Author: johnrobertson834

Retired Professor of Media Politics Not-for-profit independent political analysis
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Scottish taxpayers to pay another £100 million every year to keep an English steelworks in business as Scotland no longer produces any crude steel, just recycles old stuff, only weeks after hearing we must also contribute around £100m every year to save an English oil refinery so that it can replace a Scottish oil refinery to refine oil almost entirely from Scottish waters

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to Dottie once more for alerting me to this. In the Guardian yesterday, the above, and: Ministers have lined up special managers to run Liberty Steel’s South Yorkshire operations if they are put into administration, according to a revelation at the high court in London. The development shows that the government is ready to step in immediately to secure the continued operations of the Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), which employs 1,450 people at the group’s operations in Rotherham and in Stocksbridge. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/20/ministers-line-up-plan-to-run-liberty-steel-south-yorkshire-plants-in-administration There’s … Continue reading Scottish taxpayers to pay another £100 million every year to keep an English steelworks in business as Scotland no longer produces any crude steel, just recycles old stuff, only weeks after hearing we must also contribute around £100m every year to save an English oil refinery so that it can replace a Scottish oil refinery to refine oil almost entirely from Scottish waters

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Will Jackie Baillie suggest that West Streeting order NHS England and NHS Wales to copy NHS Scotland and get 12 hour emergency waits down to its level?

johnrobertson834

By stewartb Reporting an example of poor performance by a big, complex institution is linked to dodgy trend analysis by an agenda-driven newspaper – another mainstream news outlet in Scotland typically averse to the provision of context, perspective and comparative analysis. It achieves the objective for the British Labour Party and Unionist cause. in Scotland. It amplifies the false messaging that ‘NHS Scotland is crap’ and ‘it’s all that SNP’s fault’ towards voters in advance of the 2026 Holyrood election. After a gap of a couple of months, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has issued (August 14) a … Continue reading Will Jackie Baillie suggest that West Streeting order NHS England and NHS Wales to copy NHS Scotland and get 12 hour emergency waits down to its level?

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Going, going, gone – The Labour MSP charged over indecent images and the secret of English drug gangs targeting vulnerable women

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA Briefly last night the Labour MSP charged over ‘indecent images’ (children not mentioned in the text as in other media) has already dropped a place this morning (below). Watch out for how quickly he drops off the page altogether. Still down at the bottom, the County Lines gangs ‘targeting vulnerable women.’ More on this below. Here’s what BBC Scotland say about the County Lines gangs: County lines gangs are forcing vulnerable women into joining networks supplying crack cocaine and heroin to the … Continue reading Going, going, gone – The Labour MSP charged over indecent images and the secret of English drug gangs targeting vulnerable women

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As the US authorities tell Walmart to pull radioactive shrimp from shelves for fear of damage from long-term, low-dose exposure, why must Scottish consumers accept levels doubling the risk of child leukaemia, caused by Sellafield and banned in places like Japan?

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA From the New York Post, yesterday and in four other major US newspapers: US regulators are warning customers not to eat or serve potentially radioactive shrimp sold at Walmart — citing possible health dangers including a higher risk of cancer. Frozen raw shrimp sold by Walmart’s private label Great Value has been recalled after US Customs and Border Protection detected Cesium-137 in the supplier’s shipping containers at ports in Los Angeles, Houston, Savannah and Miami.  Cs-137 is a radioisotope that is typically … Continue reading As the US authorities tell Walmart to pull radioactive shrimp from shelves for fear of damage from long-term, low-dose exposure, why must Scottish consumers accept levels doubling the risk of child leukaemia, caused by Sellafield and banned in places like Japan?

