Scottish Government expectation is that the additional funds required to support the delivery of waiting times in NHS Lothian will be funded by the NHS board. Any funding provided by the Scottish Government will be minimal and will be consistent with funding provided to other NHS boards.”

David Farquharson, NHS Lothian’s medical director, said: “We have been upfront about the scale and complexity of the challenge we face in terms of reducing the size of our waiting lists and increasing our capacity to allow us to achieve a sustainable level of service provision. We have made significant progress in reducing the number of patients waiting for treatment but we still have too many people waiting [longer] than they should and I would like to apologise for this.

“This investment will ensure that in the longer term NHS Lothian has the staff, theatres and beds required to ensure patients are treated as quickly as possible. However, this takes time and we will continue to make use of the independent sector over the coming year.”

It’s sad to hear it’s going up

WHILE NHS Lothian’s waiting times fiddle is often spoken about in numbers and multi-million-pound balance sheets, the devastating human cost of the episode can be easy to overlook.

But at one point, there were 550 people waiting more than a year for the inpatient or day case operations they needed, of which 200 people had been languishing for 18 months.

Often the procedures, which should have been completed within 12 weeks, were desperately needed by patients who were wrongly forced to suffer.

Betty McAlpine, right, a 70-year-old grandmother from Musselburgh, waited 14 months for an operation to cure a bladder complaint which she said had made her life a misery for five years.

After the Evening News contacted the health board on her behalf, she received an apology and an appointment offer on the same day.

She eventually had the operation in August last year, after being placed on a waiting list in May 2011. But she said the operation failed to cure her problems, and was told earlier this year that she would have to wait until November for a follow-up date.

Urology has been one of the most challenging areas for NHS Lothian, with 99 inpatients and 490 outpatients still waiting beyond 12 weeks in May.

Betty said: “I’m sad to hear that the numbers are going up again. You see them spending all that money sending people to private hospitals and I don’t think it makes sense. It means they can’t spend that money on their own facilities so they can have more doctors and do more operations.

“I’ve been waiting so long, I’m not sure what’s happening with my case.”

While NHS Lothian has made good progress in reducing the number of patients waiting well beyond the 12-week target, issues remain.

The latest figures show that, overall, nearly 400 inpatients have waited more than six months and a handful have been on lists for 18 months or more, when periods of medical or social unavailability are not factored in.

ROCK singer Fish is to play a benefit gig for cash-strapped Hearts – despite being a life-long Hibs fan.

The former Marillion frontman thinks everything possible should be done to save the Tynecastle side for the good of football in the Capital.

And in a bid to save the local derby he has agreed to play an acoustic set at the club’s Gorgie Suite on August 7, with all funds raised going to the club.

The 55-year-old, real name Derek Dick, said despite his green-and-white tendencies he is confident fans will turn out to support the event.

He said: “Throughout the years the derbies have raised my blood pressure more than any other game in the fixture calendar, no matter what the league position. I don’t want to lose the local derby.

“I’ve followed the Hibees through thick and thin, followed them down divisions, seen cup wins and cup defeats and can’t forget the near demise of our club in 1990 after we ourselves had suffered from years of financial mismanagement.

“At the time I was helpless on tour in Germany and felt the pain of nearly losing the club I’d followed since I was a boy. A lot of my Hearts supporter friends at the time were vocal in their support for saving Hibs and didn’t want to see the club disappear. The situation has now reversed.”

The Kayleigh singer – who grew up in Dalkeith but now lives in East Lothian – believes he owes his forgiving attitude towards Hearts to his grandfather. He added: “My grandfather William Dick had season tickets for both Hearts and Hibs and watched the alternate home matches.”

Fish fully appreciates he may receive some criticism from Hibbies for his gesture.

“I know there will be a few fellow Hibs fans who disagree with me offering a gig in support but I don’t want to see Hearts disappear, although I want to see a return to a level playing field again.”

Hearts said all funds raised would be used to purchase season tickets to be distributed by Big Hearts in line with the Big Hearts Big Ticket campaign, revealed in yesterday’s Evening News, which will see season tickets given to some of the city’s most deprived 
children.

