Author: johnrobertson834

Retired Professor of Media Politics Not-for-profit independent political analysis
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How long do ‘Vietnamese’ trafficking gangs have to live and work in England until they become ‘English’ before 16 years later they spread into Scotland?

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BBC Scotland today reporting ‘Vietnamese’ people trafficking gangs operating in Scotland, leaving viewers to think they came directly from and are managed from, say, Hanoi. Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Readers will know that County Lines gangs terrorising Scotland from Dumfries to Wick, arriving here as ‘heavies’ from Liverpool, Birmingham, Bradford or London are never referred to in Scottish media, as Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Somali, Irish, Jamaican or, heaven forfend, ‘English’ though the communities they come from are described as such in England. So, why is BBC Scotland so comfortable with ‘Vietnamese’ when refugees from … Continue reading How long do ‘Vietnamese’ trafficking gangs have to live and work in England until they become ‘English’ before 16 years later they spread into Scotland?

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As BBC UK report a real breast cancer scandal, a reminder of how Lisa Summers made one up all by herself to unfairly demonise oncology staff in Dundee

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 This is a story on BBC Breakfast this morning based on a BMJ study, of: Twenty women had mastectomies unnecessarily while being treated for breast cancer at County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust, it has emerged. In a briefing paper presented to the board, the trust stated that 32 women received excessive surgery when a wide local excision would have been appropriate. Of these, 20 had a mastectomy without clinical need, the trust confirmed. Delayed diagnosis of breast cancer was also identified in 20 women during a review of … Continue reading As BBC UK report a real breast cancer scandal, a reminder of how Lisa Summers made one up all by herself to unfairly demonise oncology staff in Dundee

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As Maggie’s ‘broken children’, drug users from the teenage wasteland of the 1980s, fall off the graph, Scotland’s drug deaths will fall below those of England in ten years or less

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Channel 4 News tonight reminded me of something important, positive, about Scotland’s drug deaths – age. Look at this – Age-specific mortality rates of drug use deaths by broad age group, registered in 2000 to 2025: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland-2025/ There were 21.4 drug use deaths per 100,000 people in 2025, after adjusting for age. However, when you have a think about the rate in each of the 5 age groups, you should be able to see signs of a tipping point coming when overal drug deaths plummet. This drama all started more than 40 years ago, in the years after Margaret Thatcher … Continue reading As Maggie’s ‘broken children’, drug users from the teenage wasteland of the 1980s, fall off the graph, Scotland’s drug deaths will fall below those of England in ten years or less

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Buy Ardrossan harbour! Don’t buy Ardrossan harbour! The Herald pivots to be always against the Scottish Government

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 From Martin Williams in the Herald today: Ministers pushed ahead with the purchase and redevelopment of a major Scottish ferry port despite an internal warning that the costs posed an affordability risk to future budgets of its Transport Scotland agency. The warning was made by an internal Transport Scotland Assessment in February as the Scottish Government prepared to take place Ardrossan harbour into public ownership and press ahead with plans to turn it into the main mainland port for Arran. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26573121.ardrossan-ferry-port-166m-redevelopment-faces-affordability-warning/ When I saw this, I thought – ‘Have … Continue reading Buy Ardrossan harbour! Don’t buy Ardrossan harbour! The Herald pivots to be always against the Scottish Government

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Nearly 90% (10 000) of those at risk of opioid overdose have been issued with the ‘world-first’ Scottish Government Naloxone reversal kit as drug deaths misinformation hits the headlines for and by the under-educated

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 From STV today: Calls for more life-saving naloxone kits to reverse opioid overdoses amid contaminated drugs supply fears : https://news.stv.tv/north/calls-for-more-life-saving-naloxone-kits-to-reverse-opioid-overdoses-amid-contaminated-drugs-supply-fears Entirely missing from the STV report, including perversely, the limp Scottish Government response of ‘The Scottish Government says the number of naloxone kits distributed is increasing and that its widening access to treatment and residential rehabs.’ is the grpah above and this: At the end of 2025/26 Quarter 4, the ‘reach’ of the NNP (percentage of people at risk of opioid overdose who have been supplied with THN) was estimated … Continue reading Nearly 90% (10 000) of those at risk of opioid overdose have been issued with the ‘world-first’ Scottish Government Naloxone reversal kit as drug deaths misinformation hits the headlines for and by the under-educated

