I don’t need to repeat the apparently impassioned calls from the Scottish Tories for the Health Secretary to resign because of an error by her staff in sending out a letter with the wrong date in it. I don’t need to repeat the First Minister’s quick, withering, dismissal of their call as ‘political.’ These calls, regularly made, by all opposition parties over time, for different SNP ministers to go, are beyond merely ‘political’ or cynical attempts to score points, they are political theatre in which facts no longer matter and in which context is missing. Think about it. Jackson Carlaw … Continue reading Jackson Carlaw, ‘the big man now’: Shouting ‘Theatre!’ in a crowded fire to call for the fall of a competent woman

Yesterday, BBC1 News headlined the report of zero new deaths but Reporting Scotland only considered it worthy of a brief mention in passing. One more, today BBC1 reported it and Reporting Scotland mentioned it only in passing. Instead they headlined and developed at length two negative stories. First we had guidelines for those shielding, staying in force until July, and being described as ‘tougher restrictions than those for the rest of us.’ Then we had the requirement of 14 days isolation for those landing at airports. Then, we had a report on food poverty. There was some good news but … Continue reading No new covid-19 deaths, two days running, but still not good enough for a Reporting Scotland headline

In the Herald today, the rare appearance entering from stage door right, of Guy Stenhouse, to suggest the pandemic is not such a big worry: Comparing Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon is an interesting exercise. Nicola, one has the feeling, is comfortable giving us instructions – her motives are decent but she finds the state telling the citizen what to do a natural state of affairs; if the medical advice says we wait, then I will tell you to wait and you will do it. Boris, on the other hand, is plainly uncomfortable with this, he is an instinctive libertarian, … Continue reading Is the Herald now giving a platform to extreme-right pandemic-denial?

By stewartb: Through a circuitous route I came across for the first time the digital online newspaper, Yorkshire Bylines and an article (from 4 May) which provides further insight into the Global Britain that awaits us post-Brexit. Source: https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/britain-to-recruit-more-border-form-fillers-than-the-eu-commission-has-staff-in-total/ It notes that currently around 50 million customs declarations are filled out annually for the UK’s trade with the rest of the world. The Road Haulage Association has estimated that even under a Canada-style trade deal between the EU and UK i.e. one that would eliminate most tariffs but still involve customs declarations, an additional 200 million forms could be generated … Continue reading Death by quarter of a billion forms: Scotland’s future with the UK outside Europe

I wrote this ten years ago and found it again today. At the time, I was under pressure to get all my writing into peer-reviewed journals. This was the only piece I could not get published. No one would touch it. I remain strongly attached to it and, now that I edit a popular blog, I’m going to shamelessly exploit my situation and post it here, in a place with far greater readership than most peer-reviewed journals! The Scottish connection is that there are people teaching, in Scottish schools and in universities, often without really thinking about it, a kind … Continue reading How the study of the media in Scottish schools and universities has been distorted by right-wing ideas

The day after zero new deaths were recorded, the above headline is a bit grudging. It reminds me of the day I took a neighbour round the new campus building where I worked. Passing my door, with a wee sign saying ‘Dr John Robertson‘, he sniffed and remarked: ‘I see they gave you one of those.’ I’d worked hard for that PhD. Have Scotland, its government, its NHS and its people, done nothing to earn this reducing death rate? Is it just fate? Is the writer, based in England, with 77 deaths that day, just a bit annoyed? There is … Continue reading Scotland gets no credit for its efforts against covid-19

This incessant bombardment of the Health Secretary using only one idea for ammunition will not succeed. Jeane Freeman fights back. She has tweeted to counter BBC and other misinformation, most recently to remind the former that Scotland never ran out of PPE, to remind us of the responsibility of care home owners for infection control and to educate such as Gordon Brewer on the vulnerability of the patients he seems to think can just be shunted from place and to have invasive tests done upon them regardless of their will. With particular regard to testing, she has had to repeat … Continue reading Obsessed with mass testing as their only weapon, the opposition parties and their media chums have deliberately lost their grip

The Conservative Home survey at the end of May 2020 rated Carlaw as the politician who least satisfies members. For some reason, the grapher has put the higher scoring Paul Davis (no idea) below him. This is all the reporter has to say by way of explanation: Carlaw’s collapse. Amongst the minority of respondents who have a view on the Scottish leader, his net approval has halved from +23 to +11. His colleagues are reportedly angry at his handling of the Cummings row. I suspect there’s more to it. His florid, blustering, hectoring manner in parliament is not a good look … Continue reading Jackson Carlaw least popular leading Tory in the whole of the UK

Have things got more out of hand recently? Dishonest reporting in pursuit of readers is not a new thing by any means but that headline is special, very special. First look at the word ‘pensioners’. Straight-off the reader is primed to be outraged. How dare they do whatever they’re doing to our pensioners? Many of the readers are pensioners. Others equate the word with their beloved family members. What are they doing with pensioners? Exiling them!? Disgraceful. We don’t exile our pensioners in the UK! It’s a strange concept, ‘exiling’ the elderly back into the more domestic, informal, home-like atmosphere, … Continue reading Sunday Times Scotland wins award for most dishonest headline of the year

By Sam: Yesterday Professor John Edmunds said that the covid lock down should have been earlier and that many lives were lost as a result. On the same day’s Andrew Marr show, Matt Hancock, Health Secretary, disputed this opinion. “No, I think we took the decision at the right time,” he claimed. Byline Times can say something about what SAGE scientists were thinking back then. “There was universal agreement that timing was crucial in a pandemic setting. “The timing is critical and that is true across all of the interventions we have looked at,” Vallance said on 12 March. Talking about … Continue reading Would an independent Scotland have swallowed Vallance and Whitty’s eccentric delaying tactic?