the railways is expected.
BBC Scotland this morning, tell us that around half of the draft bills in the King’s Speech will apply ‘here in some shape or form’ including re-nationalising the railways (mibbe).
What, again, like you told us more than two years ago?
They remember that all too well but are hoping you don’t so that they can suggest UK Labour will be doing this good thing for you.
How’s that earlier re-nationalisation going in Scotland?
Not so strangely, BBC Scotland don’t seem to have this:
SCOTRAIL is one of the UK’s most reliable train operators, a new study has suggested.
The company was ranked fourth in analysis of official figures for the country’s 24 major train companies that focused on the percentage of journeys cancelled or delayed by 15 minutes or more.
The study indicated 3.61% of ScotRail journeys between January 2021 and September 2023 were seriously late or cancelled on average.
According to the analysis by Tripplo – which used date from the Office of Rail and Road – the most reliable train operator in the UK during the period in question was Greater Anglia, which runs services in East Anglia.
Talking-up Scotland 
BBC North Brit—Scots paying for anti-Scotland propaganda.
gavinochiltree
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The criticism of Scotrail has been coming thick and fast from unionist politicians and their supporters on SM. The usual stuff – you know – SNP SG can’t do anything right – ferries, trains, NHS, you name it, the SG makes a mess of it. These people are a scourge on this country. They even manage to depress me for five minutes so I’m guessing they must be very unhappy folk. Day after day posting such negative thoughts has to affect them personally.
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no-one with a decent heart can behave the way they all have for decades. Their slurs on Scotland and Scots comes from all the things deep inside them that they despise about themselves. They are truly miserable-hearted people.
when I watch and listen to them I am always reminded of the weedy wee guy who hung around with the playground bully, always thankful for the sweetie they were given from the bag the bully bought with the dinner money he had taken from him that morning.
Aye, miserable.
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It breaks my heart to say it but the worst offenders are Scottish.
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How much time has the BBC given to the Holyrood Parliament’s Act incorporating the UNCRC coming into effect on Tuesday?
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That’s a rhetorical question isn’t it?
But just in case: The answer is of course Zero.
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Any slur and lie is used in the anti Scottish campaign, yesterday on Facebook it was the turn of Scotland’s tartan army, a call for Scotland to be banned from European tournaments because of appalling fan behaviour racking up fines of over 200,000 euros, the highest of any participating country. The reality, Scotland was 20th out of 24 with just €9,000, England 18th with €12,000. Croatia was the worst at over €200,000.
Deliberate, insidious and sleekit.
Golfnut
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It may be hard for many – perhaps the majority(?) – of folk in Scotland who are not glued to the weekly goings on in politics and the constant implementation of economic, social and environmental policies by the Scottish Government to resist the feeling that Scotland is crap. So often that’s the message relentlessly pushed. And on days like today in Westminster with the ‘King’s Speech’, it may seem like we in North Britain live in a backwater.
It takes determination and effort to fill the ‘positivity void’ created and sustained by the BBC and most of the mainstream media that supposedly serves Scotland. Hopefully every little countering, positive insight can help.
On July 17, 2024 CityAM has this headline: ‘‘We have to rethink the narrative’: Mariana Mazzucato on how Labour should address an era of crisis’ In the article we learn this: ‘Starmer has jumped on the ideas of Mariana Mazzucato and the work done by the institute she set up, the Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP).’ (my emphasis)
‘The IIPP is trying to refashion the way policymakers think about economics to enable governments to meet these looming challenges. ‘
And: ‘Starmer has wholeheartedly embraced the concept of missions. The Labour manifesto included five missions, including growing the economy and fixing the NHS, which will define Starmer’s tenure’. Adding: ‘There’s no doubting where he got the idea from. In a New Statesman article Starmer cited Mazzucato by name. Not long ago Starmer and Mazzucato spoke for two hours on the concept of mission-driven government.’
The Telegraph also ran a story (by Matt Oliver) entitled ‘The star economist who inspired Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘missions’. Its states ‘The University College London (UCL) academic’s signature idea – “mission-driven” government – is about to be put into practise by Sir Keir Starmer following Labour’s landslide election victory.’
Mariana Mazzucato is professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London and founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. She is clearly someone who’s views are regarded as credible and important. She has just co-written an article for Social Europe (July 17) entitled ‘What Labour needs to succeed – Labour’s mission-oriented industrial strategy for the UK requires a restructuring of how government operates.’
Interestingly, in it she writes this: ‘The UK government can find useful models in the London Borough of Camden’s community-wealth fund and the Scottish National Investment Bank (which were informed by our institute’s work), as well as Germany’s KfW development bank, the Brazilian Development Bank and the Canadian Infrastructure Bank.’
The Scottish National Investment Bank? What’s that I hear lot’s of voters in Scotland asking? How many in Scotland know of what it does? How many could even conceive of it being a forerunner (launched in 2020) of – far less identified as a ‘useful model’ for – the new Labour government and its much-vaunted mission-oriented industrial strategy for the whole of the UK?
However, in the CityAM article Professor Mazzucato expresses doubt about Labour’s intentions: ‘One of the big obstacles preventing Labour from fully embracing a mission-oriented approach is the current set of fiscal rules, she says. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has committed herself to “iron-clad” fiscal rules, which will prevent the government from making meaningful investments unless it also raises taxes.
‘Andy Haldane, formerly chief economist at the Bank of England, said that Labour’s current public spending plans amount to little more than “a weekend’s GDP“.
‘Mazzucato urged the government to confront its investment-phobia. “To get the economy growing, the government needs to see the role of public investment as investment and not a cost,” she said. “I just worry that, if the narrative continues that ‘there’s no money, we have to wait for growth to occur’ they are forgetting that growth actually occurs through bold ambitious public investment, which catalyses private sector investment,” she said.’
On 28 August 2020, the Scottish Government published this: ‘Scottish National Investment Bank missions: consultation‘. It noted: ‘Support for a Mission-Oriented Approach – The Bank will adopt a mission-oriented approach when providing finance, with missions set by the Scottish Government as recommended in the Bank’s Implementation Plan’. And it acknowledged: ‘In 2019, A Mission-Oriented Framework for the Scottish National Investment Bank (written by Professor Mariana Mazzucato and Laurie Macfarlane from the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)) was published.’
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“To get the economy growing, the government needs to see the role of public investment as investment and not a cost……” pretty much describes the problem which has so dominated UK economic thinking since the 1970s, the only growth industry has been debt…
You’d think after 50 years of getting it so totally wrong the penny would have dropped to try something different…
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A mistake or an invidious placement of bad news to ensure football fans know how bad things are:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/scottish-premiership
The second story, “17-year-old boy dies at Polmont Young Offenders Institution”
It’s been there 2 hours with no link to football that I can find within it.
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