Professor John Robertson OBA Last night’s Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election result: This result surprised everyone, including all the pollsters and the bookies. Labour were expected to come third as in all recent Scottish opinion polls. That tells you there was something particular, ‘local’, going on. What might that be? From Bylines Scotland in July 2024: The Orange Order is motivated by a desire to preserve the union, using social media for easier organisation. For example, the Loyal Orange Institution of Scotland posted on Facebook on June 18th: “Today is the last day (11:59 pm) to register for a postal … Continue reading ‘We remind everyone to vote for the Unionist party most likely to defeat the separatists’ – did an Orange order make the difference yesterday?

Professor John Robertson OBA From BBC Nottinghamshire yesterday, the above and: Twelve drug dealers have been jailed for running an “industrial” supply network that flooded heroin and crack cocaine into towns across the East Midlands and Aberdeen. The Nottingham-based ringleaders sprayed champagne from a white Rolls-Royce, in one of several “drill” music videos that boasted about their weapons and wealth. Nottingham Crown Court heard how they protected their turf with knives, a loaded pistol, and bombarded drug users with marketing texts. They also set up local distribution hubs at addicts’ homes and recruited children to move and sell their drugs, … Continue reading Rap video lured children to carry drugs internally all the way to Aberdeen from Nottingham but Scottish media obsess with Fuengirola shootings unconnected with Scotland’s drug crisis

Professor John Robertson OBA Yesterday, I wrote: NHS Scotland beat a waiting times target for the second time in a row despite increased demand – how will the media spin this to get SNPBad? I’m ahead of BBC Scotland, as I write at 11.02am, but I can smell them scurrying around, phoning someone who can be trusted to say the statistics, the same stats they trust when targets are missed, are not reliable in some way based on their wee personal experience. This is a major achievement which deserves so much more. The staff deserve praise but may not get it other … Continue reading As NHS Scotland treats 91.6% of nearly 5 000 children and adolescents with mental health concerns, on time, BBC just ignore it and STV lets a campaign group headline the 4% waiting too long

…linked to an ongoing gangland feud in Central Scotland, with fire-bombings, assaults and shootings across Glasgow and Edinburgh, since March, but if that is the case, it would represent a massive escalation in violence compared to what’s gone before – and this is unprecedented – the murder of two senior figures from Scottish organised crime in a busy public place in a foreign country. Professor John Robertson OBA While this kind of unfounded scare story below was to be expected from the Sun: Scotland faces ‘all out war’ and gangland revenge attacks after Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jnr shot … Continue reading Why is BBC Scotland’s scare story on the Spanish drug gang deaths leading to escalation in Scotland, condemned by Police Scotland, still online?

Professor John Robertson OBA Why does the new Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock MP, Elaine Stewart, already have the third-highest expenses claim [above] of any Scottish MP when the previous MP, Allan Dorans, had the third -lowest expenses claims of any Scottish MP, for the same job? I was shocked to see these expenses claims by my new MP after hearing that our previous MP had the amongst the lowest claims, for the same job. Has she been travelling 1st Class, living in better hotels, eating in better restaurants, buying nice things, at our expense? How many of her constituents might … Continue reading Have Ayrshire constituents gone from having the most cost-effective to the least cost-effective MP