Festival to give crafters much-needed boost

A festival aimed at supporting the thousands of crafters living and working in Scotland will take place next week.

Craft Week Scotland runs from November 9-15 and has been set up to help makers hit by the pandemic at a time they would normally be preparing for Christmas.

Scotland is home to over 3,000 crafters and businesses working in contemporary craft. Cancellation of fairs and events and the closures of galleries and shops have seriously affected trade.

Organisation Craft Scotland has carried out surveys into the impact of Covid-19 on makers and businesses, highlighting issues such as loss of income, and a shift towards online selling.

Details can be found at craftscotland.org.

Tensions run high on both sides in the race for the White House with results expected in the final key states.

Here, PA looks at a selection of quotes since the first polls closed.

“If you count the legal votes, I easily won. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us” – Donald Trump, speaking in the White Ho u s e press briefing room.

He added: “There was no blue wave that they predicted, they thought there was going to be a big blue wave, that was false, it was done for suppression reasons.

“But instead there was a big red wave and it has been proper ly acknowledged by the media, they were, I think, very impressed but that’s after the fact.”

Mu l t i p l e major US television networks pulled away from the president’s statement as he provided no evidence to support any of his claims.

“That is the president of the United States. That is the most powerful person in the world. We see him like an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun, realising his time is over. He just hasn’t accepted it and he wants to take everybody down with him, including the country” – CNN news anchor Anderson C o o p e r, commenting following Mr Trump’s address.

Other pundits on both sides commented on the president’s performance.

“This is a sad, small man, incoherently rattling off his grievances, because there’s literally nothing else he can do to stop what’s happening – legally and legitimately” – SE Cupp, Republican pundit, formerly of Fox News and now with CNN.

Journalist Molly Knight said Mr Trump “looks so pathetic and weak. Defeated, humiliated, over. He can’t even put his heart into these lies”.

“(Trump has chosen to) push a flailing strategy, designed to prevent people’s votes from being counted” – Mr Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon, adding the president “knows he is losing”.

T he Biden campaign later released a statement reading: “As we said on July 19, the American people will decide this election.

“And the United States Government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

“The stakes are high and emotions are high on all sides. We will not let those debates distract us from our work, we will get it right and we will defend the integrity of our elections” – G e o r g i a ’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, announcing a recount in the key state.

“I’d like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put the heads (of Dr Anthony Fauci and FBI chief Christopher A Wray) on pikes at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the programme, or you’re gone” – Former Trump campaign manager, Steve Bannon, whose remarks resulted in a permanent ban from Twitter.

“What the president needs to do frankly is put his big-boy pants on, he needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost and he needs to congratulate the winner... and let us move forward as a country.” – The Democrat mayor of Philadelphia, Jim Kenney.