Talking-up Scotland costs nothing so donate to our friends at https://www.broadcastingscotland.scot/donate/ or take out a subscription to the monthly Scots Independent newspaper in which I have a column, at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/product-category/subscriptions/
Today, in the Scotsman, Barry Black, with no mention of who or what he might be, is allowed to suggest the Scottish Government is underfunding schools.
Black was on BBC Scotland’s The Nine, last November, to tell a few viewers that the Scottish Government was failing to close attainment gaps. you can read the response here: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/11/24/scotsman-and-bbc-let-labour-candidate-and-just-a-student-pretend-to-be-an-independent-researcher-and-to-make-big-mistakes-on-attainment/
Who is he?
Introduced as a ‘researcher’ on BBC Scotland’s The Nine and in the Scotsman the next day as a ‘postgraduate researcher’ and by himself as ‘In the second year of saying ‘I’m in the final year of my PhD’, Barry Black is a ‘student‘ and Labour candidate for Aberdeen Central in 2021.
Back to his suggestion of underfunding schools.
Simple but not so, for this PhD (kind-off) student. From the Institute for Fiscal Studies, April 2023:
In the most recent year (2022–23), school spending per pupil in Scotland was over £8,500. This is over 18% or £1,300 higher than the level seen in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, all around £7,200 per pupil. School spending per pupil in Scotland was already 6% higher than in England in 2010. Since then, the gap with the rest of the UK has significantly grown.
https://ifs.org.uk/news/growing-gap-school-spending-pupil-between-scotland-and-rest-uk#:~:text=In%20the%20most%20recent%20year,than%20in%20England%20in%202010.
I rest my……..weary soul.
Latest, wee addition, thanks to https://twitter.com/1tutree
Talking-up Scotland costs nothing so donate to our friends at https://www.broadcastingscotland.scot/donate/ or take out a subscription to my favourite, nearly 100 year-old, paper-based, to your door, Scots Independent newspaper, at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/product-category/subscriptions/
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
why is he allowed to lie like that without punishment?
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It’s the Britishit way.
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The Tories cut education funding £6Billion a year from 2015. £48Billion.
The % of the population that go to Uni, colleges and apprenticeships, is highest in the world, in Scotland. 30% of pupils go to university. 25% mature students. 55%+, 7% EU students + foreign students paying the full cost. The next highest is Canada 56%.
The Scottish Gov have to mitigate the UK cuts.
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BLACK THE LABOUR MAN EH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Is he studying in Scotland, if so er, tuition fees.
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if he is a PhD student tuition fees don’t apply. Usually funding is via research grant from one of the research bodies. The PhD student gets an ‘income’ per year and the Uni gets some money too. But as an undergraduate his tuition fees would have been paid for him by the SG
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Quick look via the Scottish Daily Express, in 2023 he was told to apologise for dissing the coronation via a tweet, saying ‘f..k the coronation’. Apparently he ‘came close’ to nabbing the ‘NE regional’ list seat in 2017 and has stood as candidate a couple of times. He is a former adviser to Labour’s branch office in Scotland on, education. Looks like he needs to do more studying and get his facts right..oh dear, PhD eh.
Studies at Glasgow Uni. He wrote this…I wonder where he stands on er, tuition fees. Hmm.
https://www.ubdc.ac.uk/news-media/2020/january/why-parliament-was-right-to-want-a-curriculum-review-by-barry-black/
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Keir Starmer on the Welsh Labour Government….
“Sir Keir Starmer has twice declined to repeat his previous claim that Welsh Labour was his “blueprint” for power”.
“Speaking ahead of the Labour Party conference, he admitted that he “can’t pretend” there are not challenges in his relationship with the Welsh Labour government”.
