In the Guardian today: Tens of thousands of patients will be unable to have scans on Tuesday when radiographers join consultants and junior doctors in strike action, hospital bosses have said. Radiographers across England will take industrial action from 8am, which will limit the chances of patients using cancer, A&E and maternity services getting a scan or X-ray. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/03/radiographers-strike-on-tuesday-will-stop-thousands-in-england-getting-scans There’s no mention of Scottish radiographers in the above report. On September 3, the Daily Record had a report of a threatened radiographer strike in just one hospital (Hairmyres) with this gleeful comment: Radiographers threaten strike action at Scots hospital days after Humza … Continue reading Thousands of patients will be able to have scans thanks to another Humza Yousaf intervention to avert a health sector strike!

The press is full of warnings of loss of life if police officer staffing is cut, from a ‘top officer’ who is, in fact, a trade union leader not a senior officer nor a Sherlock-like detective. With two days to go until a by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West this is misconceived political campaigning on behalf of a Rightist Labour Party which would not hesitate to slash their staffing further and ignore their pay demands. None of the reports have this important evidence: As the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election looms, little media coverage, perhaps not surprising as you will … Continue reading ‘Cop Cuts’ – As by-election looms reminder of the facts on plummeting crime in Rutherglen and across Scotland yet superior staffing levels in Scotland

For a few months now the Herald’s Maritime Williams has had a Scotland’s Ferries newsletter to deal with the surge in media reports of ferry failures. There is, of course, no actual surge in ferry failures, any more than there was a surge in care home deaths caused by hospital discharges (it was poor agency workers) or a surge in sexual offences by trans folk or a surge in SNP fraud. It’s just another moral panic and if he is aware of that, it must be doing his head in to have to write that stuff. For his sake, I … Continue reading Herald’s Ferry Newsletter author missing obvious stories

From BBC Business a few hours ago: Water companies in England and Wales want bills to increase by £156 a year by 2030 to pay for upgrades and reduce sewage discharges. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66979271 In response from the SNP: The SNP has said “independence is the only way to guarantee key services are safe in public hands” – as privatised water companies in England and Wales seek to increase bills by £156 a year. Responding to the news, SNP Energy spokesperson Dave Doogan MP warned “families in England and Wales are paying an eye-watering price for failing services under Westminster control” and challenged … Continue reading Rutherglen By-election Alert – voters should be wary of eye-watering prices for dirty water if Labour get in control

The news today, above but in Scotland: and still what matters for BBC Scotland, later in the morning: Are the other BBC Nations so air-headed? BBC Wales: Northern Ireland: The caretaker manager Davis is from Northern Ireland. BBC Scotland could be wondering why Humza Yousef is getting so little praise for averting all these strikes. Then again, they know why. Continue reading BBC Scotland sink to the back pages

Skipping gaily by the worst ever doctors’ strike in history, not in Scotland, respecting the clearly prime importance of the Rangers job, Reporting Scotland leap excitedly first thing, ahead of their website, on the latest report on poverty. The good news, for them, is that those progressive SNP policies are seemingly not working. The latest report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Scotland titled Poverty in Scotland 2023 is full of assertions about the level of poverty in the present in Scotland yet the data on which it is based seems to be at least one, perhaps two (?), years old. … Continue reading Old data on poverty do not justify grudging commentary on SNP’s achievement