As the Daily Record amplifies the British Labour Party Chancellor’s lie about NHS Scotland, how often will it leave readers misinformed in order to support the Party?
By stewartb
The campaigning strategy of the British Labour Party to win the 2026 Holyrood election is becoming clearer. The performance of NHS Scotland will figure prominently. Politicisation and negative messaging about healthcare in Scotland has been pursued relentlessly by the Labour leadership for years: meanwhile the greater woes of NHS Wales under a Labour government in Cardiff are never acknowledged by Labour politicians whether in Holyrood or Westminster. It remains important to the cause to drive home to less well informed voters one fundamental message, regardless of veracity – ‘because of an SNP government, the performance of NHS Scotland is crap and the worst performing NHS anywhere in the UK’.
With the complicity of allies in the mainstream media, the provision of misinformation – or just lying – to voters is an apparently acceptable approach to gaining power.
It’s blatant!
Perhaps the most blatant recent example comes from the Daily Record on 31 October 2024. This is the headline: ‘Rachel Reeves challenges SNP to improve NHS performance in Scotland after £3.4bn boost – the Labour Chancellor claimed NHS performance in Scotland was “worse than in any part of the United Kingdom”.
In the article we read: “Frankly, the performance of the NHS in Scotland under the SNP is worse than in any part of the United Kingdom, and that money now needs to be used to address the priorities of the Scottish people.’
Adding: “In Scotland, the SNP now need to use that money that we have allocated wisely to start to reduce those waiting lists in Scotland, because they are out of control, and that is a sad legacy of the Government in Scotland.”
There is no ambiguity, no room for misinterpretation here: the Daily Record is quoting the Chancellor. However, the Daily Record makes zero effort to inform its readers that the Chancellor’s claim is at least open to dispute – this is perhaps the very least ethical journalism should do when the claim is in fact just plain wrong!
(As an aside, to anyone who knows anything about the performance of NHS Wales and can recall which party has always governed in Cardiff, the Chancellor’s remarks about a ‘sad legacy’ aimed at the Scottish Government could, candidly, hardly be more crass!)
Fortunately there is an authoritative source of comparative analysis to verify or otherwise the Daily Record’s reporting of the ‘worst in the UK’ charge. This source is none other than NHS England.
Comparing Accident & Emergency activity
NHS England, NHS Digital and NHS Improvement together publish annually statistics on the performance of England’s A&E departments over the preceding financial year. The report for 2023/
24 was published on September 26, 2024.
Since 2017/18, this annual publication helpfully includes a direct comparison of A&E attendances and waiting times performance across the four nations of the UK. It compares four and twelve hour waits in ‘Type 1/Major A&E departments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’. Below are screenshots of the tabulated performance data for separate four years – from the first report in 2017/18; from 2018/19, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic struck the UK (in around January 2020); the report for 2022/23 as the UK was recovering from the impacts of the pandemic; and the latest report, for 2023/24.
The table below summarises key statistics from the above sources.
From these statistics published by NHS England et al it is clear: NHS Scotland is not the worst performing NHS in the UK. It is the best! And given the British Labour Party ‘connections’ of the Chancellor and the newspaper, it is surely worthy of note that NHS Scotland very substantially out performs the NHS in Wales where a British Labour Party government has long been responsible!
(Let me offer another ‘aside’ which reveals something about the British Labour Party’s approach to politics in Scotland. Compare the Labour Chancellor’s deliberate effort to sully the status of NHS Scotland and the Scottish Government with what follows.
From Wales Online (March 6, 2014): ‘Mark Drakeford hits back at Westminster’s attempts to ‘drag Welsh NHS through the mud’. Below the headline we have this quote: “I have a very a serious quarrel for the cynical, deliberate way in which they set out to drag the reputation of the Welsh NHS through the mud for nakedly partisan political purposes.” I couldn’t express the approach to NHS Scotland being adopted by the current Westminster government and its leaders in Scotland’s parliament better!)
Significance of A&E departments’ performance
But these NHS England statistics only look at A&E performance. Surely the Chancellor (and the Daily Record) would be entitled to argue that best performance in this one area of NHS activity alone doesn’t mean all that much? Read on.
The independent and highly regarded health think tank, the Kings Fund explains that waiting times in A&E departments are a key measure of NHS performance: ‘A&E waiting times are often used as a barometer for overall performance of the NHS and social care system. This is because A&E waiting times are affected by activity and pressures in other services, such as the ambulance service, primary care, community-based care and social care services.’ (My emphasis.)
On performance measures it also notes: ‘The four-hour A&E waiting time standard is one of the most high-profile indicators of how the NHS is performing. The sustained decline in performance against this waiting time standard places a significant toll on patients and staff alike, and is a clear indication of the pressures that the wider health and care system is under.’
Source: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/long-reads/whats-going-on-with-ae-waiting-times
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) notes in the context of NHS England’s A&E performance: ‘as important as the four-hour standard is, we know where the true danger lies; in the excessively long stays of 12 hours or more.’
Based on these views, A&E waiting times are a crucial, revealing indicator of NHS performance more generally. And on these measures, according to the analysis published by NHS England et al the best performer at least since 2017/18 has been NHS Scotland!
