Author: johnrobertson834

Retired Professor of Media Politics Not-for-profit independent political analysis
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Three England-only research reports do not prove that eating disorder treatment in Scotland is underfunded especially when NHS Scotland can treat 84 cases from England

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By Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to https://bsky.app/profile/keepinfairlieweird.bsky.social for alerting me to this. From BBC Health today: Lives are being lost and families torn apart because of “woefully inadequate care” for people with eating disorders, according to a group of MPs. The “alarming” rise in disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, over the past decade, has now become an “emergency”, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eating Disorders says in a report. The report refers to figures showing a growing number of people affected: The report says services are “grossly” underfunded, there are barriers to accessing treatment and wide variations in care quality … Continue reading Three England-only research reports do not prove that eating disorder treatment in Scotland is underfunded especially when NHS Scotland can treat 84 cases from England

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Canadian local authority issues free potassium iodide (KI) tablets to all living within 6 miles of nuclear plants but Labour extend life of aging 46-crack Torness in Scotland

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By Professor John Robertson OBA A map of the nuclear power plants in Eastern Canada. The city of Toronto (2.79 million) is contiguous with Pickering. Yesterday, from the local Durham Region Health Department: “Ensuring that our community is prepared for any emergency is our top priority,” says Anthony DiPietro, Director, Health Protection with Durham Region Health Department. “Having a supply of KI tablets on hand is a simple yet effective measure to protect your health in the highly unlikely event of a nuclear accident. We encourage all residents within the designated area to take advantage of this free resource.” https://www.durham.ca/en/news/ki-tablets-jan-21-2025.aspx Meanwhile in … Continue reading Canadian local authority issues free potassium iodide (KI) tablets to all living within 6 miles of nuclear plants but Labour extend life of aging 46-crack Torness in Scotland

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8th sub-poll in a row confirms SNP lead of 15% to 20% over Labour

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From a YouGov poll today, with data collected on 19-20 January 2024 and based on a sample of 2 466 aged 18+: with a Scottish sub-poll of 215: Source: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51428-voting-intention-lab-26-ref-24-con-22-19-20-jan-2025 Previously, 7 comparable sub-polls, staring on 2/12/2024, produced these averages: These sub-polls have the obvious disadvantage, on their own, of being too small for reliability but, in contrast to larger Scotland-only polls of around 1 000, of not being weighted according to the 2014 referendum result which seems likely to be skewing the results in favour of Unionist parties. This 8th sub-poll confirms the stability of the SNP support at … Continue reading 8th sub-poll in a row confirms SNP lead of 15% to 20% over Labour

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News you won’t hear – massive reduction in road fatalities and serious injuries in last 10 years and lowest in the UK

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By Professor John Robertson OBA From Road traffic accident statistics: FOI release, published today, we see a 24% fall in road fatalities, from 203 in 2014 to 155 in 2023 and, for serious injuries, a 32% fall from 2 901 in 2014 to 1 944 in 2023. Most of these FoIs are requested by the likes of Alex Cole-Hamilton of the Lib Dumbs, so it will be interesting to see if and how they try to spin this. Source: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202400443200/ The longer-term trend: From Transport Scotland May 30th 2024 , but not making it to any front pages or to BBC Scotland: One hundred … Continue reading News you won’t hear – massive reduction in road fatalities and serious injuries in last 10 years and lowest in the UK

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News you won’t hear – treatment orders for drug-dependent offenders imposed since 2019 plummet by half and success rates soar

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By Professor John Robertson OBA The emphasis of a DTTO is on drugs treatment as the primary means of reducing offending behaviour rather than the specific offence focused approach of a probation order. Specifically the objectives of a DTTO are to: • Reduce or eliminate an offender’s dependency or propensity to misuse drugs; • Achieve positive changes in the scale and frequency of drug related offending The Order introduces unique aspects e.g. drug testing and regular court reviews as features of a community disposal. The DTTO is a high tariff, highly invasive community disposal involving social work supervision. The order requires regular … Continue reading News you won’t hear – treatment orders for drug-dependent offenders imposed since 2019 plummet by half and success rates soar

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News you won’t hear – Injury road collisions plummet by up to a third since 2019

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By Professor John Robertson OBA From Transport Scotland – Road accidents in Scotland data: FOI release, published today, we can see that all road collisions with an injury, at all speed limits, have fallen dramatically since 2019, ignoring the Pandemic-caused dips in 2020 and 2021 when road traffic was significantly reduced. Of particular interest, the injury collisions in the 30mph limit have fallen by 34%. Similarly, collisions involving HGVs have fallen across all speed limits> Critics may spot, if they read on, that injury road collisions where speed contributed to the collision have increased slightly since 2019, from 165 to 173 but … Continue reading News you won’t hear – Injury road collisions plummet by up to a third since 2019

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BBC Scotland faking baby death ‘spikes’ that were never there

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By Professor John Robertson OBA From Scottish pregnancy, births and neonatal data dashboard, published on 14th January 2025, you can see Scotland’s falling stillbirth trend with variation between 3 and 5 per 1 000 births around the ‘normal’ level of 4, from one quarter to the next. There is one quarterly figure of 5 per 1 000 in July-September 2021 but it is not repeated and is no more significant then the very low figure in the previous quarter. Scotland’s higher level of midwife and home visitor staffing must be credited as a major factor in this trend. In the second graph, … Continue reading BBC Scotland faking baby death ‘spikes’ that were never there

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4 tower block fires but no towering infernos in Scotland confirm higher building standards and more frequent safety inspections in Scotland

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By Professor John Robertson OBA I’m four-sevenths of an architect. From 1970 to 1974, I passed 4 years of the part-time Certificate course in Architecture at Glasgow School of Art before getting sacked for (guess). I could calculate how much reinforcing steel you’d need in a concrete beam, but it’s all gone now, except one thing. Everyone moaned about the local authority building control officers telling us our airy dreams were unsafe. Looking back, thank goodness they did. Anecdotally, I’ve often heard about stricter building control regulations in Scotland, going back for decades but maintained by the SNP these 18 years, as … Continue reading 4 tower block fires but no towering infernos in Scotland confirm higher building standards and more frequent safety inspections in Scotland

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SNP plants nearly 20 times as many new trees as Labour Wales and more than 3 times as many as Conservative England

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From Forest Research, Time Series in 2024: In the period of SNP administration in Scotland, from 2008 to 2024: Scotland planted 131 460 new trees including 67 000 broadleaves. England, with 10 times the population and nearly twice the landmass, only planted 40 720, less than a third. As for Labour-run Wales – 7 800! Source: https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/statistics/time-series/ Continue reading SNP plants nearly 20 times as many new trees as Labour Wales and more than 3 times as many as Conservative England

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What’s behind Reform’s ‘surge’ when it’s only half as high in Scotland?

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Lucy Dunn, above (I’m getting that artist to do me a lovely caricature of me for the blog) , clearly has no idea at all about reality. A Reform surge in Scotland? Between 9% and 13% in the last 10 Holyrood polls but between 22% and 25% in the last 10 Westminster polls. At best, only half as popular in Scotland. Why? We have bams in Scotland but, thanks to people like Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson, only half as many as in England. We’ve known that for decades as the Tory vote in Scotland comes in at half that in … Continue reading What’s behind Reform’s ‘surge’ when it’s only half as high in Scotland?