BBC Health and BBC Scotland continue to report Covid data but, otherwise our MSM have gone quiet. Neither report comparative data, as they loved to do when Scotland was ‘the worst.’ We’ve been the best for two weeks now: 2.43% in England (1 in 40 people) 2.38% in Wales (1 in 40 people) 2.17% in Northern Ireland (1 in 45 people) 2.04% in Scotland (1 in 50 people) Remember, those percentage points look small but stand for thousands people without Covid in Scotland and tens of thousands with it in England. If it was the other way round, Humza Yousaf … Continue reading Scotland has lowest Covid infection rate again

Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland (1 August, 2013): ‘Scotland’s offshore wind potential estimated at 25% of Europe’s’ By stewartb The Unionists in the These Islands ‘think tank’ are very excited: they’ve found that a statistic is dodgy – or at least that the research on which it is based is open to question, re-intepretation or revision? It concerns Scotland’s offshore wind energy potential relative to Europe’s. (https://www.these-islands.co.uk/publications/i384/wrong_with_the_wind.aspx) In a lengthy account, the These Islands’ article states, based on third party data from two reports published in 2009 and 2010, that: ‘So, in 2010, the Scottish Government definitely … Continue reading Scottish Secretary confirmed Scotland’s offshore wind potential at 25% of Europe’s in 2013

From the Herald today: That Joseph Rowntree Foundation claim will be all over UK media today, won’t it? No? Continue reading More than 5 MILLION children could be taken out of poverty if UK copies SNP Child Payment

Game changing, you say? Where’s the story? There, down at the bottom left. Here’s a bit of the content: See that 5.3 million at the bottom. Headline story eh? How are BBC Scotland covering it. They did this morning on TV but didn’t mention that it was unique to Scotland. They don’t do tasteless comparisons…unless….wait…drug deaths! Here it isn’t on their website so you can’t read the full story. Continue reading ‘Game changing’, ‘400 000 children’ but not headlining?

From BBC Scotland first thing and throughout the day, after NOT telling us that the Child Payment is NOT paid anywhere else in the UK: There are more drink-related adverts in top level Scottish football than most other European leagues according to a study. When TuS posts evidence showing a range of positive comparisons with rUK, from A&E waiting times to crime levels or to IVF treatment, we’re accused of ‘whitabootery.’ The politer social media comments say that comparisons are irrelevant and that Scots only care about the services they get and how they should be better. However, the rule … Continue reading Comparing Scotland but only when it suits them

In the Guardian today: As many as one in three hospital beds in parts of England are occupied by patients who are well enough to be discharged, with a chronic lack of social care meaning many do not have suitable places to go. Guardian analysis of official data shows that on average 13,600 beds across NHS England are occupied every day with patients who doctors say are medically fit to go home or to a care home, equivalent to one in seven beds in acute hospitals in October. However, that rose to more than one in five at 35 of England’s 121 … Continue reading Health Secretary praised as bed blocking far less serious in NHS Scotland

From the Scottish Government in October 2022: Across the 14 years between 2007/08 and 2020/21, the annual average supply of affordable housing per head of population in Scotland has been 13.9 homes per 10,000 population, higher than England (9.7 homes per 10,000 population), Wales (8.0 homes per 10,000 population), and Northern Ireland (13.0 homes per 10,000 population – average across the years 2010/11 to 2020/21). The 9,757 affordable homes completed in Scotland in the latest financial year 2021/22 equates to a rate of 17.9 homes delivered per 10,000 population, the highest rate since 2007/08. https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-scotland-quarterly-update-new-housebuilding-affordable-housing-supply-published-04-october-2022/pages/7/ In the Guardian today: Forty … Continue reading Scotland surges ahead again in building affordable homes

In terms of the risk of dying in a hospital, Scotland’s hospitals are, year-after-year, reassuringly the same, across the country. Based on previous year’s mortality-rate a predicted rate is set. If there are the same number of deaths as anticipated the ratio is 1, the blue line. If there are significantly more or less than anticipated, warnings are triggered, the amber and red lines. The actual mortality rate is then plotted for each hospital on the graph, a ‘funnel’ plot or chart. The shape of the chart can confuse. The very small hospitals are to the extreme left where it … Continue reading The risk of dying in a hospital: The postcode lottery you won’t face in this already more equal Scotland

stewartb Arguably, there are some basic characteristics of the Tory opposition in Holyrood: (i) perhaps tactically, in the Scottish Parliament it chooses to offer little in terms of alternative policies/solutions, including the NHS. IMHO the Tories are not really working towards government in Scotland because their priority is for the powers of devolved government to be further circumvented or removed by Westminster. (ii) the Tories in Scotland have individuals, notably but not only Stephen Kerr MSP, whose prime role seems to be to denigrate and disrupt. (iii) the Tories in Scotland rely on the mainstream media, and especially the BBC, … Continue reading The characteristics of the Tory opposition in Holyrood

Kit Malthouse Minister of State (Minister for Crime and Policing) – February 2020 to July 2022 stewartb The populations in different parts of the UK may well have suffered differently in terms of long term drug misuse from the legacy effects of deindustrialisation and subsequent public health responses over decades. Scotland may well now be experiencing the relatively worse, tragic effects because the causes to an extent were ‘baked in’ some time ago. However, the most recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) data on drug deaths elsewhere in the UK clearly show that drug policies and support being implemented by … Continue reading English and Welsh drug users being sacrificed to a failed drug policy