While Scottish Labour conspicuously fails to deal with anti-Islamic comments made against the SNP Justice Minister by one of Anas Sarwar’s colleagues, he continues to pursue any possibility that he might use to attack the reputation of Scotland. His heartless exploitation of the mothers of dead children to attack the NHS in Glasgow and, by association, the Health Secretary, are not forgotten. The use of his brother-in-law to attempt to fake a PPE crisis is also memorable.
Now, he seems to have used the resources of Holyrood to fund small-scale ‘research’ into Islamophobia in Scotland and to describe it as a ‘first ever public inquiry’ into the matter.
The report has then been hosted by the Ferret fact-checker to publicise the findings. The Labour-funded Ferret has long been shown to be untrustworthy if an opportunity to attack the SNP Government emerges:
The Research by Professor Peter Hopkins of Newcastle University has two fatal flaws:
First, the sample of 344 Muslims, self-selecting themselves to respond to an online survey, from a total population in Scotland of 76 737, 0.4%, is utterly useless. Indeed, given the method used, we cannot be sure the response rate was even that high. The same person could have responded several times. Respondents may only be reporting events affecting people they know. A professor must know this. A school-pupil would know it, so the decision to omit this fact is political.
Second, the report offers no background in the form of official statistics such as:
There were 529 religiously aggravated charges reported in 2018-19, a fall of 18% compared to 2017-18 and the lowest number since 2004-05.
https://www.copfs.gov.uk/images/Hate%20Crime%20in%20Scotland%202018-19%20PDF.pdf
This is highly unusual and clearly political.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
scoundrels all
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I knew the Ferret were extremely biased but didn’t know they were aligned with Labour.
Thanks for doing what your label says!
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Like Isabel, the claim that The Ferret is ‘Labour-funded’ was unknown to me. Do you have any evidence for this? It is still claiming that it is genuinely independent.
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Further to your post, John. The Futret has another pisting about abuse of Muslims in Scotland, referencing Anas Sarwar’s “report”. Again.
“Three quarters of Islamic women have been abused [because of their religion and outward display of same] in Scotland”
But, dear Futret…3/4 of how many respondees to the report…
More deliberate obfuscation from a unionist party? How…”unusual”…
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3?
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Now one example of Islamophobia is one too many in my view.
However, on important societal issues, regrettably too often campaigning politicians, third sector advocacy organisations and trade unions publish ‘research findings’ – and have them gratefully picked up by the media – that either fail even to publish basic details of research methods or, on closer inspection (as done so well by the TuSC), simply fail the test of statistical significance.
Academics and consultancies/survey companies that support clients in this type of work should look to their standards of professional practice. By all means, research and publish ‘case studies’ to make a point (especially if resources to fund research are limited), but they should take care NOT to become complicit in the misrepresentation of what conclusions can actually be evidenced at the population-level from some ‘surveys’.
As a searcher after ‘facts’, I would expect The Ferret to be in the vanguard of exposing the use of flawed social research to influence public debate and policy.
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Anas continuing to look for ways to promote himself onto an unsuspecting public.
Unfortunately, the public keep missing their cues and fail to notice how self-aggrandising this MSP is as he struts his stuff in front of the mirror in his bathroom!
Poor Anas. A disappointment for his father no doubt…
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He presumably named him appropriately, even if possibly misspelled…
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When Mr Keir Starmer was interviewed this morning on Good Morning Scotland, Gary Robertson pushed him pretty hard on the two years that have elapsed since a Labour councillor was guilty of Islamophobic comments about Humza Yousaf and no action has been taken. He got a straight back lawyerly answer about how the Leader could not intervene in the process, despite expressing bland concern about the time elapsed.
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