News Fortnightly at Sunday Night: 9pm
29th June 2025 to 12th July 2025: 9pm News Updates: Please remember we are completely rebuilding this website. Apologies if you hit a page that says “password protected” or “new website architecture holing page.” These pages will all become open and clear to read for everyone as the rebuild of this website progresses.
For the latest news (14-June-2025 to 28-June-2025), we can introduce something that is news, and new, even to us… Youtube “Video Logs” or as many folk call them: VLOGS.
Apologies for the quiet sound quality on the first two-parter. Calum did not want to wake anyone up after a 4am morning PTSD horror nightmare from which he woke prematurely. Also there are times when the stroke causes speech difficulty. He does make best efforts at “received pronunciation” so folk can understand an accent that was born in Glasgow.
Given all of that, you might like to put the video
SUBTITLES ON!
Even the subtitles struggle. The main message is that this website SHOULD have been called “Michael’s List” of “Mick’s List”. It COULD have ended up being called a “jobbie” list as Calum did get called that at times (in Scotland a “jobbie” means something comedically rude (here)..
In any event, these new VLOGS will hopefully improve during the learning process at getting production (and sound quality) up to a decent standard.
So without further ado, here is our dedicated VLOG page addition to theis website (turn your sound up to here old quite-voice).
New VLOG Page
Shown on the main MENU bar…
^^ Our new Video Log ~ VLOG ~ page can be accessed via the main MENU bar. Or just…
Click Here
If you are using an iPad or smaller device, you can locate the new VLOG video page, plus access to the magnificent Michael Sheen’s extraordinary documentary about debt by using the scroll-down-menu, or by just clicking on the NEW page where we will regularly UPLOAD new VLOGS… though with better sound quality!
Also added to the video log [VLOG] is an awesome video documentary where Michael Sheen buys a million pounds of struggling families debt (almost 1,000 families)…
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14th June 2025: 9pm News Update: Michael Sheen manages to locate that £1,000,000 on the commercial debt market. It is discounted as “delinquent debt” and available at just £100,000. Michael spends his own money buying that debt.
Then he brilliantly just writes off that debt.
Michael’s request in his local Post Office to “withdraw £100,000 AND a book of stamps” is iconic!
Then Michael Sheen just writes off that debt.
Calum has a major wish to let Michael know that in doing what he did, statistically Michael will have saved at least THREE lives.
Calum does not think Michael has a clue his kindness has done such a thing (48 years’ money advice experience across our team here at Calum’s List) and we are fairly sure of there will have been 3 lives saved (from debt-suicide) as our clients’ have left us in no doubt about their intentions.
So a HUGE thankyou to Michael Sheen if he sees this website before Calum gets in touch
The VLOG from Calum is in TWO parts as he dozily manged to switch off the camera.
But the Michael Shen documentary is a “must watch” if you are one of the 2,200,000 financially borderline families in the UK.
Why? Because the more YOU know about this, the faster you will find out good and effective way of remedying any ill financial winds that hit you.
It also does no harm to see some core guidelines have evudent solutions such as those which Michael Sheen comes close to addressing…
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1st to 14th June 2025: 9pm News Update: A fairly straightforward but legally compelling update…
Due to the legal efforts and other ways to reduce debt-suicides + money misery, our pages are fairly “content-rich” (long). We make no apology for that. 10 years shouting at politicians has been exhausting for our predecessors, all of whom were disabled and now dead. We really need to find a different way to solve this terrible situation of debt-suicides.
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Before we can get onto the mechanics of solving these problems, please remember the purpose of this website, and soon, the new registered charity…
… we need to rebuild the whole website. This includes different site architecture. Plus some integral parts, such as “the list” that formed part of the legacy content before ownership/custodianship transfer in March 2025.
We are very keen to get onto the exciting parts, such as building community-owned power generation facilities. For example, some of our crew have been bidding on lochs for this type of project…
Community Owned Electricity Generation
Halving Your Power Costs By Your Own Community Efforts
The Law Is Now On Your Community’s Side
^^ Communities Can Build These ^^
By getting rid of electricity company Chief Executive Officers who get paid £4,500,000 a year (here), and the rest of the obscenely high salaries, along when pensioners are freezing or not eating is a matter of urgency and long overdue a review.
With simple maths, the price of electricity will tumble if you get rid of obscenely overpaid CEO. Lest anyone think we are being unfair to this…
£4,500,000 A Year Dud
^^ SSE plc CEO Alistair Phillips-Davies ^^
PA Images & Alamy Fee Paid: Click Here
Seriously, if SSE plc’s Mr Phillips-Davies was any good at his £4,500,000 a job, then how does he explain this abominable set of 3,992 customer reviews…
^^ SSE plc CEO Alistair Phillips-Davies ^^
Enough.
No more fat-cat payoffs for Phillips-Davies and his ilk in reward for failure.
No knighthood please.
