Any issue, no matter how single, from a suicide to a hospital build delay to advice on thinking about calling out an ambulance, and Scotland’s SNP health secretaries are subjected to an hysterical, politicised, media pile-on with calls for their heads. Today, the Herald suggests that Yousaf is absent in some way. I’d say he’s more the victim of stalking these days. How do I know it’s hysterical and politicised in Scotland? Easy. It doesn’t happen in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, for even the most dramatic of failures in health care. Remember Matt Hancock, England’s Health Secretary? Remember these … Continue reading Where’s Javid or, eh, Morgan or, eh, Pengelly?

That headline claim from our public service broadcaster, an institution with a royal charter to inform us and a set of published editorial guidelines, on accuracy and the reliability of sources, must be true, mustn’t it? No, it’s made up as a scare story to make you think that SNP Government is incompetent and to, of course, make you ‘think twice‘ about attending. How many GPs did they ask? Two. Out of more than 5 000. Who are they? After hearing ‘Surgeries are said to be under pressure as never before‘, we see one just walk fast along his corridor … Continue reading Well, 2 out of 5 134 say so

Feel free to join me Continue reading First BBC Complaint in some time

Demand for GPs is double what it was before the pandemic and the situation is likely to worsen, a doctor-turned-MSP has told BBC Scotland. Dr Sandesh Gulhane, a Scottish Conservative MSP and GP, said he had 80 “patient contacts” on Monday. Pre-Covid he would see about 40 in one day. The current levels are “not safe, not sustainable”, he said. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58611645 Is that all you need for a BBC Scotland headline? One opposition politician? One day? BBC Editorial Guidelines on reporting statistics: 3.3.8 We should reserve the same scepticism for statistics as we do for facts or quotes and not necessarily … Continue reading Just rubbish from a Tory MSP who seems to have time for two big well-paid jobs plus media appearances

Scotland produces THREE times as much energy as UK from renewables! On the Marr show this morning, Alok Sharma, COP 26 president, boasts of the UK’s achievements in renewable energy production. Neither he nor Uncle Tam Marr note that 25% of the UK’s production comes from Scotland despite only having 8% of the population. At the start of 2020, Scotland had 11.8 gigawatts (GW) of installed renewable electricity capacity, which produced approximately 25% of total UK renewable generation (119,000 GWh). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Scotland: “BEIS Energy Trends – Renewables”. UK Government. 26 March 2020. Retrieved 15 April 2020. Will that get a mention at COP 26? Will … Continue reading On the back of Scotland again

Rumours of Macwhirter’s demise are clearly only mostly true. The cantankerous one, on this occasion, does ask the obvious question of Brown’s plain daft suggestion that England is progressive. Boy do they prefer the Tories, even under the wholly dysfunctional neo-BNP Johnson regime: I’ve often wondered how we/they got to this point where working-class English folk in the South vote against their economic interests. I’ve just finished: In it, he makes an interesting suggestion based on these two maps: The Church of England and its affluent middle-class, business-oriented, individualist, ‘superior’ (to the Northerners and Celts) emerged in the same area … Continue reading Why do the English vote Tory? Blame the Romans and the Church of England?

Lord McConnell surfaces to try to blame the SNP for ‘the cancer of sectarianism’ after 12 years in power. That’s a good one. Doesn’t the root go further back and to other parties? See this: Needless to say, Orange and predominantly Protestant Labour-voting communities had to be treated with similar tact [to catholic communities], well illustrated by Dennis Canavan’s experience in Falkirk in 1974 and, later, by the ‘Sam Campbell Affair’ in Midlothian in 1986 (the latter a Labour councillor who made anti-Catholic remarks at an Orange demonstration, for which he was disciplined by the party, but not expelled). https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/scot.2017.0186?widget=journaleditorialboard … Continue reading Lord Jack McConnell misses the target

Asked: If you or someone close to you has had to call out a Scottish ambulance in the last month, how satisfied have you been with the performance? 53 responded and overwhelmingly approved of how the Scottish Ambulance system is performing. A twitter poll of 5 627 followers of a pro-Independence is not scientifically reliable however it is much more so than the anecdotal comments of 3 or 4 individuals, who may have been trawled by social media invitations such as this: Continue reading 96% satisfied with Scottish Ambulance Service

In the Guardian today we read: The government was scrambling on Saturday night to reassure Britons that rising gas prices would not plunge the country into an energy crisis, as ministers held a series of emergency meetings with energy companies and regulators to establish whether the nation could keep the lights and central heating on this winter. Gas prices surged by more than 70% in August alone, and the shock has sent energy companies and heavy industrial firms out of business. Households could see energy bills jump by as much as £400 in a year, according to some estimates.  https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/sep/18/dont-panic-business-minister-bids-to-calm-crisis-fears-as-uk-gas-prices-soar … Continue reading 8% of the population, 28% of the gas production but the same massive price hike is coming to Scotland