STANDING ON CEREMONY

IN a simple ceremony on a suitably dreich and mournful Friday a garden was opened on Glasgow Green to commemorate victims of famine in the 19th century. It was originally intended to be about the Irish famine of the 1840s, where more than a million died, with another million emigrating, around 100,000 of them making their home in Glasgow. There are statues and plaques and other memorials in more than 100 cities where the expatriates ended up, but that, it seems, was deemed too controversial here, after representations by the Orange Order among others. So the Highland famine of the same time – equally dreadful, equally deserving – was tacked on.

This new memorial at the People's Palace, driven by Glasgow City Council, includes plants and stones native to Ireland and the Highlands. But dissenters have branded this tribute as offensive and are fundraising for their own memorial to the Irish martyrs, which is to be built in St Mary's Church in the Calton, the chapel where Celtic Football Club was founded by Brother Walfrid in 1888.

Friday's dedication ceremony included council deputy leader David McDonald, Irish minister Joe McHugh and Professor Sir Tom Devine, who has argued in these pages that religious bigotry is effectively over in Scotland. Perhaps the eminent historian has counted it out too soon?

RANGERS AND THE END OF THE BEGINNING?

The case brought by two of the administrators appointed to sort out the collapse of "old" Rangers could be drawing to a close. David Whitehouse and Paul Clark are suing the Lord Advocate and Police Scotland after they were arrested and initially charged with fraud (later dropped), a tad ironic when they were the ones who warned the authorities over Craig Whyte. Whitehouse is suing for £9 million and Clark for £5m under the Human Rights Act.

The Lord Advocate and the Chief Constable are normally immune from court actions but, as the QC for Scotland's most senior law officer admitted, this does not apply under the European legislation. The two former administrators from Duff & Phelps have insurance so they have the wherewithal to take this all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. However, according to my top-level sources the police are extremely keen to settle out of court. Watch this space although, if it happens, we almost certainly won't be allowed to see or know the settlement figures.

A TONSORIAL TRIBUTE TO UNCLE JOE STALIN

Just five minutes into the World Cup and a wild, over-the-top tackle goes unpunished. The perpetrator is ITV commentator Clive Tyldesley and he is ruminating on Russian team manager Stanislav Cherchesov's moustache. "A popular TV host here, who actually looks like Borat, has called on Russians to grow 'taches in support of the coach and the team.” Adding after a short pause, "Stalin, he had a proper 'tache."

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, aka Joseph Stalin, was, of course, famed for the luxuriant growth on his upper lip, rather than the pogroms, the show trials, the Great Terror and the liquidation of five million, mainly Ukrainians, through famine. Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen's character, too, is hugely popular in Kazakhstan.

The comment came in the opening game of the competition on Thursday, Russia v Saudi Arabia, and Clive also noted that when Vladimir Putin shook hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in his private box they were sealing an "oil deal". Sadly the Prince's team got hammered to which, equally sadly, Clive didn't say: "They look a bit frail on their feet, but at least they've all got their hands." We can only look forward to his coverage of a German game when Adolf, the Third Reich and, if the Boche are well on top, the Dunkirk example will be invoked.

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME

There's a charity explosion in Scotland and the way it's going there will soon be more of them than people. In May alone 76 new ones were registered, including Screen Memories (about cinema in Scotland, duh!), dressCode (trying to get young girls interested in computer science) and Garnock Valley Men's Shed (it does exactly what it says on the tin roof!). There are now 24,448 charities registered (although that figure will be outdated by the time you read this).

The principal reason for forming a charity is the tax reliefs. Charities don't pay tax on most types of income and they can also claim back tax that has been deducted on bank interest and donations, or Gift Aid as it's called. It also helps that in Scotland, unlike south of the Border, they can shroud themselves in secrecy.

This isn't the fault of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, OSCR, but the hopeless and hapless 2005 act of parliament governing charity. The regulator doesn't have the power or the resources to keep a register of charity trustees, those who are legally responsible, unlike in England. This is a blatant nonsense.

If accounts are submitted the vast majority are not made public, but if they are they are also heavily redacted, with the names of trustees – and, indeed, all personal names, even those receiving money – blacked out by the regulator's office, in line with the act's secrecy requirement. Take, as a random example, the Scatwell Community Association, situated in a glen near Strathpeffer in the north of Scotland, whose principal funder – this much is revealed – is the electricity company SSE, which runs a nearby windfarm. The only contact listed on the OSCR return is an Inverness solicitor. So I called and asked for an unredacted copy of the latest accounts which – under the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 – I, and any other member of the public, is entitled to.

Twenty-four hours later I was called by Sandra Riach, who described herself as a trustee. She was reluctant to divulge information other than that the association was a small group of people, around 20 individuals. She does not believe, she said, that the act should be reformed to ensure more transparency. I asked who the trustees were, she replied that she would have to ask the individuals involved for permission to divulge. I'm still waiting on that and also the clean and up to date accounts.

This isn't to suggest that Scatwell is doing anything untoward (apart from not supplying the accounts) and it may well be doing a fine job for its small community. It's just an illustration of how unfit for purpose the act is and how the regulator is incapable of properly policing the mushrooming charity sector.