I take little pleasure (;-)) in the Scottish Tories and BBC HQ getting wet today but it gives me the excuse to get my rebuttal in before the butts from yoons about Scotland’s SNP flood defences appear, like John Beattie’s exploitation of the Loch Lomond drownings. It tweeted this 5 hours ago: Talking-up Scotland@ProfJWR·5hWhen will opposition parties claim Scotland’s flood defences are not good enough and Sturgeon is in some way to blame? Go on. It’ll give me a chance to repeat how our stricter planning and building regs mean damage is far less here than in Rumpuk. No sign … Continue reading The sun shines on the righteous but everybody gets better flood defences

There’s quite a good reason why US officials might think maybe not, at least for England and Northern Ireland: The infection rate in the US at 18.6 per 100 000 is converging with that in Wales and Scotland, at around 25 but is much lower than England, where they has an increase yesterday, at 52 and Northern Ireland at 72. And, in some blackspots in the North of England the rate is close to 100 per 100 000. Footnote: I know they wouldn’t do what I said in the headline. Just teasing. Continue reading Why US might scrap travel ban but just for Scots and Welsh

The corporate-run Herald did reveal the above fact, as 18 out of 20, but chose two headlines which serve to divert attention from the corporations onto the state regulator and to conceal their presence in the data: Why did the care inspectors investigate far fewer cases of complaints, in a pandemic year, in places where the most vulnerable were homed? Duh, let me think. On complaints, I’ve been here before. In November 2020, I wrote: There are 291 voluntary [not for profit] sector, 232 local authority and 727 private care homes in Scotland. In the last year, to March 31 … Continue reading 90% of most complained about care homes privately run

On July 27th and today, 29th, only two days later, we read of two incidents of failure leading to unnecessary deaths after delays by ambulances, reported by BBC Wales. Astonishingly, neither report mentions that current Welsh Minister for Health is Eluned Morgan MS. Do BBC Wales know of him. Do the Welsh people know? Does Welsh Labour know? Sorry its ‘her’: She’s not mentioned at all in the BBC reports of a clearly emerging crisis in NHS Wales. Welsh Ambulance operations director, Lee Brooks, is mentioned: Actually, there are no calls for him to go. The opposition parties in Wales … Continue reading TWO Wales ambulance delay deaths: calls for Lee Brooks (?) to resign

The number of new daily cases of Covid infection is falling fast in Scotland and has been since July 2nd, getting on for 4 weeks ago. BBC Scotland continues to ignore the trend while BBC England drools excitedly after 7 days. An anonymous minister has claimed the pandemic is all over bar the shouting. Stupid. More stupid, Annie Wells MSP was, according to sources, just about to tweet ‘Midlothian’s infection level plummets, Sturgeon must go’ when a SPAD explained to her, Here it is on the 18th of 23, 17 line tables: You have to say devolution is working well … Continue reading Annie Wells blames Sturgeon as Midlothian falls to 296th most infected

On the 27th July, at 09:38, I tweeted the above. 16 minutes later, John Beattie had tweeted this: Not exactly the same but still a quick attempt to exploit the tragic drownings, only 2 days earlier, to make a political point. Beattie attracted several angry responses but these two sarcastically pointed out the stupidity of his idea: So, it’s statutory element in English Schools but what’s the pass rate, so to speak? Well, according to a report released by swimming’s governing body, the ASA and Kellogg’s entitled ‘Learning the Lesson : The Future of School Swimming’, more than 1.1 million … Continue reading John Beattie out of his depth in journalism: 51% of English children aged 7 to 11 cannot swim the length of a typical swimming pool never mind an ice-cold loch

For the duration of the pandemic England’s MSM have travelled widely to let us see how awful things have been elsewhere. We’ve seen dramatic images of Italian hospitals overflowing into tents, angry anti-vaxxers in the US, fraught ambulance workers in Brazil and funeral pyre smoke blocking out the sun in India. At the same time, infection and death had soared in England, with the other UK nations dragged along, doing a bit better, but unable to control things until the PM had already let the beast in. Today, we hear of new surges in East Asia. How do these records … Continue reading England’s Covid schadenfreude

BBC Reporting Scotland’s viewing figures according to their wikipedia page, averaged (past tense) between 500 000 and 600 000 with occasional peaks of 1 million for events such as the Lockerbie Disaster in 1988. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporting_Scotland By 2019, Reporting Scotland’s average audience had fallen to 380 000, just below that of STV News at 390 000. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20200116/281672551892893 BBC Scotland’s news service and its audience is a closely guarded secret. Unlike other publicly funded bodies such as health boards or local authorities, the BBC, like the MoD or the security services, is exempt from the Freedom of Information legislation and need not … Continue reading Millions pay for Reporting Scotland now but only 6.6% watch it

Cole-Hamilton has a new video out. Leaving aside its massively hammy style, it’s just packed with more fibs than a typical Johnson speech. Here’s just one: In 14 years the SNP have not moved the needle on child poverty Really? See this from regular TuS contributor stewartb in March 2021: “A beacon of progressive policy for the rest of the UK” “The most progressive policy brought in since devolution 20 years ago” The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) is widely regarded as the authoritative, independent source of evidence on poverty in the UK. It provides a readily accessible set of graphs … Continue reading Congenital Liar

In the National yesterday: Scotland’s national clinical director has described how the country’s Covid-19 case rate is “dramatically falling”. Speaking to the BBC‘s Today programme, Professor Jason Leitch said: “We had five out of the top 10 local authorities in the UK, now we have none in the top 150. He’s correct, look at this fall to almost the lowest rate, starting 26 days ago: Note, he’s speaking to a UK radio show, not BBC Scotland, but look at those jumping out headlines. In any normal media world, journalists would pounce on those words from a national clinical director, no less, and … Continue reading Do case rates falling fast make no sound on Pacific Quay?