At 49 per 100 000 compared to 69, the infection level in Scotland is little more than half that in England. From the ‘Covid capital of Europe’ to the second lowest in the UK and well below the Netherlands too, the infection level in Wales may soon pus us into last place. Though BBC Scotland prefers still say infection levels are climbing across the UK, they have now been falling in Scotland for 13 days. Might that be a trend, Sarah Smith? Health Secretary Humza Yousaf has been widely praised for this achievement and his intelligent agreement with the closure … Continue reading Humza Yousef praised as infection levels plummet to third in UK

Today it’s the deliberate foregrounding one selected statistic that can be made negative and imply failure by the Health Secretary but, crucially, no context to help you see if it really is bad or not. Yesterday, it was this platform for the Tories to misrepresent the closure of a mass vaccination centre, imply incompetence in the Health Secretary, stitch-up of Prof Bauld and ignore the move toward the same decentralised mobile centres announced by the UK Vaccines Minister days before. The day before, it was one family’s tragedy presented as cruelty by the Health Secretary and, once more, ignore the … Continue reading Three in a row! BBC Scotland’s tireless efforts to make you doubt the ‘SNP Scottish Government’

Untroubled by the facts, like the older guy next door who tells you, based on the ‘Scottish’ Daily Mail, that everything is getting worse and that wee nippie sweetie Nicola is to blame, Brian Macwhirter groans from the wings. I’m not going to dig up all the sources. I’ve provided them all before here. They are all easily accessed online these days but here are some examples of levelling up and down where that makes sense, I can think of quickly: The old Labour-neglected, lower life-expectancy almost gone and life-expectancy now greater than all but the more affluent regions in … Continue reading After 12 years of SNP Government, Scotland has levelled up

The BBC is reporting on the pandemic in Japan just as it did in India or Brazil, without context. Here’s an obvious question viewers might want the answer to: How does the infection level in Japan compare with that in England? See this At 59.7 per 100 0000 compared with 2, it’s 30 times higher in England! Where is the tsunami? Continue reading Is Japan facing a fourth wave of Covid infections?

So, the Hydro mass vaccination centre is closing because: Jane Grant, NHSGGC’s chief executive, said: “The SSE Hydro and NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital have both played a really significant role in enabling NHSGGC to deliver our vaccination programme. “Our vaccination rollout has been a great success so far and as we now move into the next stage of the programme and look ahead to potential Covid-19 vaccine booster requirements, it is important we can continue to provide an accessible and flexible service to members of the public. “This is why our focus is now very much on community drop-ins and … Continue reading Reporting Scotland stitch-up leading public health expert

More than seven years, thousands of posts, and yesterday for the first time, I banned someone from this blog. They accused me of supporting fascism and ‘erasing’ women but that wasn’t the reason for the ban. They’d been peeing off other readers for some time now and, perhaps, driving some away. On seeing the ban, they accused me of being an intellectual fraud. Maybe. Sigh, 7 years after the last time I failed an essay, I felt I had been able to return to the the pre-teacher me. Continue reading Fascist tendencies

Every day, another made up concern about the SNP pandemic management. Today the decision to close the mass vaccination centre is presented by BBC Scotland as a platform for the opposition to play their usual game of attacking anything at all regardless of any sense. Only a few days ago they were arguing for a reduced gap between the first and second doses, until a JCVI expert prof disagreed with them. They’ve moved on to this one today. They even seem to have caught out the otherwise savvy Professor Bauld and, perhaps in a rush, she said: Prof Linda Bauld, … Continue reading BBC Scotland ignores Douglas Ross contradicting UK Vaccines Minister on vaccine centre closures

The headline to Tom Gordon’s article on Thursday (15/7) read, “Police probe into SNP will will grind Sturgeon down”. A catchphrase of sports commentator Jim White – at least according to “Only an Excuse” – was “let’s all hope so”. Was it an oversight that this was missed out of the above headline – “Police probe into SNP will grind Sturgeon down – let’s all hope so”? By Alasdair Galloway: The basis of the Jim White “joke” was that he was a Rangers supporter, and when anyone said anything negative about Celtic – “Celtic won’t do well this season” for … Continue reading Grinding Sturgeon down 2

So, BBC Scotland staff reveal their Anglocentric view with every step. Do they just not know it’s a jag? Do they know but want to correct it into ‘proper’ English? And, the Scotsman making call centre problems into a national disaster with out-of-data date from the week ending 10th July. I suppose if you’ve already decided it would be cool to link non-answered calls, to a Covid helpline, to soaring infection levels, it must be disappointing when you look at the data as you write: Oh, no! That pesky SNP Government has the infection levels plummeting and, worse, they’re rocketing … Continue reading Jabs with an old stick

BBC Scotland, as it loves to do, headlining a single case and if possible a traumatic one, to imply that Scotland’s pandemic measures are flawed in some way. We read: However, despite repeated appeals for an exemption on compassionate grounds, the family feel they have been let down by the “cruel” international quarantine system. Scotland’s national clinical director, Prof Jason Leitch, said visits to see relatives receiving end-of-life care were exempt from travel restrictions – but only if self-isolation protocols have been safely completed. He said: “This is a dreadful story and my heart goes out to the family. “I’m … Continue reading The exploitation of suffering for political purposes