By Professor John Robertson:
Not for the first time, BBC Question Time panellists tried to excuse problems in England by pointing, ill-informed, to comparable problems in Scotland. Last night, pressed on the notion of re-nationalising water, both Labour and Conservative panellists suggested things were the same in Scotland.
Let’s ask Google’s fancy new AI search facility.
Asked ‘Scottish Water sewage fine‘ and the wee lad (I call AI that) says confidently – ‘Scottish Water has been fined a number of times for sewage-related incidents, including‘ before going on to tell us the last time was 2020, £19 000 and the only other time was in 2013, £20 000.
Asked ‘English water board sewage fine‘ and it finds so much just in 2024, it doesn’t bother to look further back:
In August 2024, the water regulator for England and Wales, Ofwat, proposed a total fine of £168 million for three water companies for failing to manage their wastewater treatment works and networks:
Thames Water: Proposed fine of £104 million
Yorkshire Water: Proposed fine of £47 million
Northumbrian Water: Proposed fine of £17 million
So, in 2024, Scottish Water sewage discharge fines in 2024 were zero, while in England, £168 million? Not quite the same.
What about water quality?
Asked ‘English river water quality‘, we get:
83% of English rivers have evidence of high pollution from sewage and agriculture. Eighty-three per cent of English rivers contain evidence of high pollution caused by sewage and agricultural waste, according to the largest citizen science water testing project ever to take place in the UK.
Asked ‘Scottish river water quality‘, we get:
Scotland’s water quality is at its highest level ever, with 87% of our water environment rated as good or better. This year, Scotland also has a record-breaking number of bathing waters rated as ‘excellent’.
The Labour panellist remembered fondly when he could just jump in the river. In Scotland, he still could and might take some other QT folk with him.
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Aye, presumably Labour’s Steven Reed talking out his arse again, but none in Plymouth would likely challenge it knowing it was total bollox…
Scotland doesn’t have “the same pollution issues as England” and never will, because Scots refused to privatise everything in order to make a fast buck…
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Hello Bob, I was having a look at Angus Council’s fb page and they have a post up saying that dredging rivers is bad, very costly and can cause damage downstream, here is a 2 page document from Sepa to back this up.
https://www.sepa.org.uk/media/147022/floods_dredging_and_river_changes.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawGIhKxleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHWLeZP6x0VXZZDSgqHF1XickRhvPnCj7XR1gy_cxo53KU_0fsM2_gzETuA_aem_6DokkN68dQXegpZj5BZ8Ug
Why is it Sepa are so vocal on the dredging at Brechin, but have nothing to say about the 50+ years of river dredging at Montrose, that has destroyed the dunes and ruined the beach, and now has the town directly threatened by the North Sea?
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Alex, as explained earlier, dredging a river does nothing for the volume handled in floods – Kilkenny City and many others suffered from this same idiotic thinking at gazillions in public expenditure over 50 years+ until the eurocent finally dropped, yet you persist…
Estuarial dredging has everything to do with shipping and keel depth, and has damned all to do with river or even estuarial storm flows – You knew that already before posing the question yet you persist much as you did over Brechin’s 16 million defences being overtopped
Perhaps you might enlighten the body of the kirk as to the hydrodynamic interactions you foresaw which specialists in the field missed might prove a good start ? I have to presume you already modelled it rather than sticking a finger in the air and making a SWAG ?
I look forward to your reviewing your esteemed wok, meantime going for a Chinese…. 😉
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Och Bob, I’m nae an expert on they kind of things, I’m just trying to find out how they could get the Brechin flood defence scheme so badly wrong, that it failed within 10 years of opening.
Was it because the so called experts were incompetent, or worse, bad actors.
Now these people are employed finding a solution to the coastal erosion at Montrose, if they get it wrong here the disaster will dwarf the one at Brechin.
With independent scientific reports clearly stating the creation of the deep water port and constant dredging to keep it open is the leading cause of the erosion.
What could possibly go wrong, when the so called advisors, are ignoring the scientific evidence, and calling the environmental disaster here, a climate emergency?
Did you enjoy your Chinese meal?
Sour Duck?
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So no expertise admitted but still jumping to conclusions the Brechin scheme didn’t do exactly as designed by “the so called experts were incompetent, or worse, bad actors” without the slightest compunction.
So despite your personal preference for opinion in place of facts, a quick Google reveals a Courier article – the Scheme was designed to channel a 1/200 year storm, fact one – Storm Babet dumped half Angus’s annual rainfall in 36 hours, vastly exceeding a 1/200 year storm, fact 2 – So do please pardon my scepticism you know your arse from your elbow let alone what should have happened at Brechin.
However, it does rather illustrate my earlier opinion that they’re looking at the wrong end of the problem – They need to intervene upstream with attenuation if they are ever to stand a chance downstream.
