In the Guardian today:
Four in 10 UK [sic] parents struggle to afford essentials for newborns, study says – Exclusive: Survey of 2,000 people by Barnardo’s also finds almost half feel their child has missed opportunities due to cost
and four paragraphs down well away from the ‘UK’ headline:
In Scotland, all parents are eligible for a box of baby essentials that includes clothes, books, a changing mat and a bath towel. Since the scheme was launched by the Scottish government in 2017, more than 360,000 baby boxes have been distributed. However, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, provision is inconsistent.
Barnardo’s is calling for the scheme to be rolled out nationwide, citing widespread public support for the initiative. Seven in 10 parents surveyed said baby boxes should be made universally available.
What you won’t hear is this.
In July 2023:
The MSM have gleefully jumped on this news:
Researchers at the University of Glasgow found claims that handing expectant parents around £160 worth of baby products, in a box that can double as a makeshift crib, had not saved lives as SNP ministers had claimed it would.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/09/sturgeons-baby-box-policy-failed-to-improve-child-health/#:~:text=Researchers%20at%20the%20University%20of,ministers%20had%20claimed%20it%20would.
Leaving aside a strong feeling that GU is a strongly Unionist and, indeed, Atlanticist institution, the above research, by Social Science staff, has a fundamental flaw, in that it simplifies a complex event with multiple causes and tries to suggest that flatlining infant mortality reveals proof of one factor, the apparent inability of just one factor on its own, the SNP baby boxes scheme, to maintain the longer-term reductions in infant mortality.
This is barely less stupid than the English research in 2017 claiming that the boxes were a fire risk.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is clear and seems to know a bit more about the complexity of infant mortality than these GU social scientists:
Infant mortality rates across all UK countries have declined markedly over the past 40 years. However, progress has slowed over the past 20 years, particularly compared to other European nations…The great majority of neonatal (first month) deaths are due to perinatal causes, particularly preterm birth, and are strongly related to maternal health.https://stateofchildhealth.rcpch.ac.uk/evidence/mortality/infant-mortality/
Maternal health and associated baby health are the most influential factors and are clearly affected by the level of poverty in which expectant mothers must live. Those most disadvantaged have been living for more than a decade under Tory austerity policies which have inevitably weakened them.
So, it is possible that the baby boxes have helped to stem what might have been a decline rather than a flatlining in infant mortality. I make no such claim because, like the GU researchers, I don’t have enough evidence.
The most recent infant mortality rates in England and Scotland are 3.9 and 3.5 per 1 000 live births.
Again for the media operating in Scotland, ‘just the same’ but….
With nearly 600 000 and 45 000 total births respectively, that 0.4% difference means 2 400 babies not surviving in England who might have done had their mothers not suffered two decades of full-on austerity. It means 180 babies surviving in Scotland who might not have had they been born in a country where austerity was moderated.
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/vital-events-reference-tables-2024/
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The way that the SNP Baby box was initially presented by much of the MSM, as in it was maligned and disparaged, exemplifies why we , in Scotland, desperately need our own actual media here.
That is a real Scottish media whose instinctive reaction is not one that is automatically hostile and so then captious towards any and all initiatives generated via the SNP .
Initiatives that are clearly those that have been generated to be both beneficial and good and so then are obviously created for the benefit of people who live within Scotland.
I think with the UK media’s presence within Scotland, that this is then an area where it is abundantly clear the huge distinction (and disadvantage) between Scotland and many other independent countries within the world.
As our current Scottish government is being judged unfairly by a media who are controlled by others outwith our country.
Their obvious bias and partisan behaviour as a UK MSM is motivated by and so driven by their allegiance to the UK State, so that then dictates absolutely everything that they, as a UK MSM, write about in relation to the SNP as a party and as the Scottish government.
That is a situation that creates a skewed reality based upon much of the UK MSM’s subjective filtering of news relating to the SNP as a party and as a Scottish government.
That is not a healthy situation but instead it is one where we see Scotland and our politics being consistently sabotaged by much of those in the UK MSM, with what is clearly a malicious intention.
So their involvement , as a UK media in Scotland, is one where they always try to control the political narrative here by actively opposing Scottish independence , the SNP (as a party, a government and so then their policies) and also an obvious lack of impartiality in their favourable treatment towards many of the pro UK political parties both in and outwith Scotland.
Baby boxes were and still are a wonderful initiative , that were not , as an initiative, one that should have been so negatively received, and so then presented as such by much of the UK MSM, but then we must always remember that when it comes to Scotland , then anything and everything that has been instigated by the SNP in Scotland must then always be declared as being #SNPBAD.
Simples.
Liz S
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I know ArtyHetty just ‘loves’ Anas Wotsisname, so she’ll be delighted to know that I’ve just had a big glossy leaflet delivered with his face plastered all over it. Vote for him and he’ll fix our potholes, our ferries and the NHS. Has no one told him that’s exactly what the LibDems and the Tories up here promise, too? There’s a picture of him in his dentist’s outfit despite the fact he failed as a dentist as long ago as 15 years. (He’s not registered with the GDC.) And abolutely no mention of who the local candidate actually is. It won’t obviously be him. But this promoting of him as the face of ‘Scottish’ Labour smacks of the old ‘Vote for the Ruth Davidson Party’ days and the ‘Scottish’ Tories. Whatever happened to her and the ‘Scottish’ Tories?
