Amnesty International has reported: Amnesty has collated and analysed a wide range of available data showing that more than 3,000 health workers have died after contracting COVID-19 in 79 countries, though the figure is likely to be a significant underestimate due to under-reporting. According to Amnesty’s monitoring, the countries with the highest numbers of health worker deaths thus far, are: Russia (545), UK (England and Wales: 540, including 262 social care workers), USA (507), Brazil (351), Mexico (248), Italy (188), Egypt (111), Iran (91), Ecuador (82) and Spain (63). https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-among-highest-covid-19-health-worker-deaths-world Typically Anglocentric, London-based Amnesty, did not think to check the Scottish data … Continue reading Health workers in England and Wales more than twice as likely to die from Covid-19 as those in Scotland

I love the radical, critical media such as the Canary and SKWAKBOX. I take pleasure in their forensic examination and exposure of establishment lies but every now and then they remind me that we cannot rely on them to help us in our own anti-establishment struggle, the Yes campaign. Today SKWAWKBOX, like the Guardian or the Telegraph conflate England with the UK. Have they checked the Scottish data and found them comparable to those for England & Wales thus justifying their headline? No, they have not even bothered to try: 540 health workers lost their lives to COVID-19 in England … Continue reading How the casual Anglocentrism of even the critical media reveals we cannot trust them to report Scottish health worker deaths properly

In the Herald today, Alistair Grant writes: SCOTLAND’S historic homes and castles face a mounting backlog of repairs amid a “catastrophic” fall in income during the coronavirus lockdown, it has been warned. Historic Houses, which represents more than 200 independently owned houses, castles and gardens in Scotland, said an existing backlog worth £53 million is set to grow even further. Think about it. How did one family manage to gather such an obscene pile of wealth as a stately home? Brutal exploitation of the local peasantry and the craftsmen who built it? Money from the slave trade? Imagine the lives of the servants … Continue reading Let these monuments to crushing inequality and psychopathic brutality crumble into romantic ruins the tourists will love

Panorama tonight looks at how Glasgow has cut violent crime. BBC 1 news had a piece on it but Reporting Scotland did not. I haven’t got the archives to prove this but I feel sure that when these stories were featured in documentary programmes later that night, Reporting Scotland was more than keen to encourage its viewers to catch it: Deaths in Scottish care homes PPI shortages in Scottish care homes Investigations into infections in Scottish hospitals The export of young calves to Spain Readers will, I’m sure, remember others. Whether this is conscious editorial practice or unconscious habit, the … Continue reading Reporting Scotland not interested in Panorama’s good news about Scotland?

In the Herald today: Mark Smith is the latest to join the list of supposed journalists forced to retain their sanity by pretending that the SNP leader and her team are not actually doing better but just seem to be. Just who is doing the PR job for them is not clear when you look at the list of those who regularly perpetuate this myth – Brewer, Marr, Smith, Gordon, Macwhirter, the wee guy at Channel 4, the wee guy at Newsnet.scot, even those at the Guardian. Going by the opinion polls the public see things differently. The Scottish Government … Continue reading Debunking the myth again and again: The First Minister is not just appearing to handle the crisis competently

Resisting pressure from the Scottish Tories to follow the UK decision to scrap taxes for more affluent house-buyers, for properties up to half a million pounds, Kate Forbes, the Finance secretary, has limited the relief to properties under £250 000. According to Insider: House buyers in Scotland will not pay tax on properties sold for for less than £250,000 after the Scottish Government responded to the Westminister Government’s Stamp Duty holiday. The change will mean about eight in 10 house buyers in Scotland will not pay LBTT. The average cost of a residential property in Scotland was £178,991 in 2018-19. … Continue reading Further SNP progressive taxation decision enables additional £50 million for first-time home-buyers

Not for the first time, this kind of news in the Insider online magazine doesn’t make it into the MSM coverage: Take-up of large industrial and logistics space hit a record high in the first half of 2020 despite the pandemic, according to real estate firm Savills. The firm’s latest Big Shed Briefing reports leases of properties of more than 100,000 sq ft totalled 704,531 sq ft across four transactions. That was a 165% increase on the long-term first half average and 95% increase on the first half of 2019. The deals included Iceland committing to 284,000 sq ft on … Continue reading 165% increase in large industrial space demand suggests Scottish economy more resilient than BBC ‘picture’

Here’s the truth about care home deaths: Data from research by LSE, reported on May 14th in Care Home Professional: More than 22 000 care home residents in England and Wales have died during the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research. In a new paper, the LSE said data on deaths had underestimated the impact of the pandemic on care home residents as it did not take into account the indirect mortality effects of the pandemic and/or because of problems with the identification of the disease as the cause of death. The paper said current data only accounted for an estimated 41.6% … Continue reading The FM is too polite to say it but the death rate in Scottish care homes was 21% lower than in England and Wales

I know, I know, it’s just click-bait. It’s just what journalists do to enable corporate profit. There are times, tiring, I think that, but then I remember that headlines like that might cause real damage. If some people believe them and become dispirited by them, they may become more casual in their covid hygiene. So, I rebut them in the hope that at least one person is not deceived by them. In 2014 and before, the Herald had a clear anti-independence, anti-SNP agenda. Nothing was allowed to stray from that. Today, things are chaotic, anarchic, laissez-faire, free market. We still … Continue reading The Herald no longer has a solid anti-SNP agenda but allows anything even that which will risk lives to attract sales

Taking the second point in the headline first, Macwhirter’s ‘some in the SNP‘ has no real evidence for it other than that from a tiny handful of disgruntled former leading members, with links to the Scottish media. There has been no poll asking Scots if they think the FM has lost the desire for independence. As for what Nicola wants, here’s Macwhirter’s theory based on his reading of her personality based on her behaviour in the Covid crisis: So, because in dealing with the most significant, life and death, leadership challenge of her life, where she is surrounded by expert … Continue reading Macwhirter’s cod psychology is just a more genteel form of attack on the SNP leader