You may loathe experts a la Michael Gove, or you simply want to play Victor Meldrew, that doesn’t mean I have to listen to your nonsense.
I’d be very surprised if the Montrose beach erosion study doesn’t draw heavily on the Royal Haskoning Gambia project – I was asked as a favour in 2007 (I was going anyway) to inspect it, and reported back on it’s resilience with details of flaws.
I’m quite sure the Montrose beach will be given the same degree of ‘expert’ opinion to your continued displeasure, although I don’t see it quite having the same tourism draw as Gambia… Oddly I encountered none on on my visit who had met a Victor Meldrew or Private Fraser ‘wir doomed, doomed an marooned’ type – Have you never been ?
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thanks Bob,
what do you think of this, if you can spare a couple of minutes.
The long term erosion at Montrose started in the 70s after the creation of the deep water port to service the oil industry.
The Halcrow report for Angus Council 25 years ago, recommended pumping the dredged sand back onto the beach to save 70% of the erosion.
Prof Andrew Cooper of Ulster Uni, said of the dredging that it had ” destabilised the Montrose Bay and if it continued it would destroy it”, 20 years ago.
The Milne, Dong and Davidson report for AC said that, ” the dredging had had a major anthropogenic effect on the erosion, and had done for decades, 12 years ago.
Here’s the report being used by AC and the so called advisors, https://www.dynamiccoast.com/files/dc2/_DC2_WS4_Montrose_FINAL.pdf
There is no mention of the major industrial intervention or the constant maintenance dredging within the report, why would that be?
Something is not right here Bob.
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No I unfortunately never had the chance to visit Gambia, it would have been another country to add to my wee list,
Norway, Greece, Spain, Gibraltar, Portugal, South Africa, Kenya, Bahrain, India, Singapore, Solomon Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, USA, Jamaica.
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It’s always “whataboutery” with Unionists until one of Scotland’s “issues” are brought up by them. When we try to explain it’s worse elsewhere in the rest of the “union”, we are told that we need to focus on Scotland’s problems.
They’ve got more faces than a town hall clock and everyone of them is miserable.
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Well here is another major problem with the BBC.
Statements from panel members on BBC QT that go unchallenged by the host.
Yet she, Fiona Bruce, often has notes that she refers to in order to challenge politicians on their answers, as obviously she is aware of what Q’s will be asked and so what topics will be discussed.
If she, Fiona Bruce, is unaware of the veracity of what is being said by a panel member then she should ask that person making the statement to provide proof via either providing stats or examples to verify their statement.
However we often see her, Fiona Bruce, sit on her hands and zip up her mouth, when Pro UK politicians on the panel make unfounded statements about Scotland to try and score a political point against the Scottish government (SNP).
I really think either someone from the Scottish Water board or/and from the Scottish government should publicly challenge Steve Reed’s assertion on our nationalised water when he said “and the’ve got the same pollution issues as England”.
You and I and many others know if that were really the case then , like Ferries, the condemnation and the series of both new and regurgitated stories via BBC Scotland news teams would be relentless.
I have yet to hear anyone, residents or visitors, in Scotland say they cannot, like in England, swim in rivers in Scotland as they are full of sewage.
Perhaps the public water champion in England Feargal Sharkey could take Steve Reed, and the Tory on the panel , to task on this. If , that is, even he is aware of the quality of Scottish water in public places. Or does he too see it as a UK wide problem.
No one is saying everything in Scotland is perfect but why is it English MP’s think they can comment on something they have absolutely no first hand knowledge of and really are only declaring something to be true to save their own embarrassment, in this case, it is the disgraceful state of their own country’s (England) contaminated public waterways.
Is this another example of when something is identified as bad in England it then becomes #UKBAD.
Yet when it is something they, media and politicians, declare as bad in Scotland then Scotland must take full ownership and never is it to be seen as a UK wide problem.
Someone should tell Steve Reed that with him trying to “excuse” the privatisation (and profits ) of Private English water companies obvious bad service (profit before people) in him attacking the nationalisation of Water in Scotland being supposdley just as bad as in England.
Then that is not a ‘Get out of Jail card’ for him as a minister in the new Labour government , or for the Tory on the panel with the previous Tory government or indeed the private Water companies in England who provide water and ‘sewage’ services (in fact more sewage than water it seems) and obviously are failing at doing the job well for English people.
I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of all of their sh*te, no pun intended.
Another complaint to the BBC which should be another one then put on the list within their Corrections and clarification section of their website.
However if we truly truly truly had real Scottish TV news channels and widespread actual Scottish newspapers, all supportive of Scotland, then it would be on the ‘news where we are’ condemning what Steve Reed said and declaring his , and also the Tory on the panel, statements on QT as a false equivalence aka lies.