J & J
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Lol, yes he’s great at posing in his Ytube ads..I think also attired with a doctors type of gown..then he’s schooling a young child in how to shaft Scotland..I try to click off the ads asap in frustration but always forced to witness the liar looking all smug. I bet he’s been promised a seat at the hoose of lards if he smirks even harder…oh dear, sad really.
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Isn’t Ruth the mooth sitting in the HOLards taking £300+++ a day for life for services to her fave country, England?
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Indeed she is and working away in the background to keep Scotland tied forever to her fave country.
J & J
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Less people are having babies all over Europe. The population is in decline. Scotland needs people.
The baby boxes, child payments and nursery places help keep people healthy. People’s health depends on the health on the mother on conception. Healthier people saves money on healthcare.
The baby boxes, child payments and nursery places pay for themselves. The outcome in health is more successful. Life expectancy is higher. People are healthier and happier.
Under Thatcher and austerity people became less healthy. Unemployment in Scotland was 15%. Thatcher took Scotland’s revenues and resources. She lied and buried it under the Official Secrets Act.
Devolution 2000 helped mitigate against Austerity. Since 2000 Scotland’s population has increased from 5 million to 5.4million.
Westminster policies has depopulated Scotland. The Jacobite Rebellion 1715 + 1745. The unequal Union imposed on Scotland. The Clearances. The £10 passage. A millions disporia. People had to leave Scotland for prosperity. Australia, US, Canada and New Zealand etc. They have left because of Oil related activities. Scotland gains £Billions from tourism. Lost £ Billions because of Brexit. Imposed by Westminster.
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O/T
Last Thursday on 9 April 2026, the Green party in England won a Kent County Council by-election, which was called “after the serving councillor was jailed“
The Councillor who originally won the seat in 2025 and who “has now been jailed was a Reform UK councillor”.
“The Green candidate who won on Thursday had won by nearly 39%”.
Reform won control of Kent County Council in May last year, securing 57 out of 81 seats, but are now down to 47 Councillors.
Left Foot Forward wrote in February 2026 about Reform UK in Kent council:
“The party had been hit with a string off defections and suspensions as well as scandal”
“In October, it suspended 4 councillors after a leaked video showed bitter infighting”
“Councillors were seen in the footage, first published by the Guardian, complaining about “backbiting” and being ignored by their leader, Linden Kemkaran, who told them to “f****** suck it up” if they did not agree with decisions made by her”
“Reform then moved to expel other councillors, and earlier this month, its cabinet member for cutting waste and who led its infamous DOGE unit, designed to tackle wasteful expenditure, resigned after admitting that they had failed to make any major savings”
“And to make matters worse for Reform, seven former Reform councillors on Kent County Council have now joined Restore Britain, the far-right party founded by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe”
So this, it seems, is clearly down to Reform UK’s poor performance as a council , one that also includes inappropriate language and behaviour by someone that they appointed to be their council leader in Kent, they only won control of that English council in Kent last May in the English local elections.
However in Scotland we now see Malcolm Offord, who is the Reform UK branch office manager in Scotland , also experiencing a loss of (too) many of his new Reform UK candidates before May’s election in Scotland.
But somehow he , Offord, still expects voters in Scotland to believe that his new party , Reform UK – that he defected to from the Tory party – are , according to him, the supposed panacea that will #Reform all of those things that he claims needs reforming in Scotland.
BTW Restore Britain have not yet stood in an election, yet they now have an MP , Rupert Lowe , who was originally a Reform UK MP, they also have a total of 16 councillors , who defected to Lowe’s new party to then become Restore Britain councillors.
This is now an all too familiar dodgy and unscrupulous pattern is it not, that is making a mockery of their beloved British democracy , the same democracy that people in Scotland are told that they must respect whenever we are outvoted in any UK elections and UK referendums.
What with the original Tory defections to Reform UK – and then no democratic by- election , all of these ‘politicians ‘ are just imposed upon the public who originally voted for Tory Councillors.
Now the exact same thing is happening with Reform UK councillors defecting to Restore Britain , who as a new party are also adopting the same bad practice as reform UK in not holding a by-election in this scenario, so then they too are not allowing the same public who originally voted for Reform UK to then decide if they now want to change their vote and so elect those councillors as Restore Britain councillors.
BTW some of these councillors are also defecting to Ben Habib’s new party , Advance UK, and he , Habib, was formerly also with Reform UK, so I wonder just how many new parties will be formed by those new (disgruntled) leaders who were originally a part of one of Farage’s former and existing pretend parties ?
(There was also one Tory Town Councillor who then defected to another new party, as in Laurence Fox’s Reclaim party) ?
Back door politics and to hell with democracy.
Yet somehow people in Scotland are supposed to believe that the SNP are the really big political problem in all UK politics.
Reform- Restore-Advance-Reclaim.
All sounding, as part of their party name, ever so positive as party names , yet reality is they , as supposed political parties, seek to destroy, harm, hinder and discard anything and everything that is decent and good and replace those things with all that is unethical and bad.
Their collective vision for their UK will be one where the wealthy will flourish while all others will flounder while still being expected to drown in a succession of their empty pretend party slogans and empty soundbites (aka emotion over substance).
Surely that is then the one thing that should really unite all Scots to finally be able to say , as one voice, NO THANKS, in response to that hellish future .
Sadly however the reality is , that some within Scotland are always more than willing to choose that kind of bleak future over any possible alternate future opportunities that could potentially be one that is a far far better way of life for both themselves and their families.
Liz S
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