BBC Scotland had nothing to say about this momentous vote. It was left to the Independent (paper sales zero in Scotland) to tell us: Scottish Parliament votes for immediate suspension of tear gas, rubber bullet and riot shield exports to US A successful motion, which was backed by 52 votes to 0 with 11 abstentions, says the parliament “stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and considers that the UK government must immediately suspend all export licences for tear gas, rubber bullets and riot gear to the US”. Oooh, I wonder who the 11 abstentions were? There are … Continue reading Scottish Parliament acts to make us all proud but Scotland’s NoMedia say nah black lives don’t matter THAT much!

The Scottish MSM are all over this story which, of course, may actually refer to good news. Perhaps, more people are feeling confident enough to come forward and report hate crimes. Perhaps police are improving their identification and recording of hate crime offences. Also, the figures will include historic cases where, again, victims have become empowered by recent cultural shifts to come forward. See this from galop: What do police data mean?There are many factors that prevent reporting statistics from giving a ‘true’ picture of hate crime. One of the biggest is under-reporting. To give some context, an estimated 278,000 … Continue reading Hate crime in Scotland remains far lower than in non-Scottish parts

Only 8% of Scots would use Radio Scotland as a source for news: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/157914/uk-news-consumption-2019-report.pdf In the light of that you might wonder why I’m bothering with this. I do too. Anyhow, yesterday, BBC Good Morning Scotland let the Governor General for the Scotland colony to say: In care homes where there’s been a disaster in Scotland at double the death rate of anywhere else in the UK. A bare-faced lie but they didn’t challenge it at all so it’s simply propaganda rather than the news. Here’s the truth about care home deaths: Data from research by LSE, reported on May … Continue reading Good Morning Scotland still lets Alister Jack lie bare-faced to it’s shrinking audience about care home deaths being DOUBLE in Scotland

In a BBC Devon report yesterday: A woman who said goodbye to her dying father through a care home window is suing the government over his death. Dr Cathy Gardner’s father, Michael Gibson, 88, died of probable Covid-19 related causes on 3 April. Her case, which accuses the government of unlawfully exposing thousands of care home residents to serious harm, will be filed at the High Court today. The Department for Health and Social Care said it could not comment on ongoing legal proceedings…..The government has faced criticism for policies allowing patients to be discharged from hospitals into care homes … Continue reading Why is one woman suing the English Government and not the care home owners?

Jun12 https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/dugcast-fae-the-dughoose-with-prof-john-robertson/ Continue reading Dugcast fae the dughoose – with Prof John Robertson

By stewartb I’m obliged to Peter A. Bell for the alert to an article published on 10 June by the UK Constitutional Law Association (UKLA). Sources: G. Davies and D. Wincott, ‘Brexit, the press and the territorial constitution’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (10th June 2020) (https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/) On the subject of four major court judgments made after the 2016 EU referendum, the Davies and Wincott examine the volumes of media coverage in publications in each of the four UK nations. Using quantitative content and thematic analyses, they examined the coverage of these judgments in newspapers in England (Daily Mail, Independent), Scotland … Continue reading Media outlets display inability to distinguish between English and devolved governance

From stewartb: There has been much ‘fun’ on twitter over the last 12 hours or so at the expense of BBC Scotland and specifically the way one of its journalists tweeted about an environmental target of the Scottish Government. Deserved ridicule is being shown for this: Of course there is ‘fun’ to be had on what is a single, minor example but the TuSC knows only too well this is indicative of a deeper malaise within the public service broadcasting organisation – as has been evidenced time and time again. It may be that the author of the tweet is … Continue reading Stop laughing at the back!

Given the clear divergence in strategy, between England and Scotland, in the last month or more, it’s worth looking at possible effects on more recent infection rates and death rates. Scotland’s 7 day average for new infections is 17 and for new deaths is 6: https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker/ England’s 7 day average for new infections is 241 and for new UK deaths is 196: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ Note: For some reason England-only deaths are not published. So at just over 10 times the population, England should have, pro rata, a daily average of 170 news cases but has 241, 42% higher. At 12 times … Continue reading Covid divergence effect: UK death rate in last week nearly three times higher than in Scotland