As England’s mismanaged privatised water is not in any way comparable or equal to Scotland’s nationalised water where the quality of our water is not the one within the UK that is being questioned or attacked as being extremely #BAD.
Apart from , that is, always being questioned and attacked from pro UK politicians like Labour’s Steve Reed and others via different pro UK political parties whose only response upon anything from Scotland is always #SNPBAD.
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Can I also just add this onto my above (long) comment on Steve Reed and BBC QT.
Steve Reed as the environment secretary was reported on SKY News as saying that “he did not know the company that gave him a £1,700 football ticket was linked to a water firm fined millions for sewage failings”
That’s how clued up he is on water companies. Not.
Apparently he told Kay Burley that ” he didn’t know they, as in the company who gave him the free ticket, had a relationship with a water company” and “that didn’t arise, nobody spoke about it”.
Ha Ha , as if they would ‘speak about it’ I mean how naïve or stupid (take your pick) is he ?
“Mr Reed accepted the tickets three months after he was made shadow environment secretary, the register of members’ financial interests shows”
So his remit, his job, his department and he is clueless as he is way way far more interested in receiving a freebie than trying to establish and ensure who it is that is behind the freebie being given to him.
Yet BBC QT allows him to opine (literally talk sh*te) on others supposed ‘failings’.
His own house (job as Environment Secretary) is obviously not in order based on his lack of judgement and lack of due diligence in accepting these tickets from people connected to “water firms fined million for sewage failings in England” .
This would be funny if it were not for how these so called politicians, like Labour’s Steve Reed, constantly get away with so much themselves and yet they are also given a public platform , like BBC QT, to criticise others (SNP) , as if they themselves are beyond reproach and so assumed to be far better than those other parties (SNP) that they judge and critique.
While the facts and news (like this SKY News report) says otherwise !
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While it’s important to highlight the lies that are being told, an even more pressing issue is how many people are gullible enough to believe the untruths. Judging by the last G.E results, quite a few. And as the old saying goes, ” A lie is halfway around the world, before truth gets it’s boots on”. And in the case of the B.B.C, truth shall never be told, certainly in the case of Scotland, and more especially, if it’s to our credit.
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Indeed it is the most significant factor as to whether people are gullible enough to believe everything that they are hearing or reading about , via these reports and statements , and then assuming them to be just honest observations or facts that reflect the actual truth on a subject.
Or whether the reality of what is being said and written about is just political propaganda, all being done with the intention of trying to damage the reputation of a political party , but also questioning the competence of that political party being criticised.
The result being that those who may be easily duped as voters then start voting against the political party that is constantly being attacked by both the media and opposition parties in their combined attacks. (In this case the SNP are those who are on the receiving end of most of the pro UK media and pro UK political attacks throughout the UK).
As Alex Massie said in response to to the BBC being accused of being biased in their reporting of anything in relation to Scottish independence:
“That’s their job” he said.
The clue being the “British” in their corporation title.
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From exile – to Anonymous at 07.12 25/10
Feargal Sharkey assisted (now MP) Blair McDougall’s general election campaign by appearing with him beside an East Renfrewshire river and complaining about the “pollution”.
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“Feargal Sharkey assisted (now MP) Blair McDougall’s general election campaign by appearing with him beside an East Renfrewshire river and complaining about the “pollution”.
Yes and we all know what the undertone was with him doing this.
As he was promoting Labour prior to the UK GE as the party to vote for to “fix the mess of private water companies contaminating public waterways in England”, but which he referred to as being not “in England” but he said “in the UK”.
Strange then he should politicise it in Scotland on behalf of a Labour candidate in Scotland against the SNP before the GE, as he Sharkey, has always referred to it as a UK or British problem.
So whose to blame the UK or the Scottish government ?
Well neither Feargal nor Blair cared as they were too busy politicking to get votes for Labour in Scotland .
Well for those ignorant of fact let’s just confirm that the Scottish government have no involvement with England’s water supplies or with English privatised water companies.
Of course after the GE Mr Sharkey has been experiencing ‘Buyers remorse’ as he has now determined that Labour, as the new UK government, have “no plans to fix the mess” of what he says are “Britain’s rivers”.
Blair Mcdougall a bobby dancer if ever there was one, as is, it seems also Feargal Sharkey , the shark part of his surname being in this circumstance most fitting.
Labour (and friends) lying for England again !
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Whether deliberate or unintended – perhaps the latter deriving from some deeply embedded cultural flaw that unconsciously equates England with the UK – the misrepresentation of matters concerning Scotland is rife. And it takes place beyond the confines of partisan politics and mainstream media output.
On 14 April 2023 The Conversation – an online independent source of news and analysis that features contributions from academic researchers – published an article with this headline: ‘UK waters are too polluted to swim in – but European countries offer answers’. It was written by a Senior Lecturer in Water Engineering at Loughborough University.
