Professor John Robertson OBA
This most recent increase in drug-related hospital stay rates, after three years of falling, has been jumped on by the likes of Jackie Baillie as evidence that the much vaunted Naloxone opioid overdose reversal programme, introduced by the SNP, before any other country in Europe, is not so impressive after all.
What Baillie, no one really, has considered is another possible and plausible cause – increased and cheaper supply of more powerful and deadly opioids such as fentanyl into rural areas where there is less familiarity with them.
In a documentary made for BBC Scotland and BBC 2 by independent film makers, Firecrest, broadcast in September 2024, there’s an explicit linking of drug deaths in Inverness to the extreme violence (see weapons found) and supply of Class A drugs by explicitly ‘English’ county lines gangs from London.
Here is an extract:
One of the things we’ve seen emerging over the last few years is the increase of county lines drug gangs. Drug dealers in the major cities export their drugs into smaller communities for greater profit. The consequences of the drugs coming into this are quite simple and stark and that’s people are dying from drugs overdoses. Fighting this war on drugs in the Highlands is a team of detectives based in Inverness. Today, they are executing a major operation against dealers in the city.
English-based groups are increasing their area of work well into Scotland now, and now their reach is as far as the highlands. It’s al about money. They don’t care about the heavy and significant community impact that Class A drugs has not only on the addict themselves, but on their immediate family. They don’t care about the age of the addicts they supply to. These can be young children from 13, 14 years old.
When the London group came up the level of violence and intimidation that they offered was increased significantly.
Remarkably, the above dramatic events were never covered by BBC News, Scotland or Highland, in broadcasts or on their websites. BBC Scotland has only twice ever mentioned county lines gangs, in 2019 and 2021.
Also, remarkable, BBC Scotland’s Disclosure series has never investigated this blight.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Another one I have not seen on BBC News.
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/unison-urges-nhs-staff-to-accept-guaranteed-pay-offer-split-over-two-years#:~:text=A%20union%20has%20urged%20NHS,3.75%25%20for%202026%2D27.
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How disgusting that a supposed neutral national broadcaster ( LoL ! ) can deliberately massage news stories because it has an agenda that is at odds with the elected Government of that country .
There is a term for this …Fifth Column , but whereas these are usually ”secretive organisations ” , BBC Scotland has no shame in proclaiming its anti-SNP stance .
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As with many faux ‘Scottish’ mass media outlets, they are propaganda outfits operating in Scotland, and working against the democratically elected government of Scotland. They have the money, the tools, (in many senses of the word!) and are experts at it. It’s why the rich oligarchs only approve of ‘social media when they can control it, being as it’s a platform whereby the mass media can be called out for their propaganda and lies.
I mean, you don’t see their BritNat media called, BBC England, or, the Anglesman, or ETV, or the England on Sunday, etc, it would sound daft for a start! These BritNat (and those who are employed by them as well as politicians HQ’d in England operating in Scotland) outfits claim an identity and cultural connection to Scotland in order to con the people of Scotland into believing they are specifically working in Scotland’s best interests when we all know the opposite is the case.
The ‘fifth column’ you mention, will be working 24/7 in the next few months to undermine, lie, delegitimise and demonise the SNP in order to fulfil their ultimate aim, to oust the SNP from the Scottish parliament by hook and by crook.
We all know why that is, but their aim is to make sure many people do not.
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Try anti-independence stance rather than neutral – The ‘impartiality’ scales fell from Scots eyes when Sarah Smith was directing propaganda at BBC Scotland, and no matter how expensive the suit James Cook parades as per his protege Smith, he cannot hide the UK branded knickers and bra worn beneath.
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‘BBC Scotland has no shame in proclaiming its anti-SNP stance’
All sorts of opportunities it seems will be taken by BBC Scotland to project a negative frame. Here is an example from the BBC News website today – perhaps minor in the greater scheme of things but arguably, telling!
The BBC News website (April 16) has in its Scotland Business section an article under the headline: ‘Wood takeover – good news or another loss for Scottish business?’ It’s a lengthy piece on the current Wood Group situation – the potential takeover – but it also comments on the history of ownership of major Scottish businesses passing to others e.g. Scottish & Newcastle, HBOS, Scottish Widows, TSB and more. It also comments on foreign ownership of major parts of UK industry more generally.
The article is written by BBC Scotland’s business/economy editor. It’s largely a factual report until the end where we find a couple of short paragraphs in which the journalist/editor shifts to political comment.
He writes: ‘In government, the SNP has been reluctant to defend Scottish corporate champions in the way it did while in opposition.
‘In government at Westminster, Labour is slowly feeling its way towards a coherent industrial strategy, picking and boosting the industries of the future as well as defending those of strategic significance.’
My emphasis is to highlight the journalist’s evident intention – at the very least – to draw an unfavourable comparison between two parties of government. Moreover, the first of these two paragraphs in particular is, in the context of what came before, a non sequitur. And it is a statement on the SNP that is replete with negatives despite being asserted without evidence.
One might think it an odd comment on the SNP in government in the current context of Grangemouth. After all, on April 14, the very same BBC Scotland business/economy editor wrote this under the headline: ‘Why not nationalise Grangemouth after British Steel takeover?’:
‘The SNP at Westminster, now backed by the first minister, John Swinney, believe the oil refinery at Grangemouth should also be nationalised, because it’s a strategic economic asset.’
What of Labour’s response when in opposition on Grangemouth compared to Labour in government? On Feb 9 the same BBC News website had this headline: ‘MP’s anger at government over Grangemouth closure.’ In the article we learn: ‘During last summer’s general election campaign, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar promised that if his party won the UK election it would invest in Grangemouth. He said: “We would step in to save the jobs at the refinery and to invest in that transition by making an energy transition hub at Grangemouth and we would put hundreds of millions of pounds behind it to make it a reality.”
How many jobs have NOT been saved by the Labour government?
Back to the BBC Scotland’s assertion that ‘the SNP has been reluctant to defend Scottish corporate champions’, what about: the SG’s preservation of commercial shipbuilding on the Clyde; the SG’s saving of Prestwick Airport; the SG’s financial guarantee to keep open the last remaining aluminium smelter in Lochaber; the SG’s financial stake taken in the BiFab fabrication yards in an attempt to save the business; others?
I began by suggesting this from BBC Scotland was ‘perhaps minor in the greater scheme of things’. On reflection, it may be of minor significance as few may read to the end of the business/economy editor’s article.
However, on the prejudicial framing, on the decision to include this in the article at all, on the evident purpose of doing so, and on the omission of any evidence to back up the assertion, this is noteworthy. Is this not a prime example of BBC Scotland so casually ‘slipping in’ bias against the SNP and Scottish Government?
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