PAID a flying visit to London at the weekend, by train. Four and a bit hours there, four and a bit hours back, seemed like no time at all. But then I was travelling East Coast and first class, a luxury that used to be reserved for the rich and famous.

No more it would appear.

In the not too distant past, it was possible to sit in first class and not see another soul between Edinburgh and Newcastle, other than the steward with his ever-steaming flask of fresh coffee.

All that has changed at East Coast, where first class is more accessible than ever. One regular traveller told me that by booking in advance he can do the journey between capitals for just £47.50 - a price that includes the aforementioned coffee, food, refreshments and the must have for any traveller in 2013, free Wi-Fi.

I have to admit, having been on decaf for the last two years I avoid the coffee run. Can you imagine? I’d be buzzing by Berwick.

Being addicted to Twitter (@LiamRudden if you want to give me a follow), free Wi-Fi is a different matter. It’s the first thing I look for when travelling these days. In fact, if a hotel doesn’t have it, I’ll book with another that does.

It’s also vital for checking emails, Facebook and whole host of other apps - how did we pass the time in the days before social media? Actually, I do still to bring a good book along with me too.

Not that it’s difficult to kill time sightseeing - the east coast line is quite simply one of the most spectacular rail journeys in the country, especially on a sunny day when the scenery is quite breathtaking.

Whether it’s the watery coast as you speed over the border, the raised approach into Newcastle, followed by the bridge over the Tyne, the graceful, majestic wind turbines, or even the brutal cuboid symmetry of Torness Power Station. The sun makes all the difference.

Anyway, it was while commenting on all this on the way to London that I tweeted to Black Diamond presenter Geoff Ruderham (10am-1pm, weekdays) that I was ‘on a flying visit to London’.

The mental picture that conjured up in his head led me to observe that it wouldn’t be long before I was ‘flying by train’ again - now there’s a advertising slogan if ever there was one.

HOLYROOD’S health committee has called for a shake-up of the system for approving new medicines as it said a Scottish government review had “done little to address the barriers that currently exist” for patients denied potentially life saving drugs.

The report from the health committee comes after a series of high profile rows about patients being denied cancer drugs in Scotland that are available on the NHS in England.

Professors Philip Routledge and Charles Swain carried out a review into Scotland’s system of approving drugs after concerns were raised by some doctors, charities and patients about access to medicines.

The academics had said that the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), which provides advice to NHS boards about the clinical and cost-effectiveness of all newly-licensed medicines, should meet in public.

However, the Holyrood health committee called for a “better and more transparent” system for patients to access new medicines” and said the Scottish government review by professors Philip Routledge and Charles

Swainson did not go far enough.

However, the committee backed the government’s refusal to back a special fund to pay for drugs to treat cancer victims.

They’ve all been done and dusted. Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Louis Prima, Cole Porter and the Neapolitan song book. So where does Philip Contini go from here in the Fringe? Not all that far from his ubiquitous Valvona & Crolla shop in Elm Row where the ristorante for the duration becomes an intimate theatre.

“This will be our 20th year in the Fringe,” says Philip, again doubling as V & C’s managing director and front man/singer with his Be Happy Band. His Fringe friendliness is tangible. “Rather than spotlighting another universally-known personality, as we’ve done up to now, we’ve selected – skimmed the cream, if you like – the most popular items from the Fringe productions since we started here at Elm Row. I was 39 then. Gaawd!

“From August 3 we’ll stage ten shows here, two in our sister Vin Caffe restaurant in Multrees Walk and two in Jenners Princes Street. Strenuous, yes, but I love it!”

Philip and the Be Happy Band present King of the Swingers on Sundays August 11, 18 and 25 at 7pm (£34.50 including dinner) at the Vin Caffe, managed by Francesca, daughter of Mary and Philip Contini. I suspect it’s a family affair.

Flippin’ Eck

Beware! He’s losing it. They’re going to clamp the bracelets on his wrists and bundle him into a van. Alex Salmond, as you’ve suspected this long time, is going loopy, recruiting 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the next election. A desperate ploy in the extreme.

