Scottish government spent £400,000 on promoting new hate crime law

Back to Scotland and Humza Yousaf’s controversial new hate law. The First Minister’s Hate Crime Act has left an already overstretched and under-resourced police force swamped with trivial complaints. Of the over 7,000 reports made in the first week, only three per cent of these were actual crimes. And now the spotlight is on the rather strange public information campaign released by the Scottish government. Not only was it pretty ineffective at communicating exactly what a hate crime is (hence the low crime to report ratio), it has now transpired that it cost the taxpayer nearly, um, £400,000. Crikey.

The questionable ‘Hate Hurts’ campaign — plastered across billboards and TV screens in the days leading up to the new law — also came with a rhyme: 

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words… make me feel hated just for being me… make me scared to leave my house… make our lives a living hell… cause wounds that never heal.