You’d never know it from the media coverage, or for that matter, the Scottish Government, but the infection level is falling, uniquely, in Scotland. OMG Wales! I’m praying, humanistically, for you. The First Minister is staying shtum. Quite right too. We don’t want anyone getting too cocky here. But, BBC Scotland, I feel sure you’ll want to report the facts, in the public interest, just like when only 94% of A&E patients are seen in time. Continue reading ‘Nic’ saves us as infection level plummets?

The Guardian map provides the clearest and simplest illustration of how effective the three mainland political parties have been in their attempts to control this pandemic. Two of them, Labour in Wales and Conservatives in England have made errors of judgement that, in former times, would have led to the fall of governments. The map does not reveal the underlying consequences in lives lost of these failures. Look at the death rate in last month: Now, I know pundits such as Andrew Marr would rather look at the first phase but that reveals only the errors of the UK Government … Continue reading Maybe not quite ‘in the pink’ but in perspective?

A friend alerted me to this saying ‘I suspect we won’t hear if its ‘disproportionate’ relative to the sector in any other part of the UK or indeed to the sector in any other part of Western Europe!’  The well-named Stalker has previous in the use of this low-level , gutter, ‘research.’ In July 2020: I wrote at the time: Revealing herself to be a worthy successor to Lisa Summers and fully integrated into the Sarah Smith / Glen Campbell school of cringe, Fiona Stalker goes ambulance-chasing for chronic pain sufferers whose experience can be used against NHS Scotland and … Continue reading A tendency to stalk?

BBC Reporting Scotland’s opening screens both tell a lie for dramatic effect and to distort the level of responsibility one man could have had for a problem with its roots in the Thatcher regime’s destruction of communities in Scotland’s industrial heartlands, forty years ago, and which was neglected by those ‘lodgers in power’, Scottish Labour, over the same period. The BBC website actually tells a more truthful story than those Britnats in broadcasting: In a statement, Mr FitzPatrick said he had spoken to the first minister and agreed to leave government. He said the “most heart-breaking and difficult problems” he … Continue reading Calls for Reporting Scotland staff to be fired

As the Covid death rate in Wales surges to twice that in Scotland and the infection levels soars to six times that in Scotland, there have been no calls for the First Minister of Wales or the Health Secretary to resign, from opposition parties or from the media. I don’t think there should be. They clearly made a mistake but it would do little good to call for a sacrifice. To politicise these deaths would be shameful and Plaid Cymru have not. However, in Scotland, where drug deaths have doubled in six years but the causes go back for decades … Continue reading No calls for Wales First Minister or Health Secretary to resign but in the creepy world of Scottish politics and media….

Extract from press release by Scottish Government today: Scotland generated enough electricity from renewable sources last year to meet the equivalent of 90.1% of the country’s total electricity consumption. In 2019, the electricity generated from renewable sources was enough to charge almost 6.7 billion mobile phones for a year and the amount of renewable heat generated was equivalent to the gas use of every building in Glasgow. Overall, the amount of electricity, transport and heat energy produced in Scotland from renewable resources increased between 2017 and 2018 to 21.1%. What it could mean: Full report at: Continue reading 90% of Scotland’s electricity demand possible from renewables

Though we have known since the MHA survey on 3rd of June that care home agency staff were the likely cause of outbreaks, neither government has until this month even hinted at that possibility. On the 2nd December, Boris Johnson published this: In the first wave, the movement between care homes of staff who were unwitting carriers was one cause of the virus being introduced to these settings. The government is therefore introducing legislation, by the end of the year, that requires care home providers to restrict all but essential movement of staff between settings in order to reduce transmission. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-winter-plan/covid-19-winter-plan … Continue reading Scottish Government has NEVER blamed care home staff

My first complaint about the selective bias in Marr’s use of Stirling University research showing care home deaths to be significantly higher in English homes: They sent me the same general response they’d sent to everyone who had complained about the wider deaths and not the care homes – lazy, stupid, contemptuous? I complained again. Two days later, this quick email response today: Dear Prof Robertson Thank you for contacting us regarding BBC One’s ‘The Andrew Marr Show’ which was broadcast on 29 November. We were sorry to read of your disappointment with the response you received to your complaint … Continue reading Third Andrew Marr complaint on care home deaths lies

The International Council of Education Advisers (ICEA) was established in 2016 to provide advice regarding education policies and practices to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to advance equity and excellence in the Scottish education system. This is the second formal report of the ICEA relating to our second two-year term (2018-2020) of work. The link to the full report is below but these opening paragraphs might be of interest to opposition politicians and to Professor of Education Policy at Edinburgh University, Lindsay Paterson, as he prepares his next anti-SNP tirade on the BBC or in the Herald: Scottish … Continue reading International advisers praise Scotland’s education policies

When I was still in the classroom, we had a rhyme – ‘Old John Pollock had a strike, Eeee, Aye, Eee, Aye, ESSS!’ John Pollock, EIS boss back in the eighties, was the man credited with the transformation of the teacher union into Scotland’s equivalent of the NUM and getting us a decent pay deal from the Thatcher regime and their Labour ‘lodgers in power’ in Edinburgh. The kids in his school, Mainholm Academy in Ayr, like him now gone, used to chant that rhyme, a friend tells me. My friend was also belted by Pollock. He could ‘draw the … Continue reading Dirty supply teachers! They’ve tried everything now…or have they?