Hah! What are Baillie and Murray doing chatting to socialists? I bet Daniel, Soryia and Rubio are a bit less keen on nuclear weapons and NATO bombing in the Middle-East than those two Blairites are. Daniel likes Bernie Sanders and Evo Morales a lot and Soriya likes Jeremy Corbyn. Remind me, what do Baillie and Murray think of Corbyn? Needless to say, they think they’ve found another stick to beat the SNP with and will use socialist research if need be. The report in question was produced by Scientists for Labour. I’m OK with that and the Scotsman do mention … Continue reading Tory MPs for Morningside and Helensburgh trick Scientists for Labour into blaming the SNP

With his personal trust rating, in YouGov’s January poll, at only 8% and support for his party leader’s Coronavirus unlocking strategy at only 9% in May, Jackson Carlaw must now deal with two damning exposures of how his party’s handling of the crisis has clearly brought the deadly virus to Scotland in the early days of the outbreak. While BBC Scotland and the Scottish newspapers have been keen to characterise the outbreak at the Nike Conference on 26 March, and the decision of Public Health Scotland to protect the privacy of the ten or so Scots who attended, as a … Continue reading Scottish Conservatives FAIL to defend Scotland against pandemic!

I guess if you don’t want to know something, you just don’t look. The Scotsman’s Kevin Christie is a blinkered man if he thinks these are just PR: Higher recovery rate Lower excess mortality rate Mortality among BAME groups is lower Death rate in care homes is lower Mortality among key workers is lower: Assessment centres protected GP surgeries Better staffing Cleaner hospitals Better Government leadership Evidence (Facts, Kev) below: Higher recovery rate: According to GlobalData Epidemiologist Bahram Hassanpourfard, the global recovery rate is 32%. Hassanpourfard drew attention to the ‘UK’ rate of only 0.46% but I suspect that is … Continue reading NINE ways Scotland HAS handled Covid-19 pandemic better

Gleefully spreading lies, along with her colleagues such as Jackson Carlaw, Ruth Davidson wrote in the Sun and shouted on GMB yesterday to perpetuate a myth based entirely on England’s failure to properly record deaths in care homes. Along with most of the mainstream media, she has ignored the data from research by LSE, reported on May 14th in Care Home Professional: More than 22,000 care home residents in England and Wales have died during the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research. In a new paper, the LSE said data on deaths had underestimated the impact of the pandemic on … Continue reading Ruth Davidson’s claim of higher care home deaths in Scotland totally disproved by London School of Economic researchers. It’s lower

By Brenda Steele: I’ve been totting up the attacks from all sides on the FM and Jeanne Freeman over the Nike-Conference-Gate Labour’s Ian Murray has been on the case: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/scottish-government-should-admit-covid-nike-cover-and-move-ian-murray-mp-2859699 Scottish Government should admit Covid Nike cover-up and move on – Ian Murray MP We should all thank Nicola Sturgeon for her work during the Covid crisis, but she needs to own up to the mishandling of the Nike conference coronavirus outbreak in February, writes Ian Murray MP. Cover-up: “An attempt to prevent people discovering the truth.” That’s the dictionary definition of a cover-up, but it could alternatively state: “What … Continue reading Nike HQ ‘cover-up’ by Acting PM Raab after infected employee returns to London from overseas

From sam: This, from Taiwan, has been up before.It helps still to add context and, I hope, some force to stewartb’s post. “From a statistical point of view, the probability of physically encountering the novel coronavirus or of being exposed to infected individuals in large international airports or in the cabins of airplanes is much higher than in homes, workplaces, schools or other public spaces.” https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/03/22/2003733144 Singapore “The Ministry of Health (MOH) announced 47 new cases of Covid-19 in Singapore on March 21. Of these cases, 39 are imported, with 16 of them having a travel history to the UK.” … Continue reading Scotland’s real Covid-19 ‘Ground Zero’ was almost certainly not a conference but an airport

By stewartb: Statista, the information/research company, has collated findings of YouGov  polling which aimed  to discover where in the world trust in media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic is highest and lowest. The overall results are summarised in the chart below. Source of graphic: Statista (https://www.statista.com/chart/21779/trust-in-coronavirus-media-coverage- worldwide/ ) Now it has to be borne in mind that the media landscape in different countries and cultures varies considerably. However, it is argued that comparison of levels of trust in media coverage amongst democratic countries with a ‘free press’ is possible and credible. In Germany, 54 percent of those polled trust the … Continue reading UK media among least trusted in the world

Headline and image chosen by Editor. From stewartb: There is now so much heat – rather than light – being generated by the corporate media and opposition politicians in Holyrood over the “Nike Conference” incident. So, it seems appropriate, and timely, to get some context when assessing its likely significance.  Please bear with this as we construct the argument. The media’s ‘big’ claim One of the most read newspapers in Edinburgh chose this headline on 11 May: Source: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/business/nike-edinburgh-conference-was-ground-zero-covid-19-outbreak-scotland-2849739 The newspaper was amplifying, uncritically for Edinburgh residents the content of a BBC Scotland documentary: “A conference staged by sports goods … Continue reading BBC Disclosure and Scotsman ‘Ground Zero’ Nike comparison is both wrong and offensive to the victims of 9/11

With Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark clearly already in their camp, Professor Linda Bauld and Doctor Phillipa Whitford MP, were scathing in their assessment of Boris Johnson’s promised ‘World-class’ testing system for covid-19. Professor Pennington was not invited to comment. Critically, as Bauld points out, to be successful as in Germany, the system needs to be localised, using systems and expertise already in place. The Scottish system will do just that. In contrast, Johnson plans a centralised system based on contracting the work out to Serco and a mobile phone ‘app.’ Whitford then points out that Johnson should have put the … Continue reading Scottish health expert ‘not convinced at all’ by Johnson’s plan for ‘world-beating’ testing programme

Members of the Bearsden Amateur Dramatics Society, have been searching for some time to try to find a ‘girl’ to play Trisha in their stage version of the horror story with the local cadaverous hunk, Tom Gordon of the Herald, in the lead as Tom Gordon. Scottish politician Nicola Sturgeon, already familiar with Gordon’s acting, was approached but, as you can see above, quickly rebuffed the offer. Who would you like to see in the role of the girl who wanders off the trail into the woods? Jackie Baillie and Jo Swinson are my favourites for it. The role of … Continue reading Search for the Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon goes on after recent failures