Yes, I admit it. BBC Scotland is biased against independence. I admit that they only report NHS targets missed and never those hit. I admit they never compare NHS Scotland performance with NHS England. I admit they exploit single cases and try to suggest wider crises. I admit they use unreliable sources. I admit they platform the opposition parties regardless. I admit they never apologise when the truth comes out. I admit they mislead with language such as ‘Three baby deaths after No.64 bus passes hospital.‘ I admit they give Unionists an easy time in interviews. I admit Sarah Smith … Continue reading Leading academic admits BBC Scotland is horribly biased

Professor Sridhar didn’t really apologise. She said: So: ‘I’m sorry if you’re the kind of person who is upset when they hear the truth about themselves?’ Best bit in the Herald article is this from Murdo Fraser: Credibility? Credibility? You really want to use this measure? 35 point gap between your party and the SNP A third of your supporters trust the FM Only 8% trust your leader You’ve been photographed wearing an Orange Lodge sash You once tweeted after a Rangers victory calling them the ‘Queen’s 11’ And: And: Continue reading Professor Sridhar doesn’t really apologise to anti-Scottish unionists

We’ve had to correct the original BBC Scotland page (above). It had been: Coronavirus: No quarantine checks carried out on passengers arriving in Scotland That headline and the text fail to inform us that the decision to quarantine air travellers was taken by the UK Government and that they are responsible for giving access to the Home Office system so that officials in the devolved nations can do the follow-up checks. That they took four weeks to do so is a failure the of the UK Government not the SNP! Continue reading UK Home Office mandarins obstruct quarantine checks in Scotland’s airports for two weeks!

Six and a half years, around 15 000 posts and I may be wilting, especially when it comes to Gordon Brewer and Jackson Carlaw. Do I have to rebut what they said about testing this morning? There can’t be many watching it. Tell us BBC Scotland. Go on. We won’t laugh….for at least 10 seconds. This morning we heard from the pair, in a cosy, interruption-free exchange, that ‘the SNP [sic] have failed to do any follow up checks!‘ of airport arrivals. As Bruce Crawford MSP tweeted, this is ‘utterly duplicitous. Without UK Home Office security clearance, checks couldn’t start … Continue reading Should we maybe just ignore the Carlaw Brewer Show now?

On the Andrew Marr show this morning, the smarmy, Sir Simon Stevens lied that Public Health England had not hogged the supply of PPE, produced for contracts paid for across the UK. Donald Macaskill of Scottish Care was shocked and tweeted: Lying like that, regardless of evidence (below) is just standard for the Oxbridge elite running things in England these days. Continue reading NHS England chief lies about PPE being denied to Scottish care homes

What a pile of fibs and fabrications from Martin Williams today. I guess he’s not one of the Herald 4 getting their jotters. ‘The Herald can reveal that NHS Forth Valley has become a new hotspot for coronavirus cases with half of the total 12 for the whole of Scotland on Friday alone!’ OMG! I am so glad I migrated to South Ayrshire in 1984. Wait though, Martin! It’s just six. Remember the Leicester 658? What about the England 36? The 36 areas of local lock-down? https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/30/non-essential-shops-closed-today-leicester-12920228/ And, ‘on Friday alone!?’ Oh come on. Is there any evidence that this … Continue reading The Herald tries to include Scotland in the UK Top 36 for covid hotspots!

Professor Sridhar’s tweet has been removed. I understand why. An army of drooling orcs led by the Scottish Conservatives will be all over her twitter feed. She’s by no means alone in seeing anti-Scottishness, among Americans living here: Sridhar uses the word ‘naive’. It’s a good choice. Intelligent people who are, in one context, naive like the young, are often best at seeing things, more realistically, as they are. For most of us, our grasp on reality is compromised by years of socialisation within a culture. We politely allow Unionists to assert an alternative definition of Scottishness, based on inclusion … Continue reading Naïve realism? An American in the New Town

In the Times today: Support for the SNP and Scottish independence has jumped to the highest level recorded by a Panelbase poll for The Sunday Times. It raises the prospect of a second referendum on the future of Britain within a year of next May’s Holyrood elections. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, appears to have benefited from the perception that she has handled the coronavirus pandemic crisis far better than Boris Johnson. Three times as many people believe she has done a good job of leading the response to the pandemic, compared with the prime minister. In Scotland the … Continue reading If not now then when? SNP at 55% and secure enough to toughen up and go for it?

Ferdinand Mount, head of the Number Ten Policy Unit under Margaret Thatcher in 1982-83, in the London Review of Books on 2nd July: It has been painful to watch the steadiness and sombre dignity of the first ministers of the devolved parliaments – notably Nicola Sturgeon – and then turn to the slapdash boosterism of Johnson and his associates, many of whom seem to have caught his feckless tone as well as his frightful virus. It is jarring to hear ministers claim that they are ‘proud of our achievements’ in the middle of a pandemic which has cost, so far, … Continue reading Adviser to Margaret Thatcher praises Sturgeon and grallochs Johnson

Old New Labour figure, Brian Wilson, writing again in the Scotsman clearly implies that Professor Sridhar’s views are cynically based on hopes for future grant income from the Scottish Government. His old mucker, Malcom Chisholm, the last of the good guys in Scottish Labour, has put him in his place and the prof has revealed that all her pals are, so to speak, laughing at the wee git. Wilson and Sridhar Continue reading Brian Wilson revealed as even more loathsome than we thought after senior Labour figure defends Professor Sridhar against his attacks