Who said dithering? Oooh, I wonder could be that Jackson Carlaw, trusted by only 8% of Scots while the FM has 84% approval ratings? You can smell BBC Scotland’s agenda. Choosing to headline the Tory leader’s theatrical outburst rather than any facts and, to the right, ‘racist thugs.’ Really, speech marks? They were chanting racist abuse at asylum seekers from other countries. What more evidence do you need? Remember the BBC has a charter requiring it to inform us, so how widespread is this view that the FM is dithering? Is there evidence we could look at, BBC Scotland? No? … Continue reading Trusted by 84% but accused by two men trusted by only 8% and 6% and reported by a distrusted state broadcaster

For the second time in a week racist thugs have attacked peaceful protesters in George Square. Allegedly, the National Defence League, the rioters, have been heard to sing Rule Britannia, clearly stating their identity as British Nationalists. One group shouted illegal racist comments and attacked both peaceful protesters and the police, leading to arrests, while the other group, Glasgow No Evictions, was forced to abandon its protest and was led away by the police. There are no reports of arrests among this group. BBC Scotland had this to say: Anti-riot police have separated rival groups of demonstrators in Glasgow city … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s cowardly and dishonest labeling of both violent racists and their innocent victims as merely ‘rivals’

Here’s the key comment, from the Health Secretary today: One of those assumptions being the level of infection, prevention and control measures in residential settings across adult and social care which should flow from the national infection, prevention and control manual – but as we appreciated quickly, needed sufficient additional support to ensure that they were in place. Care homes have been dealing with infection control based on isolation of those infected or suspected of infection, for decades. There are flu outbreaks in care homes most years. It was a reasonable expectation that they would know what to do. The … Continue reading Or ‘We trusted the private care home owners to do what they they were paid to do?’

In Energy Voice today: Plans for a mammoth onshore wind farm have moved a step closer to becoming a reality after receiving £580million backing. SSE Renewables announced its final investment in the 103-turbine Viking Onshore Wind Farm yesterday. As the lockdown measures are eased, the number of workers offshore will steadily increase. Scheduled for completion in 2024, the 443 megawatt (MW) project will be the UK’s largest onshore wind farm in terms of electricity output. It is understood the development, which will cover 17,396 acres across Shetland’s central mainland, could create around 400 jobs at peak construction, with a further … Continue reading Another massive windfarm means Scotland can soon power 4.5 million of its 2.25 million homes

The above two, yesterday and today, a Tory and a Labour politician masquerading as ‘worried parents’ on BBC Scotland, to attack the SNP Government, are not unusual. Just based on recent cases exposed here, we’ve seen: The only GP unable to access PPE turns out to be an in-law of Labour’s Anas Sarwar. UKIP candidate, Billy Mitchell, appears three times as an audience member on Question Time in Scotland and shouts at the SNP panellists. Regularly appearing in the Herald and/or Scotsman, with no mention of their political affiliation, attacking the SNP Government: Brian Monteith, Brexit MEP and former Con … Continue reading Scotland’s media failing to disclose background biases

In Project Scotland today: THE Scottish construction industry is to receive £78 million as part of the Scottish Government’s £230 million Return to Work package, with the aim of stimulating the economy. This includes £40 million for regeneration projects and £20 million for roads maintenance. The Scottish Government revealed the package is funded by the ‘reallocation of underspends’ from schemes interrupted by the Covid-19 crisis. Finance secretary Kate Forbes said, “The impact of Covid-19 has been enormous on both businesses and individuals and the Scottish Government has so far spent more than £4 billion tackling its effects. We are also … Continue reading Finance secretary finds £78 million for construction but BBC Business not attracted to that optimistic tone

In Scotland, in the last two years, hospitals have become hot-beds of infection and these infections have been linked to patient deaths. Though none have been shown to have been killed by the infections, the stories are told in melodramatic, simplistic terms implying that they were. You can tell that this is fake news because they were telling no such stories in such a frenzy, before, when infection rates were objectively higher, and because the English media are not telling the same story despite evidence of even greater problems, revealed in inspections there. What is different here, is that the Great Scottish Hospital Health Crisis … Continue reading Hospital building faults ‘did not CAUSE deaths’

What is the claimant count? The Claimant Count is a measure of the number of people claiming benefits principally for the reason of being unemployed, based on administrative data from the benefits system. Why then, on 19th May did BBC Scotland claim: Coronavirus impact: Huge rise in Scots claiming unemployment benefit Sources: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52720227 https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/claimantcountqmi#:~:text=The%20Claimant%20Count%20is%20a,data%20from%20the%20benefits%20system. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/employmentintheuk/june2020#:~:text=The%20UK%20unemployment%20rate%20was,up%20on%20the%20previous%20quarter. Continue reading Unemployment: Scotland has one of lowest claimant count increases in UK

Iain sets off with an attempt to impress by referring to Ivan Illich’s ‘Deschooling Society’ which does, remarkably for 1971, talk of the use of advanced technology to support “learning webs”. Given how things have turned out in Macwhirter’s career, he should have kept on reading until at least 1988, when Herman and Chomsky’s ‘Manufacturing Consent’ came out to direct him toward a more honourable career than corporate hackism, such as accountancy or house-painting. Today’s story is full of nothing, just half-baked attacks on a decent man, evidence free. This is typical: Did he spot the irony in that last … Continue reading The Herald, putting ‘the interests of their own client groups above the welfare of…’ readers!

Once again a TuSC contributor has already answered the question: ‘What is that Tory eejit talking about?’ Here’s stewartb, just yesterday on ‘agency’, pretty much the same things as the ‘autonomy’ Fraser so fears: It’s good again to want to ‘amplify’ an article published in Source Direct, the daily digital news and opinion bulletin produced by Common Weal! The piece in the 15 June issue is to be welcomed. It’s entitled ‘The changing moods of unionist economics’ and perhaps because I had been musing over broadly related matters, it did resonate. The Source Direct article sums things up nicely:  “Are you keeping up? … Continue reading Murdo Fraser recommends full fiscal dependency because that’s worked well in the past three centuries