Another sub poll, 5 days after YouGov put SNP support at 60%, has the SNP at 55% with the Greens at 3%. The poll by Opinium, with 18+ respondents only on 23rd to 25th, has approval of the First Minister by large majorities among supporters of Labour (63 to 12), LD (49 to 9) and SNP (98 to 1) with even 27% of Con supporters approving of her performance. In sharp contrast Boris Johnson is approved of only by Con supporters. In Scotland, 70% disapprove of Boris Johnson. Only there and in London (51%) do more than 50% disapprove of … Continue reading Poll puts pro-independence parties at 58%

By Pentlander:   The diagram above gives an indication of the sea area attributable to an independent Scotland. The resources within this massive area will, I am sure, surprise us all in the decades ahead. While we are told we cannot continue to extract the oil and gas at current rates because of climate change it looks like there may be many other options ahead. One such option that seems to be in favour is the production of hydrogen. Production of green hydrogen from seawater utilising hydrolysis, offshore wind farm electricity and existing oilrig and pipeline infrastructure could be on the … Continue reading Hydrogen: Is the North Sea Industry over or has it just begun?

In the Herald today: The move to discharge hundreds of elderly patients from hospital into care homes during the coronavirus pandemic may have breached the law, the Herald can reveal. Both the Law Society of Scotland and Edinburgh Napier University’s Centre for Mental Health and Capacity Law have highlighted concerns that adults who have ‘capacity’ issues such as mental illness, learning disability and dementia may have been discharged or moved “without due legal process”. Concerns in part surround whether account is taken of the wishes of the patient or family. The legal experts have been joined by the Scottish Human Rights Commission in calling for … Continue reading Ambulance-chasing lawyers aim to exploit care home death relatives

This popped up in my social media pool this morning. Thanks to the good soul, now lost in the swell, who shared it. It’s about that ‘father of national parks‘, John Muir, born in Dunbar 1838, and his preference for ‘sauntering‘: There are always some people in the mountains who are known as “hikers.” They rush over the trail at high speed and take great delight in being the first to reach camp and in covering the greatest number of miles in the least possible time. they measure the trail in terms of speed and distance. One day as I … Continue reading Better to saunter than to hike through life?

In the Herald (where else?) today, we see another NHS Scotland scare story based on one unsubstantiated incident reported by someone who did not want to be named (but did like the photo?) and anecdotes from a campaigning group’s chatroom. Here’s the essence of the story: I had a look at the Mumsnet ‘sources‘ and I found one or two mums-to-be anxious about maternity arrangements, in English hospitals only. I searched for media reports of maternity bed shortages in Scotland and found none. If there really were such shortages, do you really think Lisa Summers would not be telling us? … Continue reading Covid-19 Update: No evidence of maternity bed shortages in Scotland

Keir Starmer: ‘We support the Government strategy.’ Keir Starmer: ‘We support the Government strategy.‘ Keir Starmer: ‘Has Richard said anything? Oh, what he said‘ Keir Starmer: ‘Well said Douglas. What? He’s not Labour?’ Continue reading Starmer does not accuse UK Government of failing to plan for return of students

I forgot the Ipsos MORI poll a few days ago suggesting SNP support at 7% across the UK and at 60% in Scotland but they have since mapped the effects and, at last, it would mean goodbye for Scotland’s only Labour MP currently being kept by the blue-rinsed Tory ladies of Edinburgh South. Ipsos MORI and YouGov tend to get closer to actual SNP turnout with their sampling than some of the other pollsters so I take pleasure, if controlled by realism, in that pure yellow map. Continue reading Draining the swamp!

In the Guardian today, under the heading, Covid has reduced Scottish independence to a basic question: Sturgeon or Johnson?, David Clegg, has a go at being one of those clever journalists with a long piece on how good a performer the First Minister is before, at the very end, slipping in those same lies, above, about performance. Once supposed journalist of the year, Clegg ignores the private care-home owners responsibility for the deaths and any PPE shortages, the 99% successful contact tracing system here and the fact that Scotland could not lock down earlier because it had neither the legal … Continue reading Guardian lets David Clegg sneak the expected lies in at the end

‘They’ appear several times in BBC Scotland’s headline story: What are we paying for? I could do everything I am doing from my house, so why have they sent us here? I do think they are just trying to make money off us being in halls and they knew this was inevitably going to happen. Reading through this BBC report, the Scottish Government, the Higher Education Minister and the First Minister all get a mention. Are they the ‘they?’ One mum, not necessarily related to any BBC Scotland staff member or representative of the opposition parties, knows fine who is … Continue reading Where is Anton Muscatelli?

Last night, STV‘s Louise Scott finds one student to say: We called them up and within 15 minutes they’d given us five bags of shopping for free. It’s all very accessible. They’re on call if we need them. A second was sanguine about the whole thing and a third said: It’s still social. We don’t feel lonely or alone. Somehow BBC Scotland found things to be quite different. They got one student to moan about ‘shortages of food‘ and one mum to claim she was upset that her daughter ‘had to wear PPE to pee.’ It’s not clear if they … Continue reading Are Scottish students being well-looked after or left hungry?