The slow strange death of Scotland
The David Vance BriefingRead More
Scotland is rotting away at the core, probably dying, and yet it goes without much discussion. I think that is sad. I have an affinity with Scotland as there is a strong Vance heritage there and I have enjoyed my many times holidaying there. But nostalgia is a poor predicator of the future. However there are some key markers which do provide a ‘health check” for any Nation and when we apply them to Scotland the prognosis is just terrible. So come with me as we examine if Scotland has a future.
Let’s start with babies!
You may have spotted a headline the other saying that Scotland’s fertility rate has fallen to around 1.4 children per woman. In fact, it is worse than that. According to National Records of Scotland, the total fertility rate fell to just 1.25 children per woman in 2024. That’s the lowest recorded since modern records began in 1951 Scotland has recorded only 45,763 births, the lowest annual number since civil registration began in 1855.
Let’s take a moment to think about what this actually means in practice. We all understand that a fertility rate of approx 2.1 is required for a population to replace itself in the absence of migration. Scotland is nowhere remotely near it. 1.25 is a shocker!
Any demographic growth in Scotland has gone from inward migration. In the past few years, that too have gone to a shuddering halt.
So while Scotland struggles to produce any more Scots, another new statistic tells us something that is deeply troubling about the society today’s generation;
Rape and attempted rape have reached their highest recorded level since 1971.
The Official Scottish Government figures show 3,229 rapes and attempted rapes were recorded in 2025–26. That’s an increase of 11% in a single year. Now put that in the context of the past 10 years and we can see an astonishing 72% increase. There were 1,878 offences in 2016–17 compared to 3,229 today. Of the more recent offences covered by the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act, 95% involved female victims.
If you think that was bad, let’s go to Glasgow and it suddenly gets so much darker.
New figures reported this week indicate that almost 500 rapes or attempted rapes were recorded in Glasgow during the past year. That works out at approximately one every 18 hours. The reported increase over five years is 43%.
Have Glaswegians suddenly become more rapey? Or do you think that there might be another more telling reason?
You see Glasgow has officially designated “City of Sanctuary” designation. Glasgow City Council even BOASTS that 90% of migrants that come to Scotland have made Glasgow their home. In fact they are proud to say that Glasgow is “the most prominent asylum dispersal city” in the UK.
And the rapes are soaring.
Now let’s reflect on another grim Scottish statistic. Drugs.
Scotland’s drug-misuse death rate in 2024 was x3.6 times what it was in 2000. And Glasgow City had the highest drug-misuse death rate of any Scottish council area over 2020–24, at a staggering 41.1 deaths per 100,000 people.
Then there is the cocaine.
It was implicated in 479 drug-misuse deaths in 2024 — 47% of the Scottish total — remaining at the highest level ever recorded for the second consecutive year.
Now I know that’s a lot of stats to throw at you but let’s sum up what it tells us.
Record-low fertility. Record-low births. Record-high recorded rape and attempted rape. Glasgow suffering the country’s highest drug-death rate.
What exactly is happening to Scottish society?
For years, the SNP have presided over all of this, boasting how it is marching towards a brave new Scotland, free of English tyranny. Everything will be better if only people vote for it. Well the facts blow this self serving rhetoric apart.
A successful society reproduce itself. It create stable families. It maintains social order. Women should be able to live without the threat of sexual violence. Young people should have reasons to build lives rather than destroy them with drugs.
On several of these fundamental measures Scotland is a red flag.
And Glasgow increasingly looks like the epicentre of what happens when serious social dysfunction becomes embedded across generations. As a furher point, Glasgow is the core of SNP power,
That’s a very disturbing fact.
There is another uncomfortable aspect to the fertility statistics.
A population with a fertility rate of 1.25 simply cannot sustain its existing age structure indefinitely without substantial migration. That is an indisputable fact. The only way out is to us immigration as the mechanism by which government compensate for the children of their own population no longer having. adequate kids.
But even immigration doesn’t solve the underlying problem. It merely changes the demographic arithmetic.
Why are Scots having so few children?
There has to be a reason why this demographic disaster is unfolding. Housing costs? Economic insecurity? Cultural change? Delayed marriage? Abortion?
In Scotland, there were 18,783 abortions recorded in 2025—the highest number on record. This reflects a 55% increase in demand since 2016, with an overall rate of 17.6 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44
So yes, Scots are killing their babies in greater numbers.
Scottish marriages are down, with close to 30,000 in 2000 and now that is around 27,000. The average woman is now 38 years when she marries in Scotland. Peak fertility is in the 20’s to mid 30’s
Could it be family breakdown? After all this is a society which has spent decades telling young people that consumption matters more than creating families.
The answer in all truth is all of the above.
And yet there is no serious national debate about ANY of this.
Why?
Scotland’s politicians can argue endlessly about constitutional arrangements and fashionable political causes while something much more fundamental unfolds beneath their feet.
A country which stops producing children has a problem with its future.
A country recording unprecedented levels of rape has a problem with its present.
Scotland doesn’t need another government strategy. It needs something more simple.
Children. Safety. Marriage.
Scotland is in a serious decline and at this point I see no evidence of change unless there is seismic political change. Scotland needs to waken up.
STOP!
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