Now, as delusions of grandeur threaten to consume him, he’s reportedly babbling about blockading the North Sea. What with? The half-finished aircraft carrier from Rosyth?

More pie-the-sky Salmond. Help him,somebody. Before he does any more damage.

‘They tag me in horrible photos and places.” “I get mean messages and threats.” “They spread rumours about me.” “It never stops.”

These are just some of the things volunteer counsellors at ChildLine Scotland hear day in day out from children and young people who are being cyber bullied.

The internet, social networking sites and mobile phones are now part and parcel of young people’s everyday lives. They are the first generation which has never known a world without them. The benefits are huge, both socially and educationally, but so too are the dangers.

Today 24-hour internet access, developments in mobile phone technology and increased use of social networking sites means cyber bullying is on the rise.

“Sexting” has now evolved into an extreme form of cyber bullying among teenagers, as schoolgirls face pressure to provide sexually explicit pictures of themselves.

The digital industry, schools, parents, and other adults working or volunteering with children can all take opportunities to talk to children about staying safe online.

Parents can help by:

• Placing the computer where the whole family can use it rather than out of sight in the bedroom

• Talking with their children about what kind of sites are safe

• Telling their child to keep their identity private online and never to email or text photographs

• Making sure their child is as cautious of strangers online as they would be in the real world and telling them to remember people online may not be who they say they are

• Explaining to children that they should never meet up with someone online without telling an adult they trust

• Telling their child never to respond to nasty or rude messages and telling them if they are suspicious or uncomfortable about conversations to stop there and then and tell an adult

• Ensuring they do not open any email attachments or text messages if they do not know the sender in case they contain nasty images

If you are a child and want advice on how to keep yourself safe online, you can speak to ChildLine 24 hours a day, 365 days a year via the phone on 0800 1111 or directly through www.childline.org.uk.

There’s also great advice for parents who want to keep their children safe online at www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents.

Elaine Chalmers is area manager at ChildLine Scotland

ANDY Murray won’t be short of celebrity support when he steps on to Centre Court at Wimbledon this afternoon – and it seems the superstar Scot could even have a bit of magic in his corner.

The Royal Box is likely to be packed with the rich and famous, but on Twitter Andy has received the backing of Hermione herself, with Emma Watson showing her enthusiasm by tweeting “Murray Murray Murray!!!”.

Perhaps she’s chanting a spell to help him through to the final.

Warden is silver lining to garden party clouds

A rainy day in July and horrendous traffic around Holyrood could only mean one thing – the Queen was hosting her annual garden party.

The monarch must believe that it always rains in the Capital, as once again party-goers were left trying to keep their impressive hats out of the summer showers.

The event also left a city traffic warden trying to sort out the chaos at junctions on the Royal Mile in the poor weather - surely he deserves an invite next year?

Crumbs, that’s bold

When you work on the third floor of an office building you don’t expect to hear a knock on the window – but it seems the Capital’s seagulls are not shy, with one city worker reporting a hungry bird tapping on his window every day in the hope of getting his beak round a free biscuit.

Planning in advance

We might live in a country with some of the worst weather in the UK, but it seems hardy Scots are happy to put up with it rather then splashing the cash. A survey by LateDeals.com revealed Scots spend less than anywhere in the UK on last minute trips, but perhaps we are just more organised.

Will they or won’t they? The speculation that Edinburgh’s trams could be up and running by Christmas has been growing for months.

What is clear is that progress in recent months has been better than project bosses had dared to hope. Things may be happening quicker than expected in these final stages, but history tells us that only a fool would count their chickens before they have hatched when it comes to Edinburgh’s trams.

A pre-Christmas launch would be a fantastic boost for the city ahead of the Christmas and New Year celebrations. Imagine Hogmanay revellers arriving in the Capital to be greeted by a sleek modern tram ready to take them into the city centre.

