18 polls over 11 months and everyone suggesting 50% or more of voters will give the SNP their first vote yet throughout that time, pundits at the Herald and the Scotsman, from Tom Gordon in February, telling us SNP could pay a heavy price for skimping on police budget to him again, only last week, writing Alex Salmond inquiry: Nicola Sturgeon ‘sunk’ by husband’s evidence, claim Tories, have predicted doom. Many of the polls have followed days after reports of crises for the SNP or their leader. Not one has revealed a trace of falling support. It’s almost as if … Continue reading Are Scottish voters ‘too stupid’ to listen to expert advice?

There are two targets for the treatment of cancer patients in Scotland. From NHS Scotland for the period 1st July to 30th September 2020 : The 62-day standard states that 95% of eligible patients should wait a maximum of 62 days from urgent suspicion of cancer referral to first cancer treatment. 87.3% of patients started treatment within the 62-day standard, compared to 84.1% in the previous quarter, and 83.3% for quarter ending September 2019. The 31-day standard states that 95% of all patients should wait no more than 31 days from decision to treat to first cancer treatment. 98.4% of patients started treatment within … Continue reading More than 98% of cancer patients start treatment in 31 days

In his Covid-19 Winter Plan updated on 2nd December, Conservative PM Boris Johnson has made it clear that hospital patients who have tested positive can be discharged into English care homes and that staff moving between sites were the carriers of the disease. Will Scotland’s media and opposition parties take heed, at last? Here are the statements: 79. 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 … Continue reading Prime Minister approves hospital discharges of covid positive cases into English care homes and identifies staff as unwitting carriers

They just could not wait. BBC Scotland: More than 1,200 people in Scotland died of drug misuse last year, new figures show. The much-delayed figures show a record number of deaths for the sixth year in a row. The figure of 1,264 is more than double the number of deaths in 2014 and the worst rate recorded in Europe. It is more than three times the rate for England and Wales. That’s the whole report so far. The Herald is little better. Expect days of this with opposition politicians lining up to accuse the SNP of betraying drug users. I’ve … Continue reading Breaking Bad: Scotland’s chronic media infection

The Tusker is often criticised for ‘whitabootery‘ as it relentlessly notes the many occasions when the statistics suggest we’re doing a bit better, on Covid infection and death levels, on NHS satisfaction, on falling crime, on IVF treatment, on A&E performance and so on and on. Angry responses tell us it doesn’t matter if we’re ‘only’ doing better than other countries and our MSM implicitly support that view by rarely if ever making positive comparisons but, when Scotland may be doing worse, oh boy, will we hear about it. They’ve tried on Covid infection and death rates but their dodgy … Continue reading Drug Deaths: How they want us to think of ourselves

Not for the first time BBC Wales shows itself to be a very different kind of organisation. Today, they posted this: Of course, had Scotland performed as badly as Wales has in failing to control the Covid outbreak, BBC Scotland might have been more keen to let us have the above comparison. Scotland has, thanks to our collective efforts and the actions of our devolved government, done much better than the other parts of the UK, so you won’t be seeing that graph on Reporting Scotland or hearing those data discussed on Good Morning Scotland or by John Beattie. Instead … Continue reading BBC Wales shows BBC Scotland how to do it

Once more BBC Scotland report on care home deaths in privately owned care homes but fail to mention the owners. NHS Grampian get a mention just as NHS Fife featured heavily in other reports in the last few days. As in the Skye care home outbreak, the health boards and the local councils have stepped in, after the outbreak has spiralled out of control, to support profit-making enterprises, by deploying their employees, in places where minimal staffing, full occupancy, inadequate training and the dangerous use of agency staff during a pandemic has resulted in unacceptable levels of risk to vulnerable … Continue reading Crown Office will get to the root cause of care home deaths no matter the bluff

Hearing today a local business-owner moaning and having to be reminded of two sizable grants they’d had and the fact that their staff were furloughed at the taxpayer’s expense, I had a dig around for news which I feel sure Reporting Scotland have neglected to keep us informed of. On 9th December, Finance Secretary Kate Forbes announced additional funding for the ‘newly self-employed hardship fund.’ This had been first announced in August as an attempt to help those who were ineligible for UK support. I can find no sign of BBC Scotland broadcasting this. Also, in June, the SNP Government … Continue reading Support for the self-employed only in Scotland

From one of the Tuskerati ‘Fergie goes to Holyrood’: With Scottish Labour’s dwindling poll numbers, maybe they’re looking for a new angle to capture the attention of the public… so they’re asking serious questions as to why more people haven’t succumbed to COVID-19, and thus stretched NHS Scotland beyond its capacity so it had to use its overspill capacity in the Louisa Jordan field hospital. Based on Richard Leonard’s woeful performance at FMQs on Thursday, pleading for Edinburgh’s restrictions to be lowered to let the virus spread maybe that age old proverb of Lord Foulkes’ is still reverberating around Scottish … Continue reading Scottish Labour accuses SNP… why haven’t MORE people got the virus?

In August 2019, Tam Waterson of Unison, above, warned in the Sun: HOSPITAL FEAR Union chief warns £150m Edinburgh Sick Kids hospital may have to be “ripped down” due to fatal safety flaws The hospital opened last July. Yesterday, he was in the Record with this: Tam Waterson, chair of Unison’s health committee, said NHS boards only found out about the plan to take Pfizer doses into homes when Freeman told the media on December 3. He said: “The plan was to use the Pfizer vaccine for health staff and arrangements were put in place for booking people in. Then … Continue reading First sighting of vaccine chaos spinner