Year: 2025

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Updated – 13th sub-poll confirms SNP support nearly 3 times Labour or Tories and Reform UK creeping into 2nd place

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Professor John Robertson OBA Update suggested by Coinneach – Find out Now don’t weight according to the 2014 referendum result but did to GE 2024 to make the SNP share of the sample smaller than that of Labour (284/241). That may well understate SNP support after these first months of Labour Government. From Find out Now, based on responses gathered on 26 March 2025, we see familiar trends becoming solidified. On 4 December 2024, Find out Now had: On 8 January 2025, it was: These are small sub-polls with little value on their own but when they repeat the same … Continue reading Updated – 13th sub-poll confirms SNP support nearly 3 times Labour or Tories and Reform UK creeping into 2nd place

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Canadian ferry service has to bring fatal accident prone 61 year-old vessel back into service after 200 days out because a replacement order has not even been approved yet

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Professor John Robertson OBA, Pacific Archipelago Ferry Consultant From Global News, last week: After nearly 200 days out of service, one of BC Ferries’ key vessels is back on the water. The return of the Queen of New Westminster comes just in time for spring break. BC Ferries pulled the vessel from service in September 2024, after its propeller detached due to structural fatigue. The company is looking to build five new major vessels and conduct refits to extend the lives of two others. The BC Ferries commissioner is expected to rule on the proposal at the end of the month.1 The … Continue reading Canadian ferry service has to bring fatal accident prone 61 year-old vessel back into service after 200 days out because a replacement order has not even been approved yet

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Child poverty – Labour’s deep hypocrisy

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By stewartb The BBC News website on March 27 2025 had this headline: UK child poverty numbers reach a record high’. It repeated: ’An extra 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, will be pushed into relative poverty by these changes, according to the government’s own impact assessment.’ Of course the party of government referred to is the British Labour Party, the same party that wishes us to vote it into government in Holyrood in 2026. The very same party that ‘Scotland’s Champion’, the Daily Record urged us to vote for in the 2024 UK General Election and will no doubt support in … Continue reading Child poverty – Labour’s deep hypocrisy

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Infrastructure projects can stay in Scotland and take advantage of the speed of light

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By Liz S “Major infrastructure projects currently planned for Scotland being switched to other parts of the UK”. Is this another way of the BBC communicating (threatening) some people in Scotland would be better to STFU or else . I mean if we are talking “Energy” and “losing out” well the Labour Energy Secretary, Ed Milliband, tweeted this on 21 March 2025: “Great British Energy is coming to you. Our publicly-owned energy company is rolling out solar panels for schools and NHS sites across England. Cutting bills and saving money for frontline services”. “Coming to you” ? Like coming to the … Continue reading Infrastructure projects can stay in Scotland and take advantage of the speed of light

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Eight months later BBC Scotland tries to undermine zonal pricing for Scotland with evidence and threats reminiscent of 2014 from companies based in England and Spain

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in July 2024 in the National: THE boss of an energy company has said Scotland could have “the cheapest electricity in Europe” if the UK Government introduces regional pricing. Eight months later BBC Scotland feel ready to acknowledge but to undermine the idea, with: Could Scotland have Europe’s lowest electricity bills? The boss of one of the UK’s biggest energy providers says people living in Scotland could have the cheapest electricity in Europe. Greg Jackson, who founded Octopus Energy, wants the electricity market to be reformed to introduce zonal pricing. He argues that if prices were based on local generation, the high … Continue reading Eight months later BBC Scotland tries to undermine zonal pricing for Scotland with evidence and threats reminiscent of 2014 from companies based in England and Spain

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Child poverty shocking 35% higher in England and Wales than in Scotland

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Professor John Robertson OBA From the Guardian today: Record 4.5m children in poverty in UK [sic] as cuts condemned as ‘morally repugnant’ – Campaigners have said it is “morally repugnant” that vulnerable people are bearing the brunt of spending cuts after official figures showed a record 4.5 million children are living in poverty in the UK. The poverty figures showed that in Scotland 23% of children were in poverty, compared with 31% in England and Wales. Holyrood missed its 18% poverty figure target, though experts said its rates would be higher without its child poverty programme. Prof Ruth Patrick, a … Continue reading Child poverty shocking 35% higher in England and Wales than in Scotland

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Channel Islanders sickened as new Danish ferry service cancels sailings on very first day due to ‘technical issues’ only days after hearing there will be no Sunday service at all for more than a hundred thousand of them

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Professor John Robertson OBA, International Ferry Correspondent From ITV today: DFDS has cancelled its sailings between Jersey and St Malo for the first day it serves the island. The Danish firm, taking over from Condor, says the cancellations on Friday 28 March are due to “technical issues” with preparing one of their ferries, the Tarifa Jet, to run to and from Jersey. https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2025-03-27/dfds-cancels-sailing-between-jersey-and-france-on-opening-day Surely they checked the boat out a few days beforehand, to enable a professional start to the contract? Kind of makes you think they must be a rubbish company putting profits ahead of passengers? There were warnings. Only two … Continue reading Channel Islanders sickened as new Danish ferry service cancels sailings on very first day due to ‘technical issues’ only days after hearing there will be no Sunday service at all for more than a hundred thousand of them

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SNP Government to give free ferry passes to all under 22 year-old islanders in Shetland, Orkney and Hebrides

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Professor John Robertson OBA In the Orcadian today but getting no mainstream media coverage: Orkney residents aged under 22 will soon be able to travel between islands free of charge, the Scottish Government has announced. The new scheme comes into force at the beginning of April, allowing young residents to travel for free as foot passengers on inter-island ferry services within Orkney by showing their Young Scot or National Entitlement Card. Residents in Shetland and the Outer Hebrides are being given the same government subsidy. https://orcadian.co.uk/under-22s-to-travel-free-on-inter-island-ferries/ Emma Roddick MSP (SNP) had already announced this to a similar media silence in … Continue reading SNP Government to give free ferry passes to all under 22 year-old islanders in Shetland, Orkney and Hebrides

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Labour to push 250,000 people into poverty but Gordon Brown campaigns against it apparently untroubled by the contradictions

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stewartb While we’re on the subject of egregious omissions in the wake of Labour’s ‘Spring Statement’ … From Birmingham Live on March 12, 2025 this headline: ‘Former PM Gordon Brown in Birmingham backs child poverty urgent action call’. We’re told the sage of British Labour in Scotland and saviour of solidarity in the precious Union attended an event at which: ‘He took the opportunity to press fellow guest, Government employment minister Alison McGovern, to do more to fix child poverty. She is one of three ministers leading the Child Poverty Taskforce set up by Sir Keir Starmer and due to report its … Continue reading Labour to push 250,000 people into poverty but Gordon Brown campaigns against it apparently untroubled by the contradictions

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YouGov find No voters more readily than other pollsters to cast doubt on their honesty

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Professor John Robertson OBA Since the end of 2024, all four of the full Scottish independence polls have a had clear lead for Yes, yet in a period of ongoing media negativity, at the end of March 2025, about Labour and the other pro-Union parties and no new negative reports on the pro-independence parties, YouGov manage to reverse that trend with an 11 point (56/44) lead for No: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51898-scotland-march-2025-snapshot Curiously, the last two YouGov polls (circled), also found an 11 point lead for No, in the midst of other pollsters find a much narrower lead. That’s quite a coincidence and … Continue reading YouGov find No voters more readily than other pollsters to cast doubt on their honesty