The flow of bad news on ferry fiascos in British Columbia, Lake Ontario, Washington State and New Zealand seems endless. From the West Seattle Blog yesterday: Until a few years ago, Washington State Ferries service was reliable, dependable, fully filling its role as part of the state highway system. Now, WSF sails in turbulent waters daily – with shortages of boats and workers, cancelling sailings and/or falling behind schedule. On the other side of a 15-minute rain from West Seattle, ferry-dependent Vashon Island is suffering in a big way, since the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth route has been hit especially hard. It’s long been down … Continue reading ‘The ferry crisis hurts right now’ in Washington State

By stewartb I applied the following search terms – ‘Scottish universities’ and variants thereof – to the BBC News website this morning. I wanted to check if two positive stories I’d come across (belatedly in one case) had received any news coverage. The clue to what I found is probably in the description – ‘positive’ stories! (Unless you know otherwise!) True to one of the missions of TuS, let’s make a contribution to filling the positivity void! University education in Scotland – career outcomes for graduates Universities Scotland on 31 July 2023 issued a press statement with this heading: ’84% … Continue reading On benefits of Scottish university education and research – and countering bias by omission!

This morning, I counted 8 BBC Scotland reports on Michael Matheson’s iPad, 6 still up on their website, compared to only 1 on Baroness Michelle Mone but even that was about her marriage breakup and not her PPE fiddling. The BBC Scotland reports are of course only the tip of a bing of coverage. See: Now here’s something new today, that in a democracy an unbiased taxpayer-funded public service should tell you about but hasn’t and probably won’t: Continue reading More than a week and dozens of reports later, how BBC Scotland hides what you really need to know about the Health Secretary’s work

The Herald today is joining in with an emerging media narrative to suggest the SNP has failed in its promises for school attainment improvement with Scottish education has been tarnished – despite Sturgeon’s promises and If the SNP can’t get education right, they are in deep trouble. Education is infinitely improvable, never perfect and the mass of data gathered enables tabloid academics to selectively paint a picture that suits an anti-SNP agenda. I was Associate Dean for Quality Assurance in an Education faculty. I wrote teacher development materials for the 5-14 Mathematics: Information Handling which were issued to all schools … Continue reading Fact check: The SNP has got education right. Say otherwise and you know nothing

Violent crime in Scotland falls from 92 266 cases when the SNP came to power in 2007, to 71 000 in 2022/2023. https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2022-23/pages/5/ In England & Wales, it climbs 20% from 2020, to 2.1 million cases. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2023#violence All things being equal, the level in England & Wales might be expected to be around 920 000 but was thus at 2.1 million, more than twice as high. From STV today: Over 71,000 incidents of violent crime have occurred in the past year – the highest figure recorded in Scotland in the last ten years. According to official statistics, the year ending … Continue reading STV platforms Tories to misrepresent violent crime in Scotland as it falls to less than half the level in England & Wales

Regulars here will have seen many many reports revealing how uniquely BBC Scotland politicises health issues such as deaths in hospital or delays in building hospital by linking these to the SNP Government rather the board actually responsible and platforms opposition politicians to attack the Government. In sharp contrast, BBC Wales and BBC England rarely if ever do so. If you need a reminder of this, see: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2021/08/11/nothing-proves-bbc-scotlands-bias-more-clearly-than-bbc-wales/ and https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/08/19/horrific-failures-in-essex-hospital-lead-to-no-calls-for-hancocks-head/ Yesterday, from BBC Northern Ireland: Fresh evidence has cast doubt on the findings of an inquest into the death of a former patient of discredited neurologist Michael Watt. Stephen Sparkes … Continue reading BBC Bias in its clearest form – BBC Northern Ireland too do not politicise health

emergency across Scotland. Labour says it will table the motion at Holyrood amid concern about the number of people in temporary accommodation or sleeping rough. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbcone The Reporting Scotland team, once again, operating as the Labour Party press office to suggest an SNP-crisis by ignoring the facts. 1 Core Homelessness lowest in Scotland ‘Core homelessness’ – a concept which captures the most severe and immediate forms of homelessness – is estimated to have stood at 14,250 households on a given night in Scotland in 2019, having been relatively stable over the preceding seven years. Rates of core homelessness are substantially lower in Scotland (0.57% of households) than in England (0.94%) and … Continue reading Homelessness and rough sleeping far more common in Labour Wales and Conned England but BBC Scotland platform Labour

From SEPA today: In 2024 98% of Scotland’s bathing waters will again meet, or exceed, the Sufficient classification – with 84% achieving the higher standards of Excellent or Good. A full list of results is at the foot of this email. This long-term positive trend for Scottish bathing water quality has been demonstrated in sampling and analysis carried out by Scotland’s environment regulator over the summer.  The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) work with regulated operators and stakeholders across the country and have driven millions of pounds of investment to bring about changes needed to make our bathing waters a … Continue reading 98% of Scotland’s bathing waters safe to swim in

From BBC Devon but ignored by BBC Scotland in may 2023: A nuclear submarine has left Devonport dockyard after a seven and a half year refit. The 492ft (150m)-long HMS Vanguard arrived for maintenance in December 2015 for a three and a half year refit and an unscheduled refuelling with a new nuclear core. Luke Pollard, Plymouth Sutton and Devonport MP and shadow armed forces minister, said: “It is good to see HMS Vanguard finally at sea again and I want to thank all the skilled workers at Devonport for their efforts. “What we do in Plymouth is unique and world-class, … Continue reading Clyde-based submarine repairs in Devon take 9 times as long and cost 200 times more than for the ferry Scotland’s media hoped would never sail again