Author: johnrobertson834

Retired Professor of Media Politics Not-for-profit independent political analysis
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Update to BBC Scotland and Alex Cole-Hamilton – Nearly two-thirds of delays are due to UK Network Rail which then compensates ScotRail to enable it to pay passengers less than 1p per on average from its own funds

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Cole-Hamilton off the rails From https://x.com/Caymanguy1234: Network Rail pays ScotRail if they are at fault. I wonder how much ScotRail received, compared to the payout to passengers? I haven’t been able to do that precisely but this is helpful. From Train Operating Company key statistics April 2022 to March 2023, Office of Rail and Road in August 2023: Network Rail was responsible for 410 942 minutes of delays due to infrastructure faults while ScotRail was only responsible for 241 688, in 2021-2022. In 2022-2023, it was 483 533 and 275 963. https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/2244/scotrail-key-statistics-2022-23.pdf Network Rail was thus responsible for 63% of … Continue reading Update to BBC Scotland and Alex Cole-Hamilton – Nearly two-thirds of delays are due to UK Network Rail which then compensates ScotRail to enable it to pay passengers less than 1p per on average from its own funds

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Fourth sub-poll, not distorted by sample weighting to match 2014 vote, reinforces notion that SNP is well ahead

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Today from Opinium based on data collected from 1 537, on 18-12 December 2024, we see: Con – 23% Lab – 29% Lib Dem -11% Reform – 22% Green – 10% The Scottish subset of 110 has: Con 15% Lab – 19% Lib Dem – 11% Reform – 14% Green – 5% SNP – 35% A sub poll of only 110 has clear limitations in terms of reliability but this is the latest of 4 [c600 subjects in total] all telling the same story, of Cons, Lab and Reform all doing less well in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK … Continue reading Fourth sub-poll, not distorted by sample weighting to match 2014 vote, reinforces notion that SNP is well ahead

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Little shock as Alex Cole-Hamilton exposes 2p average rail delay payment and 0.06p average accommodation cost, per journey

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On BBC Reporting Scotland Badly and Down, last night, we hear: Publicly available figures show ScotRail has paid more than £2.1 million in delay payments since the train service was nationalised in April 2022. It comes as data obtained by the Scottish liberal Democrats, for the same period, the train operator paid almost £70 000 in accommodation costs for passengers whose trains had been disrupted. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0026hy4/reporting-scotland-evening-news-22122024 Thanks again to AR for alerting me to this. This is then followed by the leader of Scotland’s 5th biggest party platformed to have a wee rant based on the above misrepresented stats. Why … Continue reading Little shock as Alex Cole-Hamilton exposes 2p average rail delay payment and 0.06p average accommodation cost, per journey

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Homicide reduced by a third and robbery more than halved in first years of SNP rule

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Professor John Robertson OBA From the UK Government’s Serious Violence Strategy report in 2018, the above table revealing the uniquely dramatic fall in homicide in Scotland, following the election of the SNP minority government in Scotland in 2007. Many will, correctly, point out that such change will be due to more than one factor [see below] but had this happened under a Conservative and/or Labour Government in Scotland, they’d claim credit, or had homicide surged under the SNP, they’d be blamed for it. Even more dramatic, see below, robbery halved. Other factors? There is some evidence that improving health services can help … Continue reading Homicide reduced by a third and robbery more than halved in first years of SNP rule

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Lothian Labour – ‘people who put their own vanity, self-interest and ambitions [first], to be seen as king-makers, in positions of too much power’

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By stewartb In what is hardly a newspaper unsympathetic to the Labour Party in the Lothians, the coverage by the Edinburgh Evening News of the goings on amongst Labour councillors in the City of Edinburgh is noteworthy. From the Edinburgh Evening News, December 19, 2024, under the headline ‘Edinburgh council elects Labour’s Jane Meagher ….’ we find this (with my emphasis): (Labour) ‘Cllr Faccenda also abstained rather than vote for Cllr Meagher as council leader. She said there were principles which councillors were supposed to observe, the first of which was selflessness, defined as not allowing political interests to stand in … Continue reading Lothian Labour – ‘people who put their own vanity, self-interest and ambitions [first], to be seen as king-makers, in positions of too much power’