To ram the point home!
The two graphs below have been published by the RCEM using performance data derived from official NHS sources in each of the four UK nations.
Source: https://rcem.ac.uk/data-statistics/
As both graphs reveal, the best, sustained performance is by NHS Scotland! TuS readers already know this: why is the Daily Record seemingly seeking to ensure that its readers don’t? In the run up to the crucial Holyrood election of 2026, how far will political partisanship motivate the publication of misinformation – even blatant lies – without challenge (or even the insertion of a caveat) by the mainstream media in Scotland?
Technical note
The NHS England table in its report for 2023/24 has this: ’This file provides a comparison of the number of unplanned A&E attendances and percentage of attendances spending i) 4 hour or less and ii) over 12 hours in type 1/Major A&E departments from arrival to discharge, admission or transfer for each of the four Home Nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Given the different models of service provision across the four nations the comparison is restricted to Type 1 or Major A&E departments within each nation. Whilst this allows a nearer like for like comparison it does not take account of the differing case mix of patients that present at type 1 services which will be influenced by the provision and accessibility of alternative types of A&E.’
The source data for NHS England in each year are taken from two different administrative data collection systems which given similar but not exactly the same results.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
“However, the Daily Record makes zero effort to inform its readers that the Chancellor’s claim is at least open to dispute”
This is exactly what we often witness both panel members and audience members do on political debate programmes in them making unsubstantiated claims that “The Scottish NHS is terrible” or “The SNP have destroyed the NHS”.
The strength in making any point (or in their cases their lack of points) is surely in being able to back up what you are saying in providing comparable facts and figures that prove the point you are making, and also your noting the credible source theses facts and figures were acquired from.
In doing that you then make your statement pretty much indisputable , as you make it far far harder for others to refute what you have said without it appearing to look as if they are just lying or desperate.
In fact they themselves could be challenged on their throwaway statement , in them being asked to provide their facts and figures to either prove their point or disprove your counter statement should you challenge them with actual NHS statistics that prove they are lying. (not something any host on any political debate programmes often decides to do when it is the Scottish government who are being demonised on their performance is it).
The fact that The Daily Record decided to parrot what Rachel Reeves said with no data that verifies her statement just tells you everything you need to know about both her as a Labour politician and also about the Daily Record.
Liars.
However this is an ongoing situation that we will have to tolerate up to and beyond the 2026 Scottish elections.
The anti Scottish media is rife in Scotland and I would say that if anyone you know, who reads the Daily Record and also supports Labour , then quotes articles such as this , then ask them what the actual NHS statistics are that prove it to be accurate as a statement from Reeves and a artcile from the Daily Record.
That is if they quote (parrot) this article then they should be able to produce comparative data for Scotland and all of the other nations within the UK that validates both Reeves statement and the Daily Record’s article on her statement !
(Also would validate them parroting it as supposed truth).
My guess is they will not know any real facts and figures on NHS Stats , however they will be able to parrot or paraphrase what she said and what they, The Daily Record, have also parroted via her.
Any idiot can do that or in her, Reeves, case and the Daily Record’s case any liars can seek to do it to gain a undeserved political advantage for the Labour party in Scotland.
One would have thought Labour had enough worries just now as the “Special relationship” with the USA , post the Presidential election, is now about to be tested and also may be, as a “relationship” about to start having problems with communication, a lack of flexibility on one side, a lack of help, respect problems, lack of trust and then a distancing occurring on one side aka “America First”.
Starmer now grovelling and having a U-Turn on previous statements and observations he made on Trump will not “Change” things as far as Trump is concerned.
It could not have happened to a better and more useless party than Labour.
(Remembers Trump said so many good things about Boris Johnson when he was PM and also about Theresa May but they never got a Trade deal from him so what chance have Labour and Starmer).
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Obviously, we now have to live with the result of the G.E that gave Labour power in the U.K, but my hope is that those people, in Scotland, who once swore to us, “Labour, never again”, will be so sickened by what they are doing to real people, that by 2026, they will vote for a Scottish political party, that puts Independence, front and centre of its campaign.
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When it comes to the Scottish election the SNP have a massive job on their hands, especially as it looks like the English Labcons in London are actively campaigning already on an SNP bad ticket, so not only are their utterly disgraceful lies and fabrications coming from their jobsworths in Scotland, it’s at a UK level as well. The BritNats have the media on their side 100%, and propaganda works or they wouldn’t deploy such tactics to attempt to overthrow the Scottish government.
How to balance out the need to inform people about what the Scottish government are doing for Scotland within huge constraints of UK (Labour) rule, while reminding people just how dreadful the Labour administration at Holyrood was during their ten year tenure, as well as making the case for independence being the next step in ensuring Scotland can continue to make decisions that improve people’s lives, counter to the Labour party’s decisions to make people poorer, and more dividend.
Labour are the the party of inequality, that’s clear and SNP need to get that message out, somehow.
Scary emoji thing.
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The faux concern about SNHS from Labcons in any case should fool no one, they are conning people big time.
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