The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily, finishing in 14 days, to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland - a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson

By Professor John Robertson OBA, former Faculty Research Ethics Chair, UWS

In the Guardian yesterday:

Life expectancy improvement is stalling across Europe with England experiencing the biggest slowdown. Experts are blaming this on an alarming mix of poor diet, mass inactivity and soaring obesity. The average annual growth in life expectancy across the continent fell from 0.23 years between 1990 and 2011 to 0.15 years between 2011 and 2019, according to research published in the Lancet Public Health journal. Of the 20 countries studied, every one apart from Norway saw life expectancy growth fall.

England suffered the largest decline in life expectancy improvement, with a fall in average annual improvement of 0.18 years, from 0.25 between 1990 and 2011 to 0.07 between 2011 and 2019. The second slowdown of life expectancy growth in Europe was in Northern Ireland (reducing by 0.16 years), followed by Wales and Scotland (both falling by 0.15 years).

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/18/european-countries-experience-life-expectancy-slowdown-research-shows

Wait, what? The decline in life expectancy was less in Scotland than in England? What about those drug deaths and two year operation delays?

What can explain this strange phenomenon?

Free prescriptions, free bus passes, shorter waiting times in cleaner hospitals, more affordable housing, lower council tax, lower crime? Oh yes, massively subsidised ferry travel on beautiful boats and the view!

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/life-expectancy/life-expectancy-in-scotland/2021-2023

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/bulletins/nationallifetablesunitedkingdom/2014-03-21#:~:text=Comparing%20the%20UK%20constituent%20countries,an%20increase%20of%205.4%20years.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/bulletins/nationallifetablesunitedkingdom/2021to2023

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