“Set the murderers free” say the Greens

THERE IS a certain type of political satisfaction that comes when a daft pronouncement is swiftly shown up as dangerous by real life evidence.

Just recently, the Scottish Green candidate for Edinburgh North Eastern and Leith, Kate Nevens cheerfully announced that she and her party want to abolish all prisons.  No thought was given to alternatives or the different severity of crime types.  Just a view that prisons don’t do enough rehabilitation and there is too much reoffending.

Back to real life. Also recently, a few days immediately after Nevens had spoken, in the High Court in Edinburgh, Momodou Bobb was convicted of murdering his wife Ndata in their family home in August 2025.  A home that sits right in the middle of the constituency Ms Nevens seeks to represent and in the middle of the Craigentinny Duddingston Ward where I am a councillor.

Ndata’s murder shocked and horrified the local community in which she lived and the Gambian diaspora community she was part of in Edinburgh.  She was stabbed 22 times while her four children were in the flat.

There is only one sentence available for murder in Scotland – life imprisonment.  Given combatting violence against women and girls is a justice priority for both the UK and Scottish Governments what do the Greens think should happen to violent murderers when they abolish prisons?  Should a domestic abuser who murders be allowed to roam free and go back home to take up custody of the chikldren?

I may agree that prisons could do more to rehabilitate minor criminals and that recidivism is too high.  But much of that is because our prisons don’t work to get people off the drug addictions that the Greens are happy to park them on for life rather than give them access to drug rehab.

Most imposrtantly, there are reasons for imprisonment other than rehabilitation.  For extremely serious crimes like murder a minimum sentence is set as punishment rather than rehabilitation.

And I know from representing communities in Edinburgh that locking criminals up gives genuine protection to the public while they are inside.  I’ve regularly seen spates of housebreaking drop off dramatically when the Police catch the career criminals responsible and the courts jail them.

When his sentencing hearing happens, I hope Momodou Bobb will be locked up for a very long time.  I am sure almost all reading this will agree.

If you still needed evidence that the Greens are far left extremists rather than environmentalists, Nevens provided it.  Don’t give them the chance to implement their dangerous and ill-informed policies through a coalition.

I’d obviously ask you to vote Conservative in May.  But whether it’s in Edinburgh North Eastern and Leith or your Regional List I genuinely ask that you vote for anyone else before considering the dangerous, extremist and unserious Scottish Greens.