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NHS Scotland’s gentler touch keeps ‘ghost patients’ safe from harm

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 From the Guardian today: ‘Ghost patient’ policy wrongly removing at-risk people from GP lists, doctors say – An NHS policy to remove “ghost patients” from GP lists is inadvertently leaving some of the poorest people in England without vital healthcare, analysis has found. Under previous NHS rules, inactive patients at risk of being removed from their GP practice were given six months to respond to outreach. But under NHS England’s accelerated list validation timeline, introduced last October, patients now have only three months to reply. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/sep/23/nhs-england-ghost-patient-policy-wrongly-removing-vulnerable-people What are the … Continue reading NHS Scotland’s gentler touch keeps ‘ghost patients’ safe from harm

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Much as he’d like to James Cook does NOT know that Scotland’s drug death figures ‘remain worst in Europe’ – Nobody with half a brain thinks they do

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 With the help of Aimee Stanton, data journalist, James Cook has produced an extended piece with the above headline but little evidence for it. It’s utterly untenable. More on that below. I suppose I’m disappointed more with Aimee who has even had the Royal Statistical Society’s Award for Statistical Excellence in Journalism 2020. James, ‘a British journalist and broadcaster’, unless he’s modestly hiding stuff, is described only as ‘Educated at Forfar Academy, Cook began his career at Radio Tay in Dundee where he first read the news at the age … Continue reading Much as he’d like to James Cook does NOT know that Scotland’s drug death figures ‘remain worst in Europe’ – Nobody with half a brain thinks they do

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Drug deaths – one-year increase does not change overall trend which is down 15%

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Last year, the NRS graph, after a one year fall, showed also the trend in a dotted line with a shaded bandwidth of confidence and a fall from the peak of 1 339 to 1 017, 24%. https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland-2024/ For some reason, time maybe, this year’s graph does not show the trend. Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Today, to a gleeful media feeding frenzy, we see they’ve gone up again, ‘by 11%’ to 1 133, so the fall from 2020 is now 15% but the trend, sorry MSM, is still down. They had a nice … Continue reading Drug deaths – one-year increase does not change overall trend which is down 15%

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How Scottish Labour’s betrayal of Glasgow in the 1980s created a place of excess child death that even 20 years of Scottish Government success in reducing child poverty cannot remove

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rate of any UK nation. Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 It’s true, 10.1 deaths among 1 to 15s in 2024, compared to 8.5 in England, 6.4 in Wales and 10.0 in Northern Ireland. It’s been like this for decades. Why? These guys knew 10 years ago: The RCPCH report itself states that social and economic disadvantage in early childhood is closely linked to higher child mortality. What follows is based on the research published by the above researchers, comparing Glasgow with Liverpool and Manchester. The long-standing “Scottish effect.” Even after researchers adjust for current … Continue reading How Scottish Labour’s betrayal of Glasgow in the 1980s created a place of excess child death that even 20 years of Scottish Government success in reducing child poverty cannot remove

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Under Scottish Labour average homelessness applications were nearly 40% higher and in Glasgow, more than 50% higher, than in last five years

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 From Homelessness in Scotland: full statistical time series published today at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/homelessness-in-scotland-full-statistical-time-series/ Regulars here and those already smart enough will know that one-year fluctuations in statistics are often of little value but 3 and 5 year averages can point more accurately to trends, in homelessness applications in this case. Five year average, Scotland – 57 074 Glasgow – 11 626 Five year average, Scotland – 41 246 Glasgow – 7 600 So, homelessness applications averaged 57 074 under Labour in their last 5 years, 15 828 and 38% more … Continue reading Under Scottish Labour average homelessness applications were nearly 40% higher and in Glasgow, more than 50% higher, than in last five years