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Now there is another one – Labour Midlothian councillor stripped of the whip

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Anonymous Now there is another one , Labour Midlothian councillor Bryan Pottinger has been stripped of the Labour whip, on the 11 December , after what is now a second complaint that has been made about his behaviour. This is the second time an allegation has been made about him for two separate incidents and from two separate females. The Standards Commission for Scotland released their findings/conclusion on the first incident in 2023 relating to him. In 2023 a female councillor had alleged Pottinger had “behaved disrespectfully” and “had harassed her” in “making an “inappropriate comment about her underwear during a verbal exchange between them at a local event” It was determined by the Standards Commission for Scotland that “he … Continue reading Now there is another one – Labour Midlothian councillor stripped of the whip

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If you are a Labour councillor in Scotland and do not vote with the Tories against the SNP then you will  be suspended but if there are allegations of “sexual harassment” then no worries your job is safe

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Anonymous Apparently “Labour in Scotland received Cammy Day complaint ‘almost two years’ before suspension”. The complaint being a “sexual harassment complaint” against the Edinburgh Labour council leader Cammy Day, that is the same Edinburgh Labour council that suspended two of it’s Labour councillors for not voting with the Tories. So if you are a Labour councillor in Scotland and you do not vote with the Tories against the SNP then you will get suspended, however if there are allegations against you of “sexual harassment” as a Labour councillor and leader, then no worries your job and place in Labour is safe, well that is until someone exposes that scandalous news. This is the same Labour party whose so called leader in Scotland … Continue reading If you are a Labour councillor in Scotland and do not vote with the Tories against the SNP then you will  be suspended but if there are allegations of “sexual harassment” then no worries your job is safe

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Why Scotland’s headline drug death figures are currently not based on a reliable measure

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Professor John Robertson OBA Media and opposition parties are morbidly determined to hang onto Scotland’s drug death status as a rare apparently objective stick to beat the SNP Government into submission with. Earlier this year, they were all irrepressibly delighted to hear that there was a 12% increase from 2022 to 2023, following disturbing, for them, reductions in each of the two previous years after nearly three decades of satisfyingly climbing figures.1 These National Records of Scotland data are based on post mortem blood tests and commonly presented as more reliable than the Suspected drug deaths in Scotland. The latter are collected … Continue reading Why Scotland’s headline drug death figures are currently not based on a reliable measure

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Safe drug consumption – handing the fruits of the SNP’s long efforts to Labour and hiding Glasgow and Scotland’s achievements

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Professor John Robertson OBA The Guardian above, painting a very Scottish initiative as belonging to the UK. UK Conservative governments have long refused, since at least 2019, requests from the SNP Government in Scotland, for permission to even pilot a safe drug consumption room. In 2021, long after the first calls were made, the Scottish Government published an evidence paper1 which made the strongest of cases for such facilities but still permission was refused. Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer in 2023, made it clear he agreed and that he did not wish to see any changes in drug laws, if elected in … Continue reading Safe drug consumption – handing the fruits of the SNP’s long efforts to Labour and hiding Glasgow and Scotland’s achievements

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Rail performance – BBC Scotland seeking to frame and amplify a newspaper’s front page story

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By stewartb The iWeekend’s front page is reproduced prominently in the Scotland section of the BBC News website today. One has to magnify the picture on the web page to read the text immediately below the headline which notes: ‘… with Scotrail performing better than most’. This appearance of the I’s front page on the BBC site provides yet another ‘noteworthy’ example of editorial choices by the BBC in Scotland! On TuS on December 20 there was a post with this headline: ‘Too positive to be newsworthy? Scotland’s train cancellations found to be lowest of any country or region in Great … Continue reading Rail performance – BBC Scotland seeking to frame and amplify a newspaper’s front page story