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

Thanks once more to Dorothy for alerting me to this: Note the wee print under the photo – 85 dangerously substandard maternity units in NHS England. The ‘Scottish’ media are quiet. If they had something, they’d be all over it like nappy rash. I searched for ‘Scotland maternity inspections substandard‘ – only English ‘hits’. I searched the Healthcare Improvement Scotland site – nothing. I tried ‘Scotland maternity hospital inspection concerns‘ – bingo! As in the headline, only one minor concern in 2017 and another in 2013 but hey, using Reporting Scotland editorial standards, that’ll do. Get Gulhane or Baillie on … Continue reading ‘Two-thirds [85!!] of England’s maternity units dangerously substandard’ right now but one in Glasgow had rusty equipment in 2017 and another in Aberdeen was dirty in 2013 so no different, eh?

In the latest of TuS Ferry Newsletter instalments we note in passing that the ‘ferry fraud fiasco’ was fake news, that the Herald’s leading ferry guy, Martin Williams could bear to report that, but concentrate on what matters. Before today’s storms, on Tuesday 17 October, CalMac had 95.4% of sailings on time with only the wee Tarbert-Portavadie ferry out and only 2 of the 20 equally wee Oban-Craignure crossings cancelled. Meanwhile in the more temperate waters of British Columbia, BC Ferries are once more in the news: BC Green House Leader Adam Olsen says the state of BC Ferries is … Continue reading Canadian ferries get blown into ‘rough political waters’ even while the seas are calm

By Alasdair Galloway So, yet again a freeze on Council Tax. Almost an SNP staple. It is likely to offer some good headlines, but how good an idea is it really? First of all, unless the Scottish Government provide the necessary funding  to make good the Council Tax loss caused by the freeze, no matter its benefit (eg not paying more Council Tax) is lost because in some regards the can has only been kicked a bit further down the road, as local government is likely to end up even more badly financed. Therefore, set against those good headlines you … Continue reading Another Council Tax Freeze

By Alasdair Galloway I sent this letter to the Herald over the weekend. It was published today. THE recent article by Tom Gordon was headlined “Humza Yousaf: voters don’t see independence as relevant to daily life” (The Herald, October 14). Certainly independence comes well down the list of the perceived importance of current issues in many polls, so it seems difficult to disagree. If you are unemployed or can’t get quick access to NHS treatment, a comparison with independence is unlikely to loom large. However, this misses out that independence and unemployment (for instance) are not identical types of issue. … Continue reading Independence and a better Scotland – The perils of writing to the Herald

Spotted today by the ‘AI-enhanced’ PolicyMogul but missed by the LowIQ-retarded Scottish media: Energy Minister Gillian Martin will tell the world’s largest Arctic conference that Scotland can help power its northern neighbours’ journey to net zero. During meetings at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland, the Minister is expected to highlight Scotland’s expertise in renewable energy and seek to strengthen international partnerships in delivering technologies like green hydrogen and offshore wind. The Assembly takes place from 19 to 21 October 2023 and will be attended by ministers, diplomats and academics from countries including Sweden, Norway, the US and Canada. … Continue reading SNP Minister in another independent Arctic trade policy venture to p*** off Cleverly again

From SEPA’s Scottish household waste statistics 2022, issued today: Lowest amount of Scottish household waste generated since 2011.   Scotland generated 2.33 million tonnes of household waste in 2022, down 148,000 tonnes (6.0%) from 2021.   Overall household recycling rate was 43.3%, up slightly from 2021    Carbon impact of Scotland’s waste was 5.5 million tonnes of CO2e or 1.02 carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per person. This is down 357,000 TCO2e [tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent] from 2021 and 1.22 million TCO2e from 2011     Waste from all sources landfilled in Scotland in 2021 decreased 21.0% largely due to fewer soils and sorting residues being landfilled      Source: https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/3zFECr8AwC8oz7mXF7Lc0n?domain=sepa.org.uk/ Continue reading Massive reduction in Scotland’s household waste

By stewartb Whilst on the subject of council tax, this evening [Tuesday 17 October] on BBC Radio 4 (at c. 1730hrs) we got a very partial account of the FM’s conference speech. The BBC correspondent sought to link the new commitment to freeze council tax across Scotland next year with concerns (unattributed) about a negative impact on Local Authority (LA) budgets. Last time the SNP in government froze council tax (between 1999/2000 and 2015/2016), Labour repeatedly claimed in Holyrood that the council tax freeze had been “underfunded” to the detriment of LA budgets. A rebuttal of this claim was carried … Continue reading SNP Council Tax freezes – Councils were over-compensated!

..to freeze council tax Not for the first time, good news from the SNP Government is quickly flipped to present a negative narrative. it’s the easiest and most effective of propaganda moves. BBC Scotland this morning lead with above and fail to mention this buried in their online report in paragraph 7: Council tax had either been either frozen or capped at 3% since the SNP came to power in 2007, with the Scottish government providing local authorities with extra funding in return. Or this in paragraph 23: Humza Yousaf did not spell out how the freeze would be funded … Continue reading Councils have always been compensated for council tax freezes before. They and BBC Scotland know that

The Daily Record’s Paul Hutcheon claims: Humza Yousaf’s council tax gamble helps the wealthy and does nothing for the poor https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/humza-yousafs-council-tax-gamble-31210722 It’s a quick little-researched stab derived from an anti-SNP starting point. In 2020, the Institute for Fiscal Studies put a bit more intellectual elbow into and concluded that the Conservative Party’s council tax freeze, beginning in 2010, would lead to these outcomes, illustrated in the graph above: The biggest beneficiaries in proportional terms are those in the middle of the income distribution and those at the very bottom. Many poorer people gain little or not at all, because council … Continue reading Factcheck – Humza Yousaf’s council tax helps those in the middle of the income distribution and those at the very bottom