On BBC Radio 4’s Fixing Britain with Louise Casey, a powerful account of the SNP leader’s competence married with deep humanity, at 11.45 mins in, for 20 mins.
Casey says:
I’m not somebody that listens to party conference speeches on the whole but there was something she was saying that totally grabbed my attention and I thought ‘Wow!’
You need to listen to it.
This is a fascinating and deeply moving account of a great politician but one for whom the Scottish media and opposition party chums is their greatest fear.
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
Yes. Reporting Scotland did a hatchet job on it. The baleful splenetic attitude and arrogance is contemptible.
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Very unusual to hear a positive about Scotland coming over the airwaves. Excellent, high praise.
Need to see if I can edit the audio file from the Edinburgh train announcer on, for posting onwards.
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I posted this as an O/T btl contribution on another TuS thread earlier today. It belongs here: it reinforces the points made in the main blog post. I hope you will allow me to re-post it, with apologies for length.
BBC Scotland doesn’t miss a trick! On the Scotland page of the BBC News website today (4 January) there is this headline: ‘Nicola Sturgeon warns flagship care plan may not be meeting goals’.
The article is based on a contribution the former FM gave to a BBC Radio 4 series earlier this week called ‘Fixing Britain’. Given the nature of the programmes (see later), I wonder (!) what prompted BBC Scotland to include this in its daily news/politics coverage? The article quotes a Tory politician in Scotland with a typical ‘SNPbad’ comment so might BBC Scotland have been given a late Christmas gift?
This is what the BBC tells us about the focus and objectives of the series to which the former FM contributed (with my emphasis): ‘Baroness Casey, Louise Casey, continues her series looking at the challenges facing whoever wins the next general election. DELVING INTO THE REASONS WHY FIVE MAJOR SOCIAL POLICY PROBLEMS ON WHICH SHE HAS WORKED REMAIN UNSOLVED, she looks at QUESTIONS OF GOVERNANCE AND POLITICAL COMPLEXITY, and asks WHAT WE NEED FROM OUR GOVERNMENT, AT EVERY LEVEL, TO MAKE THINGS WORK BETTER.’
The programme’s website tells us this about the 4 January 2023 episode which focused on men’s violence against women and children: ‘Speaking to people from across the political spectrum who have worked hard to improve the effectiveness and sensitivity of the criminal justice system’s response to these crimes, SHE TRIES TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF WHY THEY HAVE NOT BEEN MORE EFFECTIVE.’ I can find no follow up BBC News website article politicising contributions to the discussion in this episode!
On 1 January 2023, on rough sleeping – an area Casey has helped ‘fix – twice, first under Labour then under the Conservatives. WHY HAS THE PROBLEM – TWICE FIXED – TWICE RESURFACED?’ : ‘ she examines WHAT IT WILL TAKE INSIDE GOVERNMENT TO FIX IT AGAIN, AND KEEP IT FIXED’. I can find no follow up BBC News website article politicising the contributions made to this episode!
On the 3 January 2023 focused on children in care: Casey ‘asks what prevents GOVERNMENTS taking a comprehensive approach to the problem. And as she speaks to care experienced people and hears HOW THEY SAW SCOTLAND’S INDEPENDENT CARE REVIEW AS A STEP FORWARD, she examines what is preventing progress on implementing it.’
By chance, I happened to hear this episode and my reaction was one of ‘surprise’: here was a BBC programme affording reasoned, indeed positive coverage of Ms Sturgeon who was being profiled as a pragmatic, committed and thoughtful politician with something valuable to say about acknowledged and intrinsic difficulties in implementing major policy changes faced by governments – which in essence is the overall theme of Casey’s series!
Returning to the BBC Scotland piece, it quotes another contribution to the programme on children in care, someone (a policy officer?) from the charity ‘Who Cares? Scotland’. The individual is quoted saying “despite cross-party support, the PLAN HAD FAILED TO DELIVER MEANINGFUL CHANGE” and “So we really need to have a look at what we’re doing and how we get this back on track because we’re already four years into a 10-year implementation plan.”
