Author: johnrobertson834

Retired Professor of Media Politics Not-for-profit independent political analysis
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How in 2001 Labour’s Malcolm Chisholm MSP condemned Glasgow and it’s child cancer patients to the only major hospital in the world within secret but easy breathing distance from millions of litres of stirred raw sewage sludge

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From clear liability for a looming health disaster in 2001 to a media transferring the blame to an innocent party in 2017 Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 By stewartb The full transcript of this debate in the Scottish Parliament on 17 January 2001 can be read here: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-17-01-2001?meeting=4278&iob=28854 What is abundantly clear from the record is substantial cross-party discontent with the nature of and response to the public consultation undertaken by the health board regarding options for the proposed new south Glasgow Hospital, including in particular its location. The issues concerning location … Continue reading How in 2001 Labour’s Malcolm Chisholm MSP condemned Glasgow and it’s child cancer patients to the only major hospital in the world within secret but easy breathing distance from millions of litres of stirred raw sewage sludge

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Funding education ‘for the good of society’ but ‘whose society?’

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 By Alasdair Macdonald Within the pre-school and school sector, funding per capita allocations increased as age groups increased. So, allocations to pre-school organisations were less than those for primary and, these, in turn, were less than the allocations to secondary. And, within secondary, these were even greater for senior secondaries compared to junior secondaries and for students in Fifth and Sixth Years, the two years after the school leaving age of 16. Students opting to continue beyond the statutory minimum leaving were disproportionately from … Continue reading Funding education ‘for the good of society’ but ‘whose society?’

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Why ‘the English Left’ including Gordon Brown will happily let Northern Ireland go but hypocritically and desperately insist on keeping Scotland

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 In terms of GDP, energy, food and drink exports, number of graduates, universities, water and other resources, would Scotland be a far greater loss for the rest of the UK? Yes. On those real-economy measures, Scotland would be a far larger loss to the remaining UK than Northern Ireland. Scotland is about 8 per cent of UK GDP; Northern Ireland is about 2 per cent. Scotland’s sales to the rest of the UK are on the order of £50 billion-plus a year and around … Continue reading Why ‘the English Left’ including Gordon Brown will happily let Northern Ireland go but hypocritically and desperately insist on keeping Scotland

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Is debunking the lies and revealing the good news about Scotland a ‘luxury item?’

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Were it not for their editorial position against Scottish independence, I’d be tempted to give the Guardian a tenner every month but, despite supporting Irish re-unification and every other departure from the Empire, they ignore my requests to re-consider and so I cannot. Are we at TuS a ‘luxury item?’ Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Productivity in the Crowdfunder era, almost doubled and readership up 20% but: At Talking-up Scotland, we’re producing more and better, I’d say. Our repeated and deepening investigations into the siting of the Queen Elisabeth … Continue reading Is debunking the lies and revealing the good news about Scotland a ‘luxury item?’

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Approach with caution – Mark Smith’s ‘new’ made-up crime stats

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 I haven’t bothered with the The Herald’s Mark Smith for years now. In 2022, I wrote ‘Herald’s Mark Smith does a Ross Kemp and gets out of Holyrood before a few elderly feminists ‘kick off’ and thrust their merkins at him,’ but have not looked for fear of upsetting myself. It’s at: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2022/12/26/heralds-mark-smith-does-a-ross-kemp-and-gets-out-of-holyrood-before-a-few-elderly-feminists-kick-off-and-thrust-their-merkins-at-him/ Approach with caution. Today, we have another of his biographical proud diversions in an attempt to seem clever: It is a constant disappointment to my parents that, despite the fact I … Continue reading Approach with caution – Mark Smith’s ‘new’ made-up crime stats

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Off the Table — at Your Peril

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 By Mark E. Saunders of “The Scottish Minuteman” https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=61575625542197 This week, our new ‘listening’ Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, took both Scottish independence and Irish reunification “off the table”. Why? I can only assume that a border poll in Northern Ireland, granted under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, would make Westminster’s refusal to allow Scotland another referendum increasingly difficult to defend — both domestically and internationally. But there is something else about this that should alarm everyone living in the United Kingdom. A Prime Minister hiding behind … Continue reading Off the Table — at Your Peril

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‘Grotesquely misguided!’ How in 2000, a Glasgow doctor described the ‘bizarre’ decision to build the new Glasgow hospital next to multiple stinking sewage ponds in a clear and shaming indictment of Labour and the Herald since then

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An aerated rotivated sludge pond like the 12, only 200 metres from the QEUH Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 The at least 29 raw sewage ponds upwind and horribly close to a giant hospital with thousands of vulnerable patients. How the wind blows the sewage aerosols TO the wards. Thanks to stewartb for finding these media reports including in particular the one from the Herald at the top of this, questioning the choice of site years before work began, approved by the Labour Glasgow City Council in 2004: It’s … Continue reading ‘Grotesquely misguided!’ How in 2000, a Glasgow doctor described the ‘bizarre’ decision to build the new Glasgow hospital next to multiple stinking sewage ponds in a clear and shaming indictment of Labour and the Herald since then

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Hospital Infection Inquiry – How BBC Scotland hid expert testimony calling the location next to a sewage works ‘an unacceptable and continuing risk’ but the Daily Mail properly informed the public

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 I was shocked to go back and read these reports from the inquiry into bacterial infections in the Queen Elisabeth University Hospital. In the Daily Mail: A water safety expert said he was ‘shocked’ to learn Scotland’s super-hospital has been built near a sewage plant. An inquiry into the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow heard that a microbiologist brought in following a spate of infections said its location next to wastewater treatment works was a risk to vulnerable patients. Dr Tom Makin runs the Makin … Continue reading Hospital Infection Inquiry – How BBC Scotland hid expert testimony calling the location next to a sewage works ‘an unacceptable and continuing risk’ but the Daily Mail properly informed the public

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BBC Scotland ‘Disclosure’ team that did ‘Welcome to Glasgow’ have all called in sick after request to go down and help BBC Tees do a ‘Welcome to Cleveland’ as locals there hear Glasgow has far lower crime and far more police officers

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Fresh from their disclosure of pandrop shortages in Scottish care homes for the elderly, following the wrong lorry full of underage calves to France and their recent, courageous if mostly armchair, investigation into tiktok videos of trouble in Glasgow, the BBC Scotland team are reported to have taken fright at the notion of actually going down to the really mean streets on Cleveland (Middlesbrough). Dismayed, BBC Tees, below, are pushing the story off their website with vague headlines. Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 How mean are the streets in … Continue reading BBC Scotland ‘Disclosure’ team that did ‘Welcome to Glasgow’ have all called in sick after request to go down and help BBC Tees do a ‘Welcome to Cleveland’ as locals there hear Glasgow has far lower crime and far more police officers