(that will be addressed I am sure once (if) Starmer get’s his man in Wales to replace Mark Drakeford who, as the current Welsh FM, tends to ‘go off message’ as far as Starmer is concerned…. in him, Drakeford, often concurring with our FM’s in Scotland in highlighting whose to (really) blame for many of the woes suffered by all devolved governments…as in the Tory UK Govt……and if Labour get in power at a UK level then the SNP will still be in the same position that they are in now with the Tories…..that is up against a hostile UK Govt who will play at party politics) …..of course the Scottish government do manage to often cope much better than Wales in Labour as a devolved government on public services….and are also actually doing something to ease the burden of a Tory cost of living crisis one example being the Scottish Child payment.
He, Starmer, also said…..
“What we’ve got at the moment is a Westminster government that just is in constant conflict with the Welsh government.
“In the end, that doesn’t really help anybody”.
Then we have the stark contrast in tone and presentation and apparently not a position where we have a “Westminster government that just is in constant conflict with the”….. Scottish government.…..as we had……
Keir Starmer partisan opinion on the Scottish government (SNP) as in part of Keir Starmer’s speech (playing party politics) at Labour in Scotland’s party conference:
“Seventeen years of SNP failure in Holyrood”
“I mean, look around this nation. Drug deaths – off the scale. Schools – going backwards. Buses that cost a fortune. Those ferries, still not serving the Island communities who need them”.
“A terrible crisis in our NHS. Ambulances – queuing up outside A&E. Patients who need treatment, waiting inside”
“He (our FM) says: “Let’s send a message to Westminster”. “Send a message”.
“With all the problems this nation faces. That is the level of his ambition for Scotland. “Send a message”.
“Conference, I’m afraid this is the story of the SNP now. They’re not interested in fixing Scotland’s problems. They want to exploit them”.
“The mask has slipped. The pretence they were ever interested in improving the lives of working people. Rather than using their problems as fuel for their grand cause. That has been exposed”.
“You can’t tell me – Scotland does not deserve better. Because it does. And we will deliver it. A new Scotland. A new Britain. Bound together, again. By an old partnership”.
So then what will Starmer , at the Welsh Labour conference , judge the state of the Welsh NHS to be in and who is to blame, child poverty not being addressed in Wales in the same way it is being addressed in Scotland (note Starmer never mentioned that as on of the many (so called) failures that he listed and attributed as solely down to the SNP at the Labour party conference in Scotland) and given his excuses prior to the Welsh Labour conference I am tempted to think that all hardships (failures) for Welsh Labour, will be by excused Starmer in his speech there (fleeting visit), as yet another opportunity for him to solely blame the Tory UK Govt.
Check out Open Democracy website on another Labour Dark Money investigation on 6 March 2024 entitled ““Labour puts lobbyists on the ballot – and big business is the winner” and read that and then judge the real Starmer’s Labour party …..as in the one where Steve Bannon (ex Trump advisor) in a LBC interview stated his profound “admiration for Keir Starmer”, where he (Bannon) stated he has “always been very impressed by Sir Keir.” and this he, Bannon, said was much to do with the ‘direction’ he, Starmer, was taking the Labour party in……that is I am sure more Starmer’s main focus for big business interests and not as he, Starmer, states as Labour now being a “party for the working man”.
Perhaps more working men and women need to explore Labour’s activities ‘behind the scenes’ and listen to who is now praising them as a party which would then expose them, Labour, as nowt more than another Tory party in waiting….including all of the flaws and deception that have repelled many ordinary voters away from the Tories……as in their , Tory, allegiance that favours and delivers ‘For the Few not the Many’ ….now very much being adopted by Starmer’s New New Labour party……
Once you allow your party (Labour) to be compromised by donors and their needs and wants……………you then are willingly relinquishing all power to them as major Donors to your party’s coffers in the policies you then intend to adopt and the decisions that you make….. which then results in the same kind of situation and also the very bad place everyone (mostly ordinary people that is) now find themselves enduring with the current (Tory) party in government within the UK…….
A Labour UK government will offer no “Change” to Scotland as they (both behind the scenes and in their Toryfied policies they intend to maintain and support) are duplicating the very same bad behaviour as the Tories…..if you vote Labour in the next GE you are voting for a continuation of all that the Tories have done and are doing….and to quote Keir Starmer above “In the end, that doesn’t really help anybody”….
