Professor John Robertson OBA

Glenn Campbell’s opinion piece on the SNP, after its budget, is the lead story on its website today, titled:

SNP rediscovers its political confidence with wily Budget

Hah! We know what to expect and, within one line, we get:

In the last couple of years its independence strategy has hit a brick wall, the party has tied itself in knots over gender reform, and it has fallen in and out of love with the Scottish Greens.

There have been three first ministers during that period and one of those remains under police investigation as the Branchform inquiry into SNP finances drags on.

The party’s worries have not gone away. Far from it.

It still has huge challenges to overcome, not least significant underperformance in key public services like the NHS.

That ‘significant underperformance in key public services like the NHS’ line is based on targets that in every part of the world, from Canada to Wales, are treat as aspirational, which are never used to condemn political parties, far less governments.

There’s a huge amount of evidence that NHS Scotland is actually over-performing rather than under-performing.

Try these, recent examples:

As ‘Quademic’ looms NHS Scotland has 37% more beds, 33% more nurses, 27% more GPs and cleaner hospitals

Deadly measles being held at bay by NHS Scotland’s vaccination levels

NHS Scotland’s stunning 98% completion rate as operations return steadily to pre-pandemic levels less than two years after the end of the ‘Greatest test since World War Two’

Scotland’s unique free 100% target-busting IVF service, saving lives and the NHS millions, year after year but to absolutely no media recognition

NHS England deliberately lying about longer A&E waits to conceal massive crisis, FIVE times greater, and prevent comparison with Scotland, missed by Sky News

NHS hospitals, staffing and strike avoidance lead to 1 600 fewer deaths, last year

Failure to diagnose and treat lung disease including asthma ‘silently suffocating’ NHS [England], highlights quality of NHS Scotland and importance of universal free prescriptions

Scotland’s emergency departments at least 10% better than in NHS England in September 2024 and probably more than that if the latter’s trickery is exposed

NHS Scotland has 25% more nurses per head than the UK and more than almost everywhere in the world but a Scottish newspaper doesn’t want you thinking the SNP can cope with anything

Scottish NHS dentist access – 95% registered and shocking 21% better than UK but they don’t want you to know that

I could go on.