From stewartb:
There is a powerful and toxic combination of forces at play:
– the partial/misreporting by BBC Scotland of the efforts of NHS Scotland, Scotland’s care homes and the Scottish Government;
– the efforts of the BBC and opposition politicians in Scotland, notably the leader of the Scottish Tories and most especially the shadow secretary of state for Scotland to ‘politicise’ this health emergency;
– the uncritical coverage by the corporate media and the BBC of trade union (e.g. RCN) statements and polls; and
– the profile being afforded by BBC Scotland on the health emergency to a leading Unionist activist with a political agenda to oppose the SNP and its support for Scotland’s self-determination.
And all this in the context of little or no push back by the Scottish Government or the SNP.
Even some pro-indy groupings like Common Weal are all too ready to pile in with the negatives. As an especially regrettable example, from April 14 in Common Weal’s ‘Source’, Mr Robin McAlpine ‘jumped the shark’ writing:
“There has been much questioning about whether we are ready for independence. I’m afraid right at the moment we look sorely unready for devolution.”
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Doubtless under pressure from #10 to take the shine off how well SG are performing in this current crisis, Jackass Carlot obviously got the memo first.. What made them think BBC pro-SNP bias would stick is baffling, or perhaps that was a Jackass “initiative”.
As to the RCN poll distortion you touched on, what struck me as blatant was SMSM reporting identically, a circulated script ?
GMB’s rent-a-gob had patients being returned “positive” and “don’t know” and “across the country”, presumably Dumbarton’s new care-home to which none had been, yet GMS etc gave it credence? BBCS did much the same when Smith organised strikes because the SNP admin hadn’t paid out fast enough after resolving GMB/GCC’s historic equal-pay fiasco, hypocrisy is never far away when Gary Smith is involved.
Only the Tories and Cummings in particular are immoral enough to use a health crisis as cover to take political pot-shots. Accusing SNP of their own agenda of politicising it is another well-worn Tory tactic.
As calls for the truth on England’s death toll escalate and the PPE fiasco grows, you may expect these “look, a squirrel” tactics to ramp up.
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Mr Carlaw’s accusation about BBC anti-Tory/proSNP bias has a long tradition, dating back, at least to Mr Norman Tebbit who would commence every GeneralElection campaign by accusing the BBC of anti-Thatcher bias. He would do this every time there was a crisis. Of course, the BBC rapidly complied. In the 1982 (I think) General Election the BBC Election studio was predominantly the same blue as Mrs Thatcher usually wore! Subliminal messaging???. Superliminal, moelike.
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When you see the likes of New Zealand’s response, you can see how being an independent nation can be of real benefit, a benefit that can save lives. What I get sick of with this politicisation, and their (unionists) obsession with finding anything bad happening to ‘prove’ the union is great, is that the current administration is a devolved one – it’s actions do not reflect how it would be in independence, just as GERS says nothing about an independent Scotland, so the current, strangled, political set up says nothing about an independent Scotland. It is facetious to suggest it is.
BBC radio Scotland is back to banging on about PPE in Scotland – they had a few hours of contrition last Thursday when they were told they were spreading fake news, but they quickly recovered by interviewing as many people as possible the would use ‘as part of the U.K.’ as every second sentence, and headlining ‘a quarter of all deaths are in care homes’. What is their obsession with care homes? They really are doing damage with their reporting. Yesterday (Monday) morning on GMS they also interviewed Dr Macaskill, head of care homes in Scotland, and I really am impressed with him – he was very clear, and explained the situation. The current supposed manufactured crisis (well, it’s likely true in England) was that people were getting shoved out of hospital and dumped in care homes – Dr Macaskill said that the normal discharge procedures are being followed – what is happening is normal – and everyone being transferred is immediately quarantined and treated as though they have Covid19 whether they do or not. He also emphasised that ‘we’ need to improve our language use as regards older people etc. Of course, the BBC after allowing a decent length of interview failed to quote him again after that. Oh yes, he said there isn’t a crisis with PPE, it’s just something that needs to be watched etc.
Meanwhile, there is crisis upon crisis in England – airports are open with no border checks, hospitals have little PPE and folk trying to sell PPE can’t get a hold of the government to do so, the government is not even trying,,, there is so much that is so bad about the uk government you just don’t know where to start, and there is likely no end.
When you look at how other countries do their daily brief, the ones that are keeping the virus under control have the ‘scientists’ (not all scientists are equal, and I’d prefer to know what kinds we have in charge!) reporting first, the politicians second. Usually we only hear the politicians on BBC radio – they cut off the rest of the brief – then they have their reporter speculating on what that politician ‘meant’ – this is guesswork on the uk briefings with no bearing in reality. The journalists then speculate how it isn’t business as usual, then carry on reporting their shit as usual without any sense of irony. Journalists are failing badly, they can’t deviate from their normal ‘Scotland is shit’ mode. If you catch Brian Taylor at 6.30 am on GMS, you will find him quietly praising Nicola Sturgeon – this isn’t much repeated (on the few times I’ve listened all day). This full-on propaganda mode – ignoring the devastating impact of uk government policy etc etc – is sickening.