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Major study by respected Nuffield Foundation finds higher educational achievement across the board in Scotland

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair From Comparing inequality and outcomes across post-16 education in the UK, published in the last few days: Since the formal introduction of devolution in the late 1990s, post-16 education and training (E&T)has looked increasingly different across the four nations of the UK, particularly as policyapproaches have diverged. With such differences in post-16 E&T across the UK, there are clearopportunities … Continue reading Major study by respected Nuffield Foundation finds higher educational achievement across the board in Scotland

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As British Labour Party politicians persist in gaslighting Scotland, is Labour’s disturbing legacy of 26 years of devolved government in Wales fair game for examination?

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details By stewartb “To put it bluntly, educational outcomes are a source of major concern in Wales” (Education Policy Institute, July 2025). When the BBC News website published an article headlined ‘Pass rates up for Scottish pupils in latest exam results’ on August 5, it reported (but did not headline) that there had been a reduction in the attainment gap: ‘The SQA said the attainment gap – between the level of qualifications achieved by children from the most affluent and the least affluent areas – … Continue reading As British Labour Party politicians persist in gaslighting Scotland, is Labour’s disturbing legacy of 26 years of devolved government in Wales fair game for examination?

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Hard evidence that for BBC Scotland, SNP councillors who go wrong are always ‘SNP councillors’ while Labour ones are concealed to protect their Anas

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor  John Robertson OBA Many thanks once more, to Brenda Robb, for sharing this evidence with us. Above, a typical BBC Scotland headline for a Labour councillor who has abused young girls. Below, how SNP councillors who go wrong are labelled: I’ll leave you to keep clicking to see the endless proof. If you try Labour councillor, you’ll get plenty but they’re all in England or Wales. If you try BBC Scotland Labour councillor, you will get only this, with none of the many sex … Continue reading Hard evidence that for BBC Scotland, SNP councillors who go wrong are always ‘SNP councillors’ while Labour ones are concealed to protect their Anas

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Prevention is better than prosecution? Scottish Government uses £156 million of cash seized from criminals to help young people at risk of becoming involved in offending

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor  John Robertson OBA BBC Scotland has today has the above, and: Money raised from seized criminal assets should be directly reinvested in efforts to fight organised crime, a police watchdog has said. In an annual report, HMICS said the Scottish government should consider an “asset recovery incentivisation scheme” that would allow Police Scotland – and other agencies – to use money raised from criminals’ assets to combat crime. A similar scheme is already in operation across the rest of the UK. Keep those ‘other agencies’ … Continue reading Prevention is better than prosecution? Scottish Government uses £156 million of cash seized from criminals to help young people at risk of becoming involved in offending

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As Scotsman front pages Harley Street private consultant to claim, based on one control centre misunderstanding with his son, they are ‘in total breakdown’ how Scotland’s ambulances were FOUR times faster in early 2024 before BBC pulled the site where I got the facts

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor  John Robertson OBA The Scotsman today has this: In January 2024, I wrote: Via the BBC’s How long do patients wait for an ambulance? app today, we can confirm that the average waiting time for a Scottish ambulance is 8 min and 46 secs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59549800 Also, from BBC UK on 14 December 2023: Average response times of more than 38 minutes for category two emergency calls such as heart attacks and strokes – above the target time of 18 minuteshttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67714151 Yes, I know the English figures are only for Category … Continue reading As Scotsman front pages Harley Street private consultant to claim, based on one control centre misunderstanding with his son, they are ‘in total breakdown’ how Scotland’s ambulances were FOUR times faster in early 2024 before BBC pulled the site where I got the facts

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There is no ‘deadly rise in emergency room delays’, it’s a non-deadly fall over the last year

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor  John Robertson OBA The Record today has: Cancer patient’s 15 hour wait for A&E doc revealed on day new figures show deadly rise in emergency room delays The one patient is on the front page. The rise is a one week increase in the figures published yesterday, of from 8901 in the previous week to 9434 but, not mentioned, this is down from 9754 in early June and simply part of a naturally fluctuating pattern over several weeks. Here is the trend over the … Continue reading There is no ‘deadly rise in emergency room delays’, it’s a non-deadly fall over the last year