From the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Destitution in the UK 2023 report today: There has been a shameful increase in the level of destitution in the UK, with a growing number of people struggling to afford to meet their most basic physical needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed. This has deep and profound impacts on people’s health, mental health and prospects; it also puts strain on already overstretched services. This study, the fourth in the Destitution in the UK series, reveals that approximately 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022, including around one million children. This is almost two-and-a-half … Continue reading Latest research – SNP policies kick in to make destitution significantly less common in Scotland

Today in the Herald is the latest from that most unconvincing of pro-independence supporting writers, Kevin McKenna: It’s time for Robison to join her former boss on the backbenches. In Scottish politics, has there ever been a more ignorant and dangerous comment than that made by Shona Robison last year during the passage of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill?  In responding to concerns that some aspects of the legislation might put women at risk, Ms Robison said: “There is no evidence that predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory … Continue reading It’s time for Kevin McKenna to join his soulmates in the Daily Mail

From NIFerry yesterday: Stena Line is celebrating winning the ‘Best Ferry Company’ category at the Northern Ireland Travel and Tourism Awards for the 30th time. The awards event is the highlight of the Northern Ireland tourism industry year and was held on 13 October. In the 31-year history of the awards, there is only one occasion when Stena Line and predecessor Stena Sealink Line didn’t win the award.  This was when P&O Ferries had a one-off success in the mid-1990s. The event, organised by NI Travel News, was held at the Slieve Donard Resort and Spa and was attended by travel industry VIPs from across … Continue reading Northern Ireland’s ‘Best Ferry Company’ is far less punctual than CalMac

By stewartb There are lessons from recent UK history about how a mandate for a referendum on constitutional matters can be secured. The mandate for the EU referendum in 2016 provides a case study. Much has been made, rightly, of the outcome of that referendum – notably Scotland (and NI) being ‘dragged out of the EU against its will’ – but perhaps less well remembered is how the mandate for it came about. This history is of contemporary relevance. The election manifesto In preparation for the 2015 UK General Election, the Tory Party published its manifesto (for full text see … Continue reading Mandate for a referendum – what it takes to get one under a FPTP voting system.

In the BBC Radio 4 ‘More or Less’ episode on 28 June 2023, you can hear the clarification that we’re only talking of ‘tidal stream energy’ from the LSE researcher, 40 minutes in at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fxmcgy The BBC reporters make much of the fact that other forms of wave power have been developed globally that generate far more power than tidal stream power but say nothing of the environmental problems these larger scale technologies create. More below on this. Earlier in June 2023, the National print edition headline had the word ‘stream’ removed but it stayed in the online version. There … Continue reading Scotland does have leadership in tidal, ecologically sound, STREAM capacity

The Daily Express (England), fresh from inadvertently seeming to praise CalMac’s ‘hundreds of ferries visiting‘ Oban, tells us today: ‘The pretty UK town so remote ferries only travel there six months a year’ before going on to not mention that the town in question, Campbelltown, is actually on the mainland and that to get to Glasgow, you’d be faster avoiding the ferry to Ardrossan and just take your car round the road. What’s next? Ferries to Skye where you get a lovely view of a bridge and wonder where it goes? Remote Dunoon? Continue reading Revealed – ‘The pretty UK town so remote ferries only travel there six months a year’ is on the mainland!

The SNP Council Tax freeze has triggered an avalanche of gleeful and unresearched attacks quickly accusing them of betraying their commitment to progressive taxation. The Herald’s Garavelli, has joined in today, from a self-perceived position on the left with the poor. Quickly, before dealing with the issue, some may remember that in 2020, Garavelli was paid by openly rightist group, Tortoise, to attempt the assassination of Alex Salmond: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/who-paid-dani-garavelli/ OK, back to progressive taxation. Council Tax with its bands is clearly progressive though it could be more so by taxing the rich a bit more. So, at first sight, a … Continue reading Yousaf’s Council Tax freeze for all is progressive – Jimmie Reid Foundation

From India Education Diary, yesterday: Over the last three years, M2M Ferries has maintained a remarkable 99% punctuality record.  https://indiaeducationdiary.in/m2m-ferries-receives-a-maritime-excellence-achievers-award-at-the-global-maritime-summit/ Scotland’s CalMac ferries fall well short of that 99% with only 95.4% reliability. In 2020, one of M2M’s ferries capsized chucking all 80 passengers in the sea. All were rescued. Comments under a report from Republic World point to overcrowding on the ferry. In December 2022, another M2M ferry crashed into a jetty. A Mull councillor is reported as telling Reporting Scotland: 99% is not even good enough for me and if you want businesses like mine to thrive on … Continue reading CalMac challenged to match 99% reliability by Indian ferries at ‘minor cost’ of only one over-crowded sinking and only one crash

Sometimes I wish I was teaching about percentages to 11 year-olds again. We could look at these by-election results and the media coverage and have a good laugh at adults. In Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Labour claimed a ‘seismic’ win and the media let them do it despite the turnout collapsing and their vote having actually fallen. That the SNP vote had not turned out, foolishly I’d say, in their own protest against a ‘crisis’ wholly of the media’s construction, pretty much explains what happened – a percentage swing in a reduced turnout where your vote actually falls means nothing. … Continue reading By-elections – Labour vote FALLS or stagnates to tell even an 11 year-old that Starmer is talking seismic mince