If this person had any honour, he would hand back the C.B.E., too.
& give 80% of that bloated pay package to a charity that helps pensioners.
Any doubts, just look at what the actual numbers are: click here.
By the way, Mr Phillips-Davies and Mr John Manzoni, last time we checked, SSE plc is subject to the Land Reform Act and the Community Empowerment Act.
Just looking at Mr Manzoni’s CV and the carnage under his watch at the BP disaster in Texas, along with Manzoni’s more recent cushy job back in the U.K. with an overpaid CEO at SSE plc… it just occurred to our legally qualified trustees, if SSE plc have done “harm” to the local community in any location in this country, then there is a competent case to seek REMOVAL OF SSE PLC ASSETS. Yes the District Valuer will need to come in to sort out a fair price.
But the recent, elegantly worded and learned ruling by Sheriff Niven-Smith is profound and will likely impact on SSE plc.
But right now, given these two “bosses” at SSE plc are still to extend the courtesy of a constructive reply to our letter to both men and each of the entire SSE plc Board, then perhaps the two Amadans best do their legal duty and let their auditors, EY (Ernst & Young) know there may be an existential problem headed towards SSE plc HQ at Inveralmond, or wherever the tax avoiding bolt-hole that SSE plc set up in Switzerland is.
For sure, the Land Reform Act does what it says on the box. No matter how many assets you try and keep out of the taxman or tax woman’s way… most of the land that SSE plc uses is still in this country. Whether local communities decide to repossess land from SSE plc
and do a better, fairer and less greedy job themselves is another matter.
As our inscrutable friends say…
”May you live in interesting times.”
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MORE
The other crucially important matter is a ruling by Sheriff Niven-Smith (a sheriff is the term for a Scottish judge).
Our Advocate (Scottish barrister) is studying the judges ruling.
It looks very much like the Land Reform Act and the Community Empowerment Act will enable…
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Communities To Have Legal First Refusal
To Buy A Closed-Down Bank Building
By Compulsory Purchase!
That is triggered if a bank seeks to close the local branch and that closure his proven to be harmful to the local community!
^^ Coming To A Town Near You ^^
^^ A Community Owned Bank ^^
It is already happening, though not yet by compulsory purchase, forcing the banks to sell buildings to the local community.
Here is an example of a decent bank that worked with the local community…
^^ Community Banking Hub Networks Are Growing ^^
As for our team here at Calum’s List? We have a good bank building in on our radar (it is where we bank). It has a very decent staff, run by an appalling Head Office management outfit. Santander Bank bosses still have our charity’s money and have made no effort to repay it to our Creditcare Debt Advice Association.
We already own a business centre that was fully renovated at the other end of the Santander Bank, 167 High Street, Arbroath, bank building location. There are already closed-down shops + offices being re-opened in the High Street by our day-job crew and they are headed towards CEO Mike Regnier’s Bank branch that he has already earmarked for closure and desertion of another local community.
This Santander Bank is closing down. That is a fact. So it is an ideal candidate as it is close by alone of our existing Business-Angel support centres. Our team of Dragon’s Den type volunteers are ready to help keep another doomed Bank Building from closure and dereliction.
We already have a track record and experience in establishing, running and fundraising for charity. So a new Community Banking Hub may yet be born at 167 High Street, Arbroath.
Hopefully Santander will play nice (and save the staff their jobs). But if Santander are just liquidating assets to boost their greed-driven profits and regard staff as collateral damage, then Mike Regnier, CEO at Santander UK plc (here) is in a lot more trouble than his organisation already is (news on that soon).
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BUT!
There is always a “but”
But before we get to the exciting stuff that will help folk live better lives with less money worries, we must complete the major website rebuild.
Today we came to an unfortunate bump in the road.
A PTSD problem.
The page we were working on may help to make sense…
Click Here
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Rocky Road To Recovering This Website
It is Calum writing this update and I’ve not looked at this website “list” for around 10 years. It should really have been called “Michael’s List” after the founder. But because of circumstances where I lst a friend in 1996 and the first charity was founded (here) and ran for 11 years; tragically followed by the debt-suicide of a second friend, I asked if anyone else had seen these tragedies. The place I asked was o Michael’s DWP-Disability-Help forum. Several replies of shocking deaths were poste. But instead of “Michael’s List”, we ended up were we are and I am the last person standing (and alive) from the original crew.
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Please Never Forget
We have discovered taking over this website in March 2025 is definitely a dive into the deep end with our new team here after inheriting this domain. Started in 2012 by Mick Moore. Sadly Mick died. The new crew are determined to honour the 60 friends who died and are at the core of this site.
The way ahead for our new team is to bring about projects that reduce the horrendous tragedy of debt-suicide and welfare reform deaths in the UK each year. The last national figures were somewhere between 2821 deaths and 81,140 deaths (official source: click here).
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To Return To The Front Page, Please
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