That would not only vastly improve the visitor experience for tourists coming into the city, but would help clear the crowds far quicker after the celebrations are over, easing congestion in the city centre.

City leaders remain determined to steer clear of any suggestion of a start date earlier than that currently planned for the middle of next year.

That is wise, not only because of the risk that so many things could still go wrong over the next five months, knocking any chance of a pre-Christmas launch on the head.

It is also good politics. Any credit which the current administration can gain from putting the trams back on track – and they do deserve some if they continue to oversee such smooth progress over the coming months – would be completely lost if they were to name another date which they could not stick to.

Until all the various tests have been completed and the safety certificate for the trams has been signed, sealed and delivered, we will have to wait and hope. In the meantime, our politicians are doing exactly the right thing, keeping their heads down and getting on with the job in hand.

This summer, on the back of London Olympic Games and ahead of next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, the Scottish Government is set to decide where to build the National Performance Centre for Sport– Edinburgh, Stirling or Dundee.

The impact this new centre for sporting excellence is going to have on fostering a new generation of Scottish sporting champions will be huge. However, also important are the potential benefits to both the Scottish economy and the city chosen to host to the NPCS.

It would be a fantastic opportunity for Edinburgh. Recent estimates suggest that both the construction and operational phases of building the centre at Heriot-Watt’s Edinburgh campus could potentially support 185 Scottish jobs and contribute 
£84 million to the Scottish economy. The direct impact of this to the economy of the wider Edinburgh region would be significant and could bring real benefits to the city and the people that live in it.

Additionally, once it’s built the conference facilities and spectator seating would attract thousands of visitors and sports people from all across the world who would come to the Capital and spend their money in the city’s shops, restaurants and hotels.

As an organisation that works to support the local business community, the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce is fully behind Heriot-Watt University and the council’s bid to bring the NPCS to the city.

Edinburgh presents a unique, attractive and highly competitive internationally-recognised location for a facility of such national importance. The site’s excellent proximity to some of the country’s key transport infrastructure links and an enviable location in Scotland’s central belt are something that neither Stirling nor Dundee can rival.

Heriot-Watt University already has a well established sporting programme and an ethos of nurturing talent amongst young sports men and women. Also, the willingness of the council to support and commit funds to this bid will be hugely beneficial for the delivery of a successful facility.

It’s clear that Edinburgh would provide an inspiring home for the National Performance Centre for Sport, and the city is hungry for the knock-on impact it would have on the wider economy of the Edinburgh area. Bringing this national centre to Scotland’s Capital is, in my opinion, the only sensible decision, and I urge everyone to get behind Edinburgh’s bid to bring the national centre to Scotland’s Capital.

You can back the bid and pledge your support at www.goedinburgh2016.com

David Birrell is chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce

RESEARCHERS at a Scottish university are setting out to discover how the public’s growing obsession with smartphones, tablets and digital technology is affecting their working and social lives.

They plan to recruit 15 families, with children under the age of 18, to assess how the new digital technologies are impacting their work-life balance over the course of a year.

Dr Natasha Mauthner, from Aberdeen University’s Business School, is one of the leading researchers in the project - “Creativity Greenhouse: Digital Epiphanies.” She said she planned to investigate how people are using smartphones, tablets and desk-based computers at home as well as in the workplace and how these technologies both support and challenge people creating and maintaining a satisfactory work-life balance.

The study also aims to provide an insight into whether people are seeking to change the way in which they use technology; what events in an individual’s life causes them to actively change their digital and work-life practices and behaviours; and to what extent some people are now craving a simple, sustainable and slow living life.

Dr Mauthner said: “Modern technology has unquestionably had so many positive effects on the way in which people can combine work and personal life. For example, being able to access email via a Smartphone means that it is possible to work from home, while on the move, and generally work more flexibly.

“However, for many this has undoubtedly led us into a culture of being constantly online – and now we are finding that what was initially a handy tool to make life easier, has led to many people feeling under more stress as there is more pressure on them to be constantly available.”

She continued: “Many people may not feel this is impacting on their personal or family life. But others may be seeking to change the ways in which these technologies blur the boundaries between work and the rest of their lives.”

