With Professor Pennington clearly still asleep and Professors Bauld and Sridhar far too likely to say something positive abut the Scottish Government, BBC Scotland head south for Prof McCoy. He says: What we know is that this virus and the lock-down itself has this differential impact across society whether it’s by ethnicity or its by age group or by you socio-economic position we are seeing this huge differentiality [sic] in risk and vulnerability. Brewer, though based in Scotland, clearly hasn’t spotted the Anglocentrism in the prof’s reference to ethnicity. He’s correct that in England, BAME workers and patients are suffering … Continue reading English prof hasn’t read Scottish statistics on ethnic death rate to appear on BBC Scotland’s Gordon Brewer show

In a bad-tempered interview with Fiona Hyslop, Gordon Brewer, shouted and interrupted repeatedly, as she tried to repeat the published advice on returning to work which he had either not read, or more likely, was prepared to distort in an attempt to appear to have scored a point. Jackson Carlaw was not interviewed to present his views on the matter. Regardless of the potentially very serious consequences for workers whose employers take from this encouragement to call their workers back into situations which remain too dangerous for them, Brewer’s disingenuous confusion can only have weakened the official message, currently saving … Continue reading Is BBC Scotland prepared to tolerate worker deaths just to score points?

In a snap poll yesterday, by the TuSC Agency for Public Opinion Research, there was a massive majority agreeing with the question, only 2 unsure and just 1 disagreeing. The self-selecting sample does, of course, limit the reliability of the findings to just about 20 times more reliable than a Reporting Scotland vox pox in Sauchiehall Street where all four of those prepared to talk, think Nicola’s to blame……for anything at all. https://twitter.com/ProfJWR/status/1264303481873141772 Footnote: Dear ‘No’, don’t worry about it. You’re entitled to your opinon and we respect that. We would never reveal your identity to be @MurdoQueens11 UPDATE from … Continue reading Snap poll finds only ONE Scot who does NOT think most Covid-19 deaths were caused by Tories

By stewartb: I’d like to highlight the work of two academics from Nuffield College, University of Oxford published (18 May) on coronavirus in Europe. Source: Aron and Muellbauer (2020) Measuring excess mortality: England is the European outlier in the Covid-19 pandemic. VoxEU.org, Centre for Economic Policy Research. They join a growing group of independent researchers and analysts identifying the importance of the ‘excess mortality’ metric when assessing the impact of the pandemic. They join a growing group pointing out that on this crucial metric England – not the UK  – is the clear OUTLIER. The authors do warn of the … Continue reading Is it making the news (yet) where they are? ‘England eclipses European countries in excess mortality scores’

By some way, the Scottish sub-sample of around 140, wanted to see the career psychopath, as even another Tory (David Cameron) referred to him, booted. Remember, this was asked before reports of his second visit to his parent’s farm, after returning, recovered, to London and of his family trip to mingle with the crowds in ‘popular tourist destination’ Barnard Castle. A local graduate was not amused at all: The local MP had called the Home Secretary the day after the Cummings story broke. Did she mention him in the call? Continue reading Scots most keen to kick Cummings out

Disappointingly, I’d say, with a narrow majority still thinking immigrants should have to pay to use NHS, more Scots are opposed to the idea than in other parts. Perhaps, if the question had been: ‘Do you think that immigrants including those working in the NHS and in care, should, or should not have to pay to use the NHS?’ Continue reading Scots least mean about forcing migrants to pay for health care

By some way, Scots seem less likely to want to get away from their own backyard, given an extra holiday. Perhaps the Scottish sub-sample of around 140 has been accidentally biased toward Portobello, St Andrews and Ayr? Continue reading Grass is not greener for most Scots?

By sam: Health inequalities are about life expectancy and whether lives will be free from disability and,if not, how long lives are lived free from disability. Until the Thatcher government, Scotland’s health inequalities were much like those in the rest of Europe. After Thatcher, Scotland was regarded as the “sick man” of Europe though we have recovered a little from that tag to be less affected than some parts of the UK. https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2014/02/12/thatchers-policies-condemned-for-causing-unjust-premature-death/ Dr Alex Scott-Samuel and colleagues from the Universities of Durham, West of Scotland, Glasgow and Edinburgh, sourced data from over 70 existing research papers, which concludes that … Continue reading Scottish Conservatives have long-failed Scotland and this pandemic is just the latest example of that failure

By stewartb: The article in The Scotsman on 22 May under the headline ‘The idea that Scotland has handled Covid well is a PR con job’ was no doubt carefully constructed – let’s use the term ‘fabricated’ –  by its author, Kevin Christie. The article is typical, perhaps a classic, of its genre. But why does it deserve such an accolade? Simply because, as is common nowadays, it has been comprehensively demolished by a ‘mere’ citizen journalist fully exploiting the research resources of … just ‘himself’! When the TuSC reports on ‘NINE ways Scotland HAS handled Covid-19 pandemic better’ and moreover … Continue reading Why pay to be disrespected and patronised? …. aka ‘the mystery of The Scotsman’s readers’

Published to great acclaim from, only, Ian Murray and Jackie Baillie, Socialists for NATO and Nuclear Weapons, I’ve already explained just how useless the above report is: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/05/23/tory-mps-for-morningside-and-helensburgh-trick-scientists-for-labour-into-blaming-the-snp/ One paragraph, however, is worthy of special attention. On page 5: They only published this two days ago. They must have known how comedic this paragraph is. Did NHS Scotland run out of anything? They don’t mention any of the many successful attempts to manufacture more ventilators and gowns within Scotland after the attempts by the UK Government to grab them all. Were the 300 to 1 000 unused beds in the … Continue reading Scientists for Labour obliged to drop the facts as they become inconvenient for attack on SNP