I know the FM is trusted by English observers but have they started to think she can tell folk how to behave there too? Today, Tom Martin asked: Obviously with the shops reopening this morning, we’ve seen large queues of people gathering to take advantage. I just wondered how concerned you are at those scenes and why do you think those people are ignoring or not really taking heed of the message of avoiding crowded places? The FM replied: I, and forgive me that maybe I’ve not seen all of the pictures that your referring to, but I’ve not seen … Continue reading Scottish Daily Express reporter asks First Minister about English shoppers not obeying the rules

Is the above explained by this below from 10 days ago? Leicester has the highest South Asian population in the UK at 30% and they are more likely to be diabetic. 40% of South Asian hospital patients had diabetes compared with 25% of white groups and diabetes is very strongly correlated with covid mortality. In Scotland too, South Asians seem to suffer more than other BAME groups. However, in Scotland, South Asians are less likely to die than whites: 4.1% (225 000) of the Scottish population is recorded as one of the non-White ethnic minority groups yet they only make … Continue reading Why are Scotland’s South Asians less likely to die from covid-19 than ‘white’ groups?

After reading that headline, I was surprised to see that TG was the bearer of good news. I read on, tentatively: One of the First Minister’s advisers on the disease, Professor Devi Sridhar, said Scotland could become effectively Covid-free by the Autumn on the current trajectory, provided the test and trace system dealt with any ‘bumps’ on the way. Good, good, then straight after that: However it also emerged UK ministers may impose the country’s first local lockdown in Leicester after a surge in cases in the city. Wait, ‘the country?’ Which country? England? Such decisions have been devolved so … Continue reading ‘Paranoid cybernat’ attacks Tom Gordon again!

An honest assessment finally from the CBI? ‘… ultimately, policy decided in Westminster will shape whether Scotland can make the most of its natural resources’ From stewartb This article was triggered by the recent report from Scottish Government’s Advisory Group on Economic Recovery: ‘Towards a robust, resilient wellbeing economy for Scotland’. One of the report’s themes piqued my curiosity: it concerns the relationship between business and the Scottish Government. In this context, I decided to check out what the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is up to in Scotland nowadays. An honest assessment of dependency? The CBI published on its … Continue reading Will CBI Scotland now get behind Scotland’s interests?

Today, the outgoing Auditor General for Scotland, Caroline Gardner, was pounced on by Gordon Brewer, in a frantic effort to get her to say something bad about the Scottish Government. I feared he might manage given her previous reporting but covid-19 has changed her. At the end, he pulled out his Jackson Carlaw-inspired big fib but she was having none of it. After trying to soften us and her up with praise for the NHS hospitals, he tried this: But others….you sort of get the impression that ministers have been pulling at strings with nothing attached to the ed of … Continue reading Auditor General shoots Gordon Brewer down and describes work of Scottish Government as astounding, fantastic!

City of Edinburgh, Conservative and Unionist councillor pops up again, unannounced but, for the first time with an entertaining headline. Here are his last four entries here: ‘Make Tories look bad‘? McLellan opens with a quote from the Clash. The Clash? Their second album? Cool knowledge there. Those hardcore leftist squatters he loved when he was at Stirling University in the punk era and who have ever since informed his thinking as a Tory adviser and then councillor? It reminds me of the moment when former Eton schoolboy David Cameron expressed his fondness for the Jam’s Eton Rifles then wondered … Continue reading Tory councillor pretends to be journalist to spread conspiracy theory about SNP

By comparison to the previous post-war consensus, and in a subsequent period when the UK Guardian newspaper was yet still marginally deemed worthy of progressive submissions, Noam Chomsky and colleagues made the following letters page observations about UK media’s “conditioning” of the public, with regard to normalising the new US-UK-Western imperialism and particularly, absenting its death toll. They wrote: In May 2013 the reputable polling company ComRes asked a representative sample of the British public the following question: “How many Iraqis, both combatants and civilians, do you think have died as a consequence of the war that began in Iraq … Continue reading How our corporate and state media condition the public

Former Defra chief scientist and aid to four Conservative ministers, Sir Ian Lamont Boyd, appears at the end of a BBC article this morning, ostensibly on the thoughts of Professor Sridhar. It opens with: Prof Devi Sridhar, of Edinburgh University, said the country would effectively be Covid-free if that progress could be maintained. She said the challenge would then be how to stop new cases being imported. and goes on to say: However, an open border with England – where hundreds of cases are still being reported daily – is a concern, as is enforcing the 14-day quarantine of people … Continue reading BBC gets badger cull professor to suggest ‘we don’t fully understand why Scotland is doing better than other parts of the country’

As Scotland’s media and the opposition parties desperately cling to the past, lingering fondly on the comparatively high level of infection and of death, due to the lock-down of decision forced on us by the 4 Nations agreement, dominated by Dominic Cumming’s fatally wrong herd immunity strategy, they cannot bring themselves to recognise the achievements in the months since divergence at the end of March. The Scottish Government’s stricter lock-down, better communication, the people’s solidarity, the coronavirus assessment centres protecting GP surgeries and our better staffed NHS, take the credit. Scotland’s 7 day average for new cases is now 14. … Continue reading As England’s infection rates stall, when will Scotland’s media and opposition parties accept the truth of our achievement?

This sent to us by a follower of the blog who prefers to stay anonymous. The Glasgow asylum landlords, Mears Group, accused of dumping vulnerable refugees in hotels with no screening for mental health conditions and without financial support has connections with Scottish Labour, exposed in February 2019. The link to the full account is below but these extracts are shocking and more so in the light of what has been happening recently: In Scotland, Mears has a major contract with North Lanarskhire Council, worth an estimated £445 million over ten years, to maintain the council’s 36,500 council homes, as well as schools … Continue reading Glasgow stabbings: Scottish Labour’s shady connections with the asylum seeker landlords and an SNP protest