By Professor John Robertson OBA
No UK media outlet has gone beyond blaming the NHS and the police in Nottingham for the above tragedy, after 3 years of failure to treat the killer, despite repeated reports of the risk he posed.
The new Health Secretary for England, Wes Streeting, has even joined in to agree that the police and NHS have ‘blood on their hands.’
Curiously, he does not blame the previous Conservative Government for cuts to these two services, over several years.
The Health Secretary for England, at the time, Steve Barclay, is not mentioned once, far less photographed.
Yet in Scotland, in 2019, after delays to a new hospital:
At first minister’s questions on Thursday, Scottish Conservative interim leader Jackson Carlaw criticised the “absolute shambles” surrounding the new hospital. And he accused Health Secretary Jeanne Freeman of doing “too little, too late” to address the problems with the project.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard asked Ms Sturgeon whether she understood “just how angry people are about this?” He said: “We’ve got a children’s hospital in Edinburgh that can’t open its doors, and we were reminded at the weekend that we have a hospital in Glasgow built by the same contractor that has been closing its doors to a children’s cancer ward.
Or in 2021 when the Scottish Health Secretary may have broken the ministerial code by revealing the location of a secret vaccine storage facility:
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Donald Cameron said Ms Freeman had failed to properly respect the confidentiality of sensitive information. He has written to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon asking her to investigate whether the errors amounted to a breach of the ministerial code.
Why might the media have reported on the possible part played by staff cuts in health and policing?
From the BMA, in December 2022, a special report on Nottingham:
The evidence suggests this deterioration in health is driven by austerity politics – political and economic decisions taken by successive governments.
Billions of pounds have been cut from public services and social security since 2010, decimating welfare and the social safety net and there are now far fewer services promoting good health.
People are dying younger, as a result, with the poorest areas hit the hardest. According to the Glasgow Centre for Population Health an additional 335,000 deaths have been caused by austerity in the five years before the pandemic – more than from the first two and a half years of Covid-19.
Cuts to central government funding for local government have meant cuts to public services that are essential to health – including housing, transport, children’s services, leisure and public health.
The tales of tragedy are everywhere you look. When The Doctor visits The Friary there is a man slumped outside the front doors – knocked out due to heavy use of the synthetic cannabinoid mamba, also known as spice. He has been in and out of an emergency department, crisis teams have been involved but because he has no home the authorities say there is no safe place for them to conduct a mental health assessment.
Doctors across the city are deeply worried. Dr Turrill says: ‘I think it [the cost of living crisis] will push more people into that position [mental health crisis].
The cost-of-living crisis is also likely to lead to a rise in demand for emergency and mental health care over the coming winter, including an above 10 per cent increase in inpatient mental health admissions and above 5 per cent increases in outpatient mental health contacts, 111 and 999 calls. Above 5 per cent additional funding would be required for mental health and emergency department services to cope.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I can understand the reaction of the families of the victims of these appalling killings for which there was no motive.
While investigations have to be made to try to identify why things happened, these almost always degenerate into blaming with blaming being an end in itself. That is what our nasty media do – they blame people.
But, much of the blaming is scapegoating of people who are usually fairly low down the chain of decision making and, in many cases, such people have made errors. But these errors often arise because of low levels of staffing, poor resourcing, high levels of stress.
The root of the problem is the neoliberal economic paradigm which has become dominant in much of the west since the 1970s. It has been exacerbated by the attack on what they balefully call bureaucracy/red tape/ bumbledom, which were the justifications for the ‘slashing of red tape’, ‘the bonfire of regulations’ and weakening of trade union and human rights. Council and other public services have been largely privatised and companies have a prime duty of ‘maximising shareholder return’. That is theu must make huge profits for the rentier capitalists while providing a very poor service, feebly monitored by placemen in regulatory bodies.
If blame is to be given it should be given to the Tories (and LibDems) who were in power these previous 14 years, but also to Blair and Bodger Broon and their ‘new’ Labour cronies, who did a fair amount of privatising. Starmer and Reeves appear to be of that mindset.
Alasdair Macdonald
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This is the pattern we see when there are any tragic incidents and scandals that occur in England.
In England any NHS tragic events and scandals are presented as the sole responsibility of that respective NHS Trust and the specific hospital and no blame is directed at the current (or former) UK Health Secretary as having failed in some way. (or the UK Govt)
In England we also see that scandals linked to English police forces are confined by the media as attacks upon that specific Police force and no blame is directed at the current (or former) UK Home Secretary as having failed in some way. (or the UK Govt)
Meanwhile in Scotland everything is politicised even though the event/incident is not related to any action taken by that respective Scottish government minister or the Scottish government, indeed in some cases it is clearly outwith their control and has occurred, as a tragic event or a scandal, only via those directly involved in it.
Yet always the media and the opposition, irrespective of the details or the situation, automatically direct their blame upon the respective Scottish government minister as somehow having failed in some way. (and too the Scottish government) should there be any tragic incident or scandal reported linked to a specific public service in Scotland via NHS, Police etc
That’s what happens when the media who reports the news within your country always works against your country and not For your country mainly because they, as a media, are mostly owned by another country in whose interest it is to ensure that your country continues to stay a part of their UK Fake country.
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The differences in reporting is very stark. In England incidences like this are a regular occurrence but the BBC never appears to hold the relevant UK government Cabinet Minister to account for failings in their department. There will be the usual BBC coverage of inquests on the news, but once the inquest reports it’s findings it is rare for the BBC to report what happens next, for example on the implementation of it’s recommendations over the years that follow, meanwhile in Scotland once the BBC latches onto a case, that case will rumble on and on over several years.
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the labour government is a government led by tories , infiltrators who ousted true labour politicians with accusations of antiseminism that were invented with one aim and that was to allow a right wing takeover , people who would never have got near being in government are now in positions of real power , they will not blame the tory party because they might be in the tory party in five years time or trying to join its government , as we seen at the end of the last tory government a number of the tory MPs moved over to be in the incoming labour government the reverse will happen when labour lose the next election.What we are seeing is the true nature of weztminster politics they are a bunch of self serving opportunists with no intention of introducing policies that benefit the majority of people in the uk.Tory policies are labour policies especially with regard to the NHS and privatisation ,a new PFI scheme is about to be unleashed and it will be a free for all amongst the shyster builders .
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Naturally , the SNP Government and its ministers are guilty ! After all , they are held to a much much higher standard than the incompetents in Government south of the border . This is only fair , n’est pas ?
Let’s face it , if Damn Jaikie Bailley or Turdo Fraser or the Coal-Scuttle were in charge of ANYTHING up here the same incompetence as their southern cousins would shine through – BUT they would be protected by the Unionist media !
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