From the opening paragraph: ‘Almost all of the UK’s waterways are polluted. In 2022, a House of Commons Committee report on the state of UK rivers concluded that no river in England was free from chemical contamination. Only 14% of UK rivers had a “good” ecological status.’ (my emphasis)
Note the tell tale shifting from ‘UK’ to ‘England’ and back in these sentences! The Loughborough academic provides a link to the relevant Commons Committee report, to this one:
House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (5 January 2022) Water quality in rivers Fourth Report of Session 2021–22 Report.
The report is about England’s rivers. From its Summary: ‘Getting a complete overview of the health of our rivers and the pollution affecting them is hampered by outdated, underfunded and inadequate monitoring regimes. It is clear, however, that rivers in England are in a mess.’
And regarding the academic’s claim that ‘only 14% of UK rivers had a “good” ecological status’, what the Commons Committee report actually said was: ‘The most recent figures published by the Environment Agency, under obligations originally established by the EU Water Framework Directive, show that only 14% of English rivers met good ecological status and no river met good chemical status.’ (Page 7)
And later: ‘Only 14% of rivers in England can currently claim to have good ecological status.’ (Page 9) There are no statistics in the Committee report on Scotland’s rivers.
The Conversation claims to provide ‘news analysis and informed comment written by academic experts, working with professional journalists who help share their knowledge with the world.’ Its website asserts: ‘we strive to improve the quality of public debate and ultimately to help everyone make better, more well-informed decisions.” And it adds: ‘The Conversation aims to help rebuild trust in journalism.’ So much for high flown aims!
This all gets so tiresome!
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“This all gets so tiresome”!
Indeed it does.
Unfortunately it will never stop because they are on a quest.
We all know what the objective is.
Also they hope we will all begin to be so dejected and disheartened by it all that we will then just give up and accept UK rule in Scotland.
Nae chance.
We all may have experienced many emotions on this journey we are on, in trying to get our country’s independence , but we will never relinquish our desire for our country to be an independent nation within the world.
In fact the more lies and attacks from them, the more we become resolved to continue the fight, via campaigning and supporting independence, and not ever resorting to violent means to acquire our freedom from the UK.
That, I am sure, is what they cannot understand and will not acknowledge as in how peaceful our movement is and lawful too in our demonstrations , Marches , protests etc.
To give up is to then allow bad politics, bad politicians and also a ‘not fit for purpose’ so called media to control us and lie to us over and over again, while also telling us that we, Scotland, are too wee, too poor (too needy) and too stupid to go it alone without their UK.
Meanwhile elsewhere in the UK……..
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This conflation of England with UK is an everyday commonplace occurrence spreading misinformation/disinformation affecting pretty well everything from news, politics, culture, sports, weather forecasts etc. etc. It’s so commonplace that much of it is done without the perpetrator being aware. Personally I get enraged by it and that happens on a daily basis online and, especially, on BBC programmes and in the wider UK mass media.
Stewart, you’re presumably a subscriber to ‘The Conversation’ (I hadn’t heard of it until your post), but this surely requires a letter to it to point out their error and detail the damage being done to Scotland and its people? I’ll write too and I encourage all subscribers here to do likewise. Whether it’s spreading misinformation (unknowingly) or disinformation (intentionally) the reader is being fed false information and therefore forms a distorted opinion whatever the topic.
But it’s more than that: it infers the inferiority of Scotland, its people, its history, its culture, its languages by simply omitting its name. If we want other people to understand us, our customs, our desire for an independence that will improve our lives, we need to ensure that they are aware of our existence and our views. Until that awareness is understood and accepted by non-Scots, our chances of achieving independence are slim.
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It’s not just the English who conflate UK and England. Americans are well known to use England when referring to the British Isles, eg Glasgow? Where in England is it?
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Indeed they do Robert.
In fact in some places in America, in talking to some people there, you might even get asked if “you are from England”, when they hear your (non English and very much Scottish) accent.
If you respond that you come from Scotland.
You then may get a response “I thought that was in England”.
To which you should reply “Did ye now”.
Ha Ha
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There are many examples of ‘conflation’. There are also, candidly laughable, examples of near but corrected just in time conflation at the highest levels of US government. Two examples from the official website of ’The White House’, Washington DC.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2022
‘Remarks by President Biden and Prime Minister Liz Truss of the United Kingdom Before Bilateral Meeting’
‘President Briden: ‘We also want to talk about energy, which understandably is of significant consequence to all of Europe and Great Britain and England — the United Kingdom, in particular.’
SEPTEMBER 18, 2022
‘Remarks by President Biden After Signing the Official Condolence Book for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, at Lancaster House London, England’
‘So, to all the people of England, all the people of the United Kingdom, our hearts go out to you. And you were fortunate to have had her for 70 years.’
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