They do have quiet days, days when the propaganda is turned down. It makes sense. If they were hitting the SNP/SG/Scotland bad theme all the time, it might turn some No voters off.
Today, however, they crank up the machine.
Against the background of all scientific evidence, widespread adoption of vaccine passport internationally, Keir Starmer on Marr approving, the UK Tories approving and some nightclub owners even in favour of vaccine passports, Reporting Scotland go with those wacky epidemiologists, the other nightclub owners and Neil Oliver to cast the Scottish Government legislation as a failure.
No other public service broadcaster sides with selfish and unscientific viewpoints against the interests of citizens.
Even the evidence is merely anecdotal from members of the hospitality group.
THEN
Screaming across to the other side, dumping their libertarian disdain for policy designed to save lives in nightclubs, they platform calls for even stricter policies on COP26 where people will not be junping around spraying aerosols in each other’s faces.
We hear that a ‘leading health expert has warned that tighter restrictions will be the inevitable consequence if sustained growth in Covid cases in Scotland can’t be curbed.’
Remember Covid cases are currently flat in Scotland, in sharp contrast to and far lower than, those in England and Wales:
Who is the leading health expert? It’s Gillian Evans, Head of Health Intelligence, NHS Grampian. She’s just a local health board officer who seems to have replaced those real leading experts, much more commonly present in UK media, profs Sridhar and Bauld. Why is Evans the new go to? She says what they want? Oh, Aberdeen? Is she one of Pennington’s students?
I’d agree COP26 is a bad idea and a bit of a risk but probably less than football matches and nightclubs. Also, its very clearly a UK Government event. Shouldn’t they be responsible for some of this?
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
COP26 is likely to cause a rise in cases. Humza says so. It’s utter madness to run this event given the prevalence of infections.
For whatever reasons SG has no control over this event hosted by UK.
But SG still not tightening mitigations in spite of a steady creep in case rate over last 2 weeks.
Many delegates will be unvaccinated and rely on daily self administered 40% accurate LFTs. This potential disaster is UK gov’s responsibility.
Remember what happened in Cornwall after G7, it lasting only 3 days.
SG could act now to impose additional mitigations outside of COP26 including gatherings etc. but they are feart of unpopular measures and unwilling to admit they have no input on how UK handles the (as Thunberg says) Blah Blah Blah and superspreader event.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Might it be a matter of £’s? Scottish government are mitigating English governments’ huge cuts to the poorest, dealing with Covid against huge odds, having to deal with the most dreadful administration down in London, etc?
English government are wrecking Scotland’s economy with their Brexit on top of Covid I fear the Scottish block grant, the crumbs the English government condescends to send back to Scotland once they’ve taken their cut of Scotland’s hugely lucrative revenues, and raided Scotland’s resources, must be shrinking and therefore really stretching things financially for Scotland.
COP26 should be held in London, or online, Scotland is being used by the English government and nothing good will come out of it, particularly for Scotland.
LikeLiked by 3 people
‘steady creep in case rate over last 2 weeks.?’
From a 7 day average of around 2 400 to 7 day average of…….around 2 400?
LikeLiked by 1 person
John,
In the town where I live the number of cases between the 14th to 20th Oct rose from 59 to 71. They had fallen from a high of 79 just 3-4 weeks ago to 42 then started to rise again. A small sample I know but indicative of the general lack of stability at the moment. When numbers do fall they are not falling far enough to stop or slow a rebound.
In this case I suspect the October school break contributed to the rise. Lots of people headed off hither and yon and came back with more than a stick of rock.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Sure but Alex was referring to the national figures
LikeLike
Yes he was when he wrote: “”…in spite of a steady creep in case rate over last 2 weeks.””
My comment merely re-inforced what he said by giving an example of that ‘creep’ at a local level.
I think you were the one who appeared to question his statement when you inserted a question mark into his quote.
LikeLike
I make the second value 2515 admittedly not much higher than 2400 but these are daily new cases . Since start of Oct France, 12 times Scotland’s population has averaged 5000 new cases per day.
Case counts are important. Hospitalisation and deaths are in proportion.
Since October France’s daily deaths have not exceeded 50.
They have achieved this through stricter rules on masks and vaccine passes than we implement. Also 12-17 yrs are fully vaccinated in france.
LikeLike
It was an interesting opening from Reporting Scotland.
The line that 500 people had to be turned away from venues for not having a Covid Passport or even a fraudulent one, tried to imply that a fraudulent one was an acceptable way to gain entry was incredible!
I suspect that yes some people did chance their arm trying to get into venues and were turned away, but in the main it was a successful introduction and Reporting Scotland have as usual, a petted lip.
LikeLiked by 5 people
I noticed that the later BBC Scotland reports in the morning, seemed to have edited out the “or even a fraudulent one” line, but the number of folk turned away has now gone up to 550.
Aye, so it has..
LikeLiked by 4 people
And how many night venues are there in Scotland? I suspect that 150/200 is a conservative estimate. So, we are speaking of 3-4 people per venue on average. If each venue has between 50 and 100 patrons, we are taking about 8% at most.
It is probably a requirement for recruitment to journalism courses that competence with statistics rules you out, unless you know how to misuse them.
LikeLike
“the number of folk turned away has now gone up to 550.”
Poor souls. They must have been hanging around all night. Did no-one tell them the event(s) had finished? 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interestingly John, the “unmitigated disaster” was quoted in a National article, amongst other direct quotes from the Mundell double-act’s pal Stephen Montgomery from Lockerbie, speaking of course on behalf of the industry…🙄
Now how many bouncers have you heard of counting those turned away and noting for what reason ?
LikeLike