Days after a flood of praise has been heaped on the First Minister, sometimes from the least likely of sources such as George Osborne, Ian Duncan-Smith and Allan Cochrane at the Telegraph and as they sink without trace in the polls, the Scottish Labour Branch have pounced on a leak revealing that she did not attend some of the early COBRA meetings on the coronavirus outbreak. Feeding it to the Sunday Mail, Neil Findlay described the news gleefully as ‘extraordinary revelations.’ Just for context, this is Findlay: Second best with only 29% of the vote in a working-class area. Way … Continue reading Sunday Mail, Herald and Scottish Labour launch witch-hunt in desperate attempt to halt First Minister’s popularity surge

By Brenda Steele: Am I being a bit of a snowflake [Ed: NO!] or are these folk getting a bit above themselves?  Government could learn from local community enterprises responding with astonishing speed and efficiency to get help and food where it is needed most – including NHS staff on the frontline. http://sceptical.scot/2020/04/rapid-response-social-enterprise-shows-the-way/ As I understand it, folk were begging to help and this is one of the suggestions of things they could do.  I suspect that ScotGov has rather more urgent things to do requiring technical knowledge. And then there was this. Nicola Sturgeon announced on Thursday that they … Continue reading The Scottish Government deserves support not snide comments from the uppity!

Revealing his true self, this morning, Gordon Brewer said: Can we start by talking a bit about care homes? Which has become a major sss..issue in Scotland! There are reports today that the military are going to help, at least in England, to create pop-up centres where effectively military units could visit care homes and test people in them. Is that something that you’re going to take-up here? Did Jeane catch him out with her response that, yes we are, with five and then eight of them? Brewer then suggested that Scots had been unable to request tests because the … Continue reading Brewer’s subconscious wanted to accuse Jeane Freeman of responsibility for a care home ‘scandal’ but it came out as ‘sss…issue!’

Marr this morning: A third of Scottish deaths have been in care homes. That’s a lot more than than in England and Wales. Why? The FM was too polite for my taste in refusing to say the English figures are inaccurate. Then Marr went on to select the GMB rant to throw at her. Marr knows damn fine the answer and thus his question was in the lowest grade of tabloidism. Ironically, he had earlier in the show used the FT/ONS report suggesting deaths in England & Wales were probably double those being reported and that, inevitably, most of these … Continue reading Andrew Marr repeats myth about care home deaths being higher in Scotland

Don’t be daft, STV didn’t ask him about support for his party or, for that matter, his support for paedophilia-apologist David Steel. Here’s my favourite, Opinium on April 7th: Lib Dems 1%! ONE PERCENT! How about Opinium on 1st April: Lib Dems 4%! YouGov on the same date: Lib Dems 5%. 24th March, Panelbase: Lib Dems 6%. Are things getting worse? In the Opinium poll on 26th March, 56% of Lib Dem respondents approved of the SNP leader’s performance. Are they giving up on you? Continue reading What’s your take now on paedophilia apologists after the last four polls, Willie?

I suppose you have to mishear what some politicians say if you need to write something, anything, today. Here’s what occasional Independence supporter, the Herald’s Iain Macwhirter, has to say today: Ms Sturgeon’s speech received rave reviews from the former Chancellor George Osborne and the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith. Mind you, I’m not entirely sure that they quite heard what she said. Mr Osborne urged Boris Johnson, as he returns to his desk tomorrow, to listen to her views on the “hard trade-offs” that the public must accept as we “plan to end the lockdown”. They seemed to … Continue reading The Sturgeon Pivot and the Macwhirter Hearing-aid Syndrome

It’s so like the Herald’s Health Correspondent to be both pessimistic and Anglocentric. Today’s ‘wisdom’ is behind the paywall so I only have the headline to go on and, of course, her long trail of inaccurate reports on NHS Scotland. If her report is about the NHS across the UK including NHS England, with its issues of resilience, then what follows has been a waste of my time. Anyhow, what evidence [yes, facts, that stuff?] is there that NHS Scotland will recover? Three kinds of evidence: Staffing level, previous performance, government support. Staffing Level: NHS Scotland has 50% more nurses … Continue reading The evidence NHS ‘Scotland’ CAN clear the backlog

Leaving aside the obvious daftness of thinking you’ve won the argument on Scottish independence because oil prices have dropped during an almost unique crisis caused by a virus, [Norway to seek domination by Sweden again after 100 years?] Wilson really shouldn’t be raising the issue of lies in 2014. On September 6th 2014, Wings labelled him a liar after he, clearly worried about something coming, made up a big fib about the cost of posting letters to Ireland: https://wingsoverscotland.com/brian-wilson-is-a-liar/ Earlier, on 7th February 2013, he had repeated the big fib that EU entry would be problematic for an independent Scotland. … Continue reading Fanatical Brian Wilson’s big lies cannot be erased from history

By yesterday, 47 749 people had been tested in Scotland or 0.87% of the population. https://www.gov.scot/publications/trends-in-number-of-people-in-hospital-with-confirmed-or-suspected-covid-19/ Across the UK 517 836 had been tested, or 0.76% of the population https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public So, the rate of testing in Scotland is 14% (87-76=11 then 11% of 76=14) higher than the UK average. Teenage SNP member, arch-Unionist, former New labour Minister for Energy, champion of nuclear power and Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Brian Wilson, is predictably upset with all this respect, even adulation, for the Scottish First Minister. The New Statesman, the Telegraph and BBC UK have all been utterly … Continue reading Scotland testing 14% more than UK average and Brian Wilson reveals SNP better prepared than UK Tories for even more

By anandprasad I am truly ignorant of politics so please excuse my ignorance but don’t the Scottish government have a publicity team that can show this astonishing disparity between the covid-19 death rate in Scotland and the UK average? Every day I wait for someone mainstream to point this out. I have only my partner to shout at. Do we have to wait years for some official report when peoples attention spans have moved back to some celebrity dancing/ baking/ sewing/ breathing contest? It really isn’t that difficult to compare average 5/10/15 year death rates with 2020 to see what … Continue reading No! 51% of people say they trust Mr Johnson to handle coronavirus?