In 2003, the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Firdos Square, Baghdad, received saturation media coverage which fuelled the perception that the war had been won. This event along with George Bush’s hackneyed declaration of victory aboard a battleship in the Persian Gulf, diverted attention from start of a long and costly conflict. In the same way,the statue toppling of Confederate generals across the US and the slave trader in Bristol is diverting attention from what really matters to the Black Lives Matter movement – real social change.  These violent emotional TV dramas have shifted the debate on to what, … Continue reading Why statue-toppling is a distraction that suits the powerful

On BBC Scotland’s flagship radio news show, today, they interviewed the makers of Unsubscribe, a 29-minute horror movie shot entirely on video-conferencing app Zoom which made $25,488 in ticket sales on one day, securing the US box office top spot. Hearing that the film’s ‘first night’ was in an empty theatre, presenter Bill Whiteford then says: ‘Maybe we should make radio for nobody to listen to, Laura?’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000k2vn This comes days since Ofcom revealed that only 8% of Scots were using Radio Scotland for news, the same as Channel 5 and only 1% ahead of Snapchat: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/157914/uk-news-consumption-2019-report.pdf Continue reading BBC Good Morning Scotland accepts that it may have to broadcast to an audience of ZERO listeners

The Herald’s Helen McArdle throws her critics into confusion as she reveals the truth of what has been happening since the SNP, as Jackson Carlaw likes to label the Scottish Government, diverged from the UK Government’s heartless death-drive. Covid-related deaths, even using the unreliable Public Health England data are now three times higher in England than in Scotland. Will BBC Scotland catch up with these facts? Can they? Not, so far: I could be wrong and hope to be proved wrong but I think we might not hear anyone on Reporting Scotland say the words in that Herald headline. Of … Continue reading If the Herald can catch up with the truth about Covid deaths, will BBC Scotland?

At Scottish Affairs, yesterday, John Lamont (Con) clearly hope he might get the expert to be critical of the new SNP Government slogan ‘Stay safe’ but he was to be disappointed. He asked: You said you were a behavioural scientist. This was thinking back to what the First Minister announced today that the new slogan in Scotland is going to be ‘Stay safe, protect others and save lives.’ And comparing the criticism that she levelled at the UK Government when they changed their slogan to ‘Stay alert, control the virus and save lives‘, the First Minister criticised that advice, I … Continue reading Leading behavioural scientist praises new ‘Stay safe’ slogan to disappoint Tory MP

Yesterday’s Scottish Affairs Committee had this in mind: The Scottish Affairs Committee hears from a panel of constitutional, public health, and economics experts as it probes the UK and Scottish governments’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic. The witnesses were: AP: Akash Paun, Senior Fellow, Institute for Government; LB: Professor Linda Bauld, Professor of Public Health, University of Edinburgh; DB: Professor David Bell, Professor of Economics, University of Sterling (sic); NM: Professor Nicola McEwen, Co-Director, Centre of Constitutional Change It’s good to know that the committee admin know where Sterling is and that Professor Pennington was unavailable. The video is at: https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/a9db3cd7-ad46-4d90-95fc-2c4221687c80 … Continue reading 4 leading scientists praise Scottish Government’s handling of crisis after divergence from deadly 4 Nations ‘strategy’

Yesterday, in the Herald, Professor Bauld is headlined as saying something like this: Scientists have ‘no idea’ where the evidence for some Scottish Government lockdown decisions is coming from. She did say something like that but only well into the session and only after she was persuaded by the wheedling questions from Alberto Costa (Conservative), pressing her to think of just one example where the Scottish Government’s decision-making had been less transparent. After numerous earlier statements praising the Scottish Government’s transparency by her and by the other witnesses, Professor Bauld, hesitating, came up with a concern about the timing details … Continue reading Upset by twitter ‘abuse’, Herald’s Hannah Rodger petulantly insists on her right to fake the news again

By stewartb I’ve looked on with interest at how BBC news outlets have covered the extreme far right activities in London and Glasgow over the past week. I have been disappointed at the seeming equivalences being drawn by BBC Scotland’s output between ‘protests’ by right wing extremists and those protesting legally in support of the rights of refugees (‘No Evictions Glasgow’). I have been disappointed at the lack of contextualised assessment of the two groups in Glasgow. See also: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/06/17/bbc-scotlands-cowardly-and-dishonest-labeling-of-both-violent-racists-and-their-innocent-victims-as-merely-rivals/ One other notable feature in the difference in coverage of what happened in London and Glasgow is in the choice … Continue reading BBC Scotland hiding the nature of extremist violence because it’s Unionist

On re-opening schools: if only it was as easy and risk free as opposition politicians imply By stewartb Any notion that the Scottish Government does not wish to see all schools back to ‘normal’ as quickly as possible makes no sense. But where Covid-19 and public health, and especially the welfare of the country’s children, are concerned why would anyone NOT have the ‘precautionary principle’ front and centre of every consideration? The safety of pupils, school staff and the wider community must be paramount in planning for schools to re-open as we all play a part in seeking, progressively to … Continue reading Why Carlaw and the ‘mums’ in his inbox are all wrong on school-opening

Alex Bell, former adviser to Alex Salmond has popped up today in the Herald and the Courier to tell us that John Sweeney is weak, hapless and must go. In the Courier he says: The Nats (SNP) say it is because London won’t give them any more money. That’s like saying we lost the game of football because the opposition didn’t give us more chances. It’s a cowardly line of reasoning, an argument which asks you to feel pity for Scotland – poor us, the neighbours are so mean. In the P&J, in April he annouced: Sturgeon’s more a follower … Continue reading ‘I am bitter. It’s all I have really.’ Alex Bell and the SNP

Ignoring, the factory workers dying at almost twice the level of social care workers, Helen McArdle has pounced on what seems like an opportunity to revisit the PPE shortages which were not. https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/covid19/covid-deaths-report-week-24.pdf See it? Why why does McArdle think social care workers were more likely to catch the virus than the ICU staff? They would have caught it from the residents and the folk they care for at home. Run the presses! No wait, the old folk didn’t pass the virus to the workers. We know that it was the other way round now, especially if they were agency … Continue reading Health correspondent’s sneaky strategy to revive the PPE shortages lie