From SNP Media today:  New figures released should be a “stark warning” to voters, the SNP has said, as the damage of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal continues to be revealed. Figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that exports of goods from the EU have fallen by £2 billion since Boris Johnson