Dr Mauthner added: “What I hope to understand from the 15 families we will be working with over the course of the next 12 months is how people’s conceptions of work and family life, and the boundaries between these, are changing through the use of these new technologies. What I mean by this is that these devices are not just tools that can either worsen or improve the work-life balance.

“Rather, I want to explore how these devices and their uses are being woven into the very fabric of our daily lives; and how this might actually be changing what it is and means to work or be a parent.”

The project, which is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, is a collaboration involving Dr Mauthner, Dr Anna Cox from the University College London, Dr Chris Preist (correct) of the University of Bristol and Dr Rosie Robison from Anglia Ruskin University.

An Aberdeen University spokesman explained: “Dr Mauthner and Dr Karolina Kazimierczak, a research fellow on the project, will work with each family using a range of methods including interviews, shadowing, photography and video.

“The study will also investigate whether existing technologies can be used to encourage people to reflect on their technological and work-life practices, and if necessary, to bring about sustainable changes in practices. For example, can digital tools support different email habits, such as checking for new messages less frequently or reducing the number of emails written and sent? And does this make a difference to how people manage their time and their perceived expectations of 24/7 availability and responsiveness?”

Today . . .

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ED Miliband is too weak to run his own party let alone the country, Prime Minister David Cameron said today as he attacked the influence of trade unions over Labour.

Mr Cameron said the Labour leader’s questions in the Commons had been written by Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite.

Turning to the Labour front bench in the Commons, Mr Cameron quipped: “I know you are paid to shout by Unite but calm down a bit.”

The Prime Minister’s comments came after Unite said Labour was “rushing ahead” with the process of choosing a parliamentary candidate in Falkirk amid claims the union was trying to “stitch up” the selection by cramming the constituency with new members.

Mr Cameron told the Labour leader: “You go up and down the country speaking for Len McCluskey.

“I have got the press release here - ‘How Unite plans to change the Labour Party’ - and this is what it says: ‘We give millions of pounds to the party, the relationship has to change. We want a firmly class-based and left-wing General Election campaign’.

“That is what this week shows - (you are) too weak to sack your health secretary (Andy Burnham), too weak to stand up for free schools, too weak to stand up to the Unite union and too weak to run Labour and certainly too weak to run the country.”

Mr Cameron added: “Frankly we have a situation in this country where we’ve got one of our political parties where it’s become apparent votes are being bought, people are being signed up without consent, all done by the man - Len McCluskey - who gave him his job.”

Mr Miliband had tried to attack the Government amid fears it would not be able to meet the 240,000 extra primary school places needed by next year without increasing class sizes.

The Labour leader said class sizes were already rising, adding that one-third of new schools were being built in areas where there were surplus places.

Mr Miliband said: “Isn’t the truth that while you are pouring millions of pounds in to new schools where there are already places, the only way you are going to meet the shortage in other areas is by teaching kids in portacabins and increasing class sizes?”

But Mr Cameron insisted the spending review put in place the funding for 500,000 extra places so primary schools should be be able to meet demand without increasing class sizes. He said that while the Government had cut welfare, education was a priority with more money going in to schools.

The Prime Minister added: “What is so interesting is that you are taking your script from the trade unions, who don’t like choice, don’t like new schools, they don’t like free schools and they want to control everything.

“What we know is one organisation that they have got control of - we see it in black and white, they have taken control of the Labour Party.”

But Mr Miliband hit back, accusing the Prime Minister of double standards.

He said: “Let’s have a debate about ethics. You are a Prime Minister who had dinner for donors in Downing Street. You gave a tax cut to your Christmas card list and you brought Andy Coulson in to the heart of Downing Street. The idea that you are lecturing us about ethics takes double standards to a whole new level.

“In this one policy on schools, we see the hallmark of this Government - they make the wrong choices on tax and spending.” The row over Unite’s influence over Labour came after the union said it had written to the general secretary of the Labour Party Iain McNicol demanding that the process is halted immediately pending a full discussion at the party’s national executive committee.