In the same BBC Scotland article, this is followed immediately by: ‘Scottish Conservative deputy education spokeswoman Roz McCall said vulnerable children were “paying the price” for INACTION. “Nicola Sturgeon might not be fronting up The Promise any longer, but Humza Yousaf cannot continue to let Scotland’s children down and must urgently outline how it will be delivered, four years on from when it was first pledged,” she said.’
So let’s try to get some perspective: where better to look than the very same charity ‘Who cares? Scotland’? This is from its Annual Report for 2022.
‘FOREWORD: It’s no understatement to say that the period of our Strategic Plan 2018-2022 REPRESENTS ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ERAS FOR THE CARE EXPERIENCED COMMUNITY IN SCOTLAND’.
We also learn about: ‘…. significant investment in Care Experienced people, from funders including the Scottish Government, Local Authorities, corporate partners, trusts and foundations and individual donors.’ and ‘Our independent advocacy service is funded by local authorities and, more recently, by the Scottish Government via the Advocacy in Children’s Hearings contract.’
And: ‘With funding from the Scottish Government, we processed over 1,100 requests for assistance for Care Experienced people as part of the Winter Aid programme, providing over £175,000 in direct funding for food and fuel to individuals and families who needed it most.’
Yes, the report does also state that ‘there is more work to be done’ – when is that ever NOT so – but the Annual Report throughout has a positive emphasis that is markedly different from the unqualified, damning ‘failed to deliver meaningful change’ from the same charity’s representative that the BBC Scotland article focuses on.
Source https://www.whocaresscotland.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Who-Cares-Scotland-Annual-Report-2022-1.pdf
And in its new, 2023-2027 strategic planning document, the charity states: ‘We successfully supported Care Experienced people to secure the First Minister’s commitment to a root and branch review of care in 2016, leading to the Independent Care Review of 2017-2020. We welcome the conclusion of that review, The Promise, and whilst WE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE ROAD TO TRUE TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE IS LONG, we are ready to play our part.’
The SNP government led by Ms Sturgeon introduced progressive, ambitious, radical and important policy changes regarding care of vulnerable children. The same politician in a radio programme focused on the challenges of implementing big policy changes in government – any government; acknowledges specific and intrinsic challenges and problems with implementation of this specific policy; and emphasises her commitment to stick with the task of achieving the policy objectives even as a back-bencher. A charity implies on air ‘failure’ whilst in other communications it offers a much more balanced, positive viewpoint. BBC Scotland amplifies the most negative comments without perspective, adds a dash of Tory outrage and pumps out a news story with a negative frame – politics in Scotland as usual!
From Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland in his blog dated 7 September 2021: “Our collective appetite for risk-taking and innovation, and how we hold public sector leaders to account, also needs to shift. If every ‘failure’ results in hostile media and political scrutiny, we will never encourage creativity, entrepreneurial thinking and risk-taking in how we deliver public services. I’m not suggesting accountability isn’t important, far from it. But we have to give our leaders the space, time and incentives to take managed risks.” A message for BBC Scotland and others likely to be ignored?
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Wise words from the Auditor General. It’s telling that an office-bearer who must maintain political neutrality as a fundamental tenet of his job
seems to be the only person to flag-up the venomous political bias of the Mainstream Media in Scotland.
Coinneach
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Thanks John, I listened to the programme this evening and it was so good to be reminded of Nicola’s decency and empathy, both much underestimated in the political scene
I also watched the Mr Bates v the post office drama. If there are any folk out there desperate to see the SNP lose ground at the next election and ready to use the party fund “scandal” as a means to hit out at the indy movement I think they should consider carefully the possibility of finding themselves labelled as opportunists using smears and innuendo to find fault when there is no evidence of wrongdoing. This also applies to members of the press and police who ignore or fail to properly investigate allegations, why they were made, actual evidence and who benefits from the prolonged investigation
Thankfully I really do believe that most fair minded folk will not be swayed by unproven attacks on any individual’s character or integrity just because BBC Scotland implies there is wrongdoing and alba supporters should also consider their position on this. We will and have moved on but claims found to be false or exaggerated for political purposes won’t be forgotten or forgiven
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