The Scottish Government? Well, their response has been lacklustre, but they are quietly ensuring supply lines and the NHS is in a reasonable state to handle the epidemic, I just hope they start taking a different path from the uk government and we should be demanding better, we deserve better, we deserve to live (if for no other reason, because everyone deserves to live).
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What is your evidence for the statement that the SG response has been ‘lacklustre’?
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Jason Leitch for starters.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:laF6_9ZklDoJ:https://www.trendsmap.com/twitter/tweet/1250048862200442881
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Observation?
I don’t mean their presentation or actions to carry out the response – I mean the strategy (response) itself; uncertain and following the uk one.
Do you have evidence of any dynamism?
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Although admittedly Lackluster isn’t the metaphor i would choose for Leitch.
Who hired that idiot? Who would want his advice?
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Ugh, Leitch, he seems to be a mere media pundit, not sure of the right word to describe him, but he certainly doesn’t seem to know anything much.
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Lacklustre?
I suppose there are a number of things to consider and I don’t pretend to have much knowledge about any of them. The first might be what freedomof movement any of the devolved governments have in dealing with such a pandemic as covid19. Is this not a reserved matter?
Click to access CONOPs_incl_revised_chapter_24_Apr-13.pdf
The UK has been unprepared for this emergency. Why?
Tim Harford has a long piece on the subject in the FT. His failure to blink at the prospect of 50 million deaths struck me as callous.
https://www.ft.com/content/74e5f04a-7df1-11ea-82f6-150830b3b99a
It is clear that the UKgovernment planning for a pandemic has been awful.
“Despite the severe failings exposed by Exercise Cygnus, the government’s planning for a future pandemic did not change after December 2016. The government’s roadmap for how to respond to a coronavirus-like pandemic has long been available online, and the three key documents–the 70-page “Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy”, 78-page “Health and Social Care Influenza Pandemic Preparedness and Response” and 88-page“Pandemic Influenza Response Plan”–were published in 2011, 2012 and 2014 respectively. What is striking about this exercise and subsequent published plans was that these plans were properly tested and emphatically failed, yet these documents were not rewritten or revised and provided no new preparedness recommendations towards what would happen in the event of another virus outbreak, which was expected in due course. Except for one thing. That the health services would not be able to cope.”
https://mronline.org/2020/03/23/covid-19-the-truth-govt-docs-emerge-to-show-how-theyve-failed-us-all/
The WHO advised countries in 2005 to prepare plans for a pandemic. The failure to do that effectively in the UK dates from that time. Scottish governments have prepared their own framework plans for a pandemic. Neither the SNP governments nor the preceding Lab/Lib one seems to have been effective. What does that mean? I think it means speed of reaction and a response that is based on widespread testing, contact tracing and isolation.
I read the WHO – China report on covid19 some weeks ago (March or late Feb) and since that time Professor Pollock of Newcastle University has benn writing to our FM urging her to start widespread testing. There are now reagent shortages that hinder the ease of such testing (except for Germany and others) and it seems possible/probable that the former Scottish CMO did not see the necessity for such testing.
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Thanks Sam, I’m not sure you have convinced me of a dynamism in Scottish government – there are issues yes, reserved matters and some unhelpful characters in government – reaction times are slow politically aimed at mitigation rather than control etc. Within a framework of following uk strategy, the Scottish government have done really well, where we are all glad to be living in Scotland rather than England. The lacklustre comment is about their ability to take positive decisive action on their own, take examples of countries that know how to deal with epidemics, see what can be applied, read up, find out, and do what is possible – this is what I feel is lacking. They don’t have a few years to ruminate on it.
On the radio earlier they were comparing other countries and the difficulties in how numbers (of fatalities) are reported, the U.K. is up there with Spain and Italy of course, but I had to smile when they said Portugal has a very low death toll and it’s right next to Spain! ,,,we then got a bit of a pause (oops said the wrong thing there) and a change of subject – the media knows fine how they phrase things, yes Portugal is independent from Spain and attached to it with a border and can do things differently, and save lives!
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Contrary
The FM says she does not regret following the UK strategy. I think the chances of any Scottish government being able to take a different approach are low. An important omission in the approach of UK scientists was the failure to include in the modelling the effect of testing. Another flaw was the herd immunity idea (discounted?) and the belief that the virus could not be contained. In such circumstances I don’t think the SG had any alternative but to follow the UK government’s approach.
The magnitude of the UK’s failure to address covid19 effectively is that it had 15 years to develop an effective policy for a pandemic but failed to do that. Not only that, but the UK government knew that its policy was going to be ineffective because the Cygnus exercise in 2016 told it so.
I have not looked closely at the Scottish Framework policies for pandemic flu. My opinion is that a UK government would not permit much deviation for UK policy. The only reason for major deviation is that which exists now, the UK government has accepted and followed without question flawed scientific advice as it did with BSE.
What interests me is the possibility that the SG will follow WHO advice and try to eliminate the virus, not suppress it.
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On the possible divergence of the SG from UK policy on covid 19 I see that the UK conditions for leaving the lockin are notthose set out by the WHO.
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