NMRN
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@ Me above
Note , as omitted, comments made by Starmer re Welsh government was in October 2023…..prior to Labour (UK) conference…..and context re Welsh Labour conference was in relation to their next conference in 2024.
NMRN
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Of Topic https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/liz-truss-flight-catering-australia-taxpayer-b2508916.html
An ipad comes to mind…
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@ Niall Campbell Morrison @ 1.04pm
Well spotted…..
I too read about that….and also noted via Politico.eu who wrote:
“The bill from the 2022 visit via private jet cost British taxpayers more than £1,400 per head for the 12 government representatives on the trip, while a journey two months earlier to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand led to a bill for £12,700 in catering, the equivalent of £1,300 per head”
But oh aye as you say….iPad……and then a resignation ensued via those always asked to resign (Scottish government Ministers) while others (Tory ministers and PM’s) are given carte blanche to do as they wish with no recrimination or consequences….while the Tory Pot Kettle Black branch office division once more excuses (ignore) their masters and mistresses at Tory HQ blatantly taking the proverbial P…..mind you that is also what the Tory (and other) branch office division also does too…..
Do as WE say not as WE do…..on a loop.
NMRN
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Labour subjected a councillor to a SIX-HOUR-LONG interrogation after she voted for a Gaza ceasefire!
(Sourced via another Indy site Munguins Republic)
Councillor Sonia Winifred issues statement about her resignation, declaring no faith in Lambeth Council’s leadership….
Her resignation statement :
“Taking the decision to resign my seat as Labour Councillor for Knights Hill Ward was one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make.
I have lived in Lambeth since 1965 arriving in this country to join my parents who as Members of the Windrush Generation came to establish a better life.
Throughout my career I have served the community in Lambeth, my career began as community Librarian in Lambeth Libraries, and in May 2014, I was elected Labour Councillor for Knights Hill Ward, one of the proudest moments of my life!
I have continued to work, live, and serve this wonderfully diverse community through listening on the doorstep, regular canvassing, carrying out monthly Councillor Surgeries.
For 10 years I have served with enthusiasm and commitment never becoming complacent, never forgetting I was elected by the community to serve the community, to listen and speak on their behalf ensuring their voices are heard loud and clear in the Council Chamber.
This is exactly what I did on Wednesday 24th January by voting FOR the Motion calling for Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza/Israel conflict bringing an end to hostilities.
During my 6-hour trial I was questioned on collective responsibility, whether I had considered the impact of my voting FOR the motion on my fellow Councillors.
My response was clear, I have every respect for my fellow Councillors, however, collective responsibility does not begin and end in the Labour Group Room. It extends beyond to my constituents and the wider community, those who elected me to speak on their behalf.
This is not how I imagined ending my career in Politics in Lambeth, the events of 24th January are clear, my actions are clear.
I remain a member of the Lambeth community, and I will continue to support my community, the events on Monday 26th February which I refer to as my trial, was the most hostile, aggressive, and humiliating environment I have ever encountered in my 10 years as a Labour Councillor.
To that end, I no longer have any confidence in the Leadership/Administration of Lambeth Council”
Councillor Sonia Winifred
…………I have highlighted in bold some of her statement.
Seems as if Labour HQ has more that unites them than divides them with Tory HQ in their same dictatorial attitude to those who will NOT toe the ‘party’ line.….because trust me this stems from Labour HQ…..where no one is allowed to be their “own man” ( take note Michael Shanks….though I believe he has no problem doing what HQ wants via his voting record and too his vocal support of HQ decisions…..as in he is just another Labour HQ man in Scotland…..as opposed to him being a Scottish Labour MP……no such thing actually)…………
NMRN
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@ Me @ 2.37pm
Note re the Labour councillor resigning ….Tris at ‘Munguins New Republic’ said this was sourced via ArtyHetty who also contributes on this site also….well spotted ArtyHetty.
🙂
NMRN
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All the Tories are resigning before they get voted out.
Barry Black keeps on standing in constituencies where he has got no chance.
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