Crack down on the Covid crooks
A FIRM connected to Craig Whyte collected £50,000 from the taxpayer-funded bounce-back loans scheme.
And few who followed the debacle surrounding the collapse of Rangers 10 years ago will be surprised to hear that Fortress Restructuring used a stream of misleading claims to secure the funding.
The Insolvency Service has already flagged up that the firm has no cash in the bank to repay the money.
Ill-gotten gains have already been spent on personal items for people who control the company.
But this won’t be the only case of its kind in the UK.
Ordinary Scots who have battled to keep a roof over their heads during the long, dark months of lockdown will be enraged to learn of the huge sums being extracted from the public purse.
Some cases will arise from opportunists seeking to get cash in the bank despite Covid-19 having little effect on their business. Others will be bagging the “free money” with no intention of ever repaying it.
It is reckoned that billions have been scammed from the taxpayer. These crimes should not go unpunished.
The Taxpayer Protection Taskforce will recruit more than 1200 HMRC investigators to claw back £2.2billion. It must ensure every penny is paid back.
And where people have strayed into the realms of criminality, we must see that proper efforts are made to bring them to justice.
SCOTLAND is still “some way away” from a scheme to allow vaccinated Scots to travel aboad on holiday.
Cyprus’s deputy tourism minister Savvas Perdios said the country will open its borders to vaccinated Britons in May.
But Nicola Sturgeon advised people against flying away before there is a “degree of certainty”.
ANNIE Lennox will join an online campaign calling for more female leaders tomorrow.
March4Women organisers want people to share slogans and images on social media.
Lennox said: “Global problems need global feminists. That’s what #March4Women is all about.”