The vacancy emerged when MP Eric Joyce was kicked out of the party after committing an assault in a House of Commons bar.

A Unite spokesman said: “The decision to rush ahead with the process of selecting a Labour parliamentary candidate in Falkirk, so denying a vote to a mass of members, and an imposed shortlist of candidates is without any justification and is a further breach of democratic procedures and natural justice.

“While the Labour Party has continued to deny Unite a copy of the investigation report into Falkirk CLP, yesterday officials from the union were provided the opportunity to study the report at the party’s head office.

“As a result, Unite is more than ever convinced that the measures that have been taken on the basis of the report, in particular the disenfranchisement of around 150 Party members, and the imposition of a regime of “special measures” on the CLP, are unnecessary and are at best an extreme over-reaction, at worst the product of an anti-union agenda.

“In particular, Unite notes that the allegations regarding membership malpractice affect no more than a handful out of those who have now been excluded from the selection process.

“Even if the allegations of irregularities are proved to be correct in that small number of cases - and that remains highly questionable - then this mass exclusion is utterly disproportionate.”

LIBERAL Democrats could call for Britain to give up its continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent as early as 2016, it emerged today.

The option is likely to be included in a policy paper on the future of the submarine-based Trident weapons system, to be put before the party’s annual conference in September.

Lib Dem Cabinet minister Danny Alexander has produced a Government review of Trident, examining the alternatives to the £20 billion replacement - favoured by Conservatives - of the UK’s four nuclear submarines on a like-for-like basis when they are decommissioned.

His review is being considered by Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, and will be published in edited form shortly.

It is expected to include cheaper options for the UK to maintain its deterrent, which could include scaling back the number of subs. Because of the need for repairs, refits and training, military experts believe it would be impossible to keep at least one Trident sub permanently at sea with a fleet of fewer than four, and there are concerns that without this constant deployment the deterrent would be vulnerable to attack while in port.

But Mr Alexander last week hinted that he wants the Government to consider ending the policy of continuous at-sea deployment, when he said it was time “to move on from the Cold War postures of the past” with a credible deterrent that “can play a role in supporting disarmament in future”.

Lib Dem MPs met last week to consider the policy paper to be put before activists in Glasgow this autumn. Although the paper is not yet formalised, it is understood it is likely to include options for reducing the size of the fleet, but will not include a full-scale unilateral disarmament option.

The BBC today quoted one unnamed senior Lib Dem MP as saying: “We are looking at ending continuous at-sea deterrent even earlier. We don’t have to wait until the subs need replacing. We could just keep them in port now.”

Another Lib Dem MP said: “If you thought that you could sustain a meaningful deterrent with two boats, then nothing would prevent you using the existing boats on the same principle.

“It would be reckless to scrap them but you could cannibalise them for parts.”

A Lib Dem spokesman said: “The Cabinet Office-led review into alternatives to Trident has now been submitted to the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

“The review’s findings will now be considered and an unclassified version will be published in due course.”

Labour MP John Woodcock, whose Barrow and Furness constituency includes shipyards where any new subs would be likely to be built, said: “Unilaterally ending the commitment to keeping at least one nuclear submarine operational at all times will make no meaningful contribution to global non-proliferation. In fact, it could have the opposite result by unsettling other countries who are currently under Nato’s umbrella of protection.

“The Liberal Democrats are finally admitting there is no alternative mini-deterrent that could save Britain billions, but few will be taken in by their latest fallacy that a part-time deterrent could save lots of money and protect Britain adequately in the event of a threat in future decades.

“Ending continuous at-sea deterrent without binding commitments from other nuclear states could undermine the primary purpose of the deterrent, which is to make the grotesque horror of nuclear war less likely by guaranteeing that anyone who launched a strike on the UK would face a retaliatory attack.”

Read more on Trident

• Scottish independence: Trident is ticket to Nato

• Trident report paints bleak picture for opponents

• Over half of Scots voters back Trident replacement

ACTRESS and model Lily Cole has been honoured for her environmental and humanitarian work.

