In the Opinium poll today for the Tony Blair Institute, taking out the ‘don’t knows’, 57% of Scots think that the Scottish Government has handled crime fairly or very badly.
Is this because regardless of the real-terms decline in crime under the SNP, clear in the line graph above, from 2007, news reporting and TV drama construct a reality in which many still feel at least as much at risk as they did 20 years ago?
Objectively all forms of crime in Scotland have halved in the last two decades, homicide is barely a third of the level, violent crime overall has stuck but remains around 20% down and, notably violent crime in England & Wales is almost twice the level of Scotland.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Ignoring facts has become the trademark of so much of the media where SNP Scotland is involved .
BBCscorchedland and Misreporting Scotland would love to resort to Taggartisation of the news every day –
”There’s been another murder in SNP Scotland and the First Minister did nothing to prevent it – report by James Cook , who has seen the emails which put the blame squarely at the feet of the Scottish Government .”
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It must pain the British nationalists in London to know that Scotland is no longer the crime ridden north of the north region of the Uk that it was under British nationalist rule. How dare that SNP start to repair the terrible societal neglect and damage of London rule, which for too long defined the identity of Scotland, aside tartan and bagpipes. (I like tartan and bagpipes).
It’s just amazing anyone in Scotland believes any of the British nationalists’ propaganda channels such as the BBC et al, which is at war with Scottish democracy.
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Your final paragraph says it all A.H. And therein lies a problem. Having canvassed for many years, both for Independence, and the S.N.P, I can assure you that an awful lot of Scots do believe the garbage they watch, listen or read from the M.S.M.
I’m in my 80s, but I gain hope from, especially my grand-children ,and great-grand-children, who never do any of the above three, and are firmly for an Independent Scotland.
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On ‘crime’, there is an example of the ‘circular economy’ of media misrepresentation on the BBC News website today. In an article entitled: ‘Rutherglen and Hamilton West: ‘A lot of SNP voters lost a little faith’ we learn this:
‘Kieran Paterson, 26, also from Rutherglen, decided not to go to the polls this time. ….. The security worker has voted in the past but said it has been quite a while. He said if politicians want to see him at the polling station for the next general election THEY WOULD NEED TO TACKLE CRIME IN THE LOCAL AREA.’
Omit to or misinform the public; then interview a member of that ill-informed public to obtain their ill-informed views; amplify these views as if they are statistically significant in an article purporting to take stock of public sentiment in advance of a general election.
Remember this on TuS recently: ‘Cop Cuts’ – As by-election looms reminder of the facts on plummeting crime in Rutherglen and across Scotland yet superior staffing levels in Scotland’
(https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/10/03/cop-cuts-as-by-election-looms-reminder-of-the-facts-on-plummeting-crime-in-rutherglen-and-across-scotland-yet-superior-staffing-levels-in-scotland/)
The article is notable in other ways. It reports interviews with c.8 people from the constituency, voters and abstainers. These include two who voted SNP. Judge for yourself how statistically representative these two might be!
One is quoted saying: ‘”I think a lot of people lost faith a little bit. Especially trying to push a second referendum, that’s kind of in the past, we need to focus on what’s now.” This individual wants the SNP to ‘tackle domestic violence’.
Another SNP voter is quoted saying: “I’m so sad that we won’t get independence.”
In another BBC News article headlined ‘Rutherglen and Hamilton West: Labour ‘blew the doors off’ in by-election win – Starmer’ the very same framing is adopted – must be seen as useful! We’re told that an SNP voter – the same one as previously – told the BBC reporter ‘ the SNP needed to stop pushing for a second referendum’.
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John, I agree about media influence, and the public are of course badly misled about the powers of the Scottish Government.
However, I’m not sure where you got the 57% figure for the responses on Crime in the Tony Blair poll.
For Crime, the poll results from 1004 responses were –
Very well 60
Fairly well 196
Neither well nor badly 253
Fairly badly 213
Very badly 176
Don’t know 106
So Fairly/Very badly = 39%.
And excluding the Don’t knows, I get 43.3%.
More importantly, I find it odd that everyone ignores those who say ‘Neither well nor badly’, who average about 25% across the questions on how well the Scottish Government has handled the 7 issues.
If I was asked about (say) Housing, I might think they’d done OK, and that would equate to answering ‘Neither well nor badly’.
So I’m going to add the results for Very well, Fairly well and OK, and call that Fine. I’ll compare that with Fairly badly plus Very badly, which I’ll call Not fine. All excluding Don’t knows.
Fine Not fine
NHS 53% 47%
Schools 61% 39%
Crime 57% 43%
Rail 62% 38%
Drugs 49% 51%
Housing 54% 46%
Poverty 52% 48%
Given the media distortions, I think that’s blooming marvellous.
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I wrote this. There was a mammoth cockup when I tried to post the comment using the Edge browser, which I’d never done before. so it ended up being Anonymous.
I’d be interested if anyone has a comment on how I’ve rejigged the data, preferably positive or negative rather than just OK. 😉
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