The 25-year-old received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Glasgow Caledonian University today, two years after she graduated from Cambridge University, an experience that she described as “quite different”.

She said: “It is pretty fun, I was quite surprised at first and very honoured and then a bit nervous but now I’m here and it actually just feels quite jolly.

“Cambridge was three years with an end goal in mind so it was quite different. In some ways this feels like I have done less work for this because there hasn’t been exams or dissertations, but I also feel like the work they are acknowledging has taken more energy than my degree did.”

The actress, who starred in a remake of St Trinian’s and Snow White, is an ambassador for a number of charities including Global Angels, WaterAid and the Environmental Justice Foundation.

She has modelled for the Save The Future campaign to fight child labour in the fashion industry and said she has always been interested in environmental and humanitarian issues.

“To be honest I think I would be inclined that way, regardless of having a public image,” Cole said.

“I think it is just an important part of being human, and then I just ended up in the weird position of having a public image and I thought seeing as I do I might as well combine those desires.”

Meanwhile, Olympic Gold medalist Katherine Grainger has continued an “amazing” year by collecting an honorary degree in her home city.

The rower received an honorary doctorate from Glasgow Caledonian University for her contribution to sport and to honour her public service and charity work.

The 37-year-old said: “Its amazing, I’ve had such a lovely time. I’m from Glasgow anyway, it’s always great to come back home and it’s such a privilege to get an honorary degree.

“It is not something you would expect and from my point of view as an athlete it is not something you can train for, it is just something that is given to you and you don’t really see it coming so it is really lovely to come back and get it.

“Last summer at the Olympics it was better than I could ever have hoped, after 15 years of hoping for that moment, it was just better than I could have ever have dreamt, absolutely genuinely wonderful.

“But honestly everyday since has been amazing. Because of the home Olympics, everyone in Britain seemed to love it, so everywhere I go I get to talk about it and share it, so it has kind of got enhanced as the months have gone by. It is lovely.”

After a busy year Grainger is yet to decide whether she will compete in the Rio 2016 Olympics.

“I am not competing this year for the British rowing team,” she said.

“Part of that was to make a decision and get a bit of perspective. But it has been so busy, I haven’t had time to start contemplating my life. So there is a big decision coming and I need to make it by September, but I’m not there yet.”

Environmentalists have lost their latest legal challenge against plans for almost 2,000 homes in a national park.

The Cairngorms Campaign opposes four housing developments put forward in the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s (CNPA) local plan.

The construction of up to 1,500 homes at An Camas Mor, near Aviemore, 300 at Kingussie, 117 at Carrbridge and 40 at Nethy Bridge could threaten the area’s heritage and wildlife, the group says.

It launched a legal challenge against the plans at the Court of Session, which was rejected by judge Lord Glennie in September last year.

An appeal against that judgment was also dismissed in a ruling today.

Campaigners argue that the park authority’s assessment of the potential ecological impact of the developments is “unlawful”.

In submissions to the court, the group’s legal team said the local plan should not have been adopted based on that assessment.

But judge Lady Paton, sitting with Lady Smith and Lord Bracadale, said: “The CNPA’s appropriate assessment cannot be said to be one which no reasonable authority would have produced in the circumstances. It was, therefore, open to the CNPA to adopt a local plan which relied on that assessment.”

The court was not persuaded that it was necessary to refer the action to the European Court of Justice, the judgment said.

Campaign spokesman Craig Macadam, director of conservation charity Buglife Scotland, said: “This ruling is a major setback not just for the protection of ‘protected’ wildlife, landscape and heritage in the Cairngorms but potentially for future assessments throughout the European Union where it set a precedent for inadequate assessment of sites before their destruction.”

Grant Moir, chief executive of Cairngorms National Park Authority, said: “We welcome the court’s judgment in relation to the Cairngorms National Park local plan, which reaffirms the court’s rejection of all the grounds of challenge to the local plan.

“The local plan therefore remains in place as it stands and the Cairngorms National Park Authority will continue to work to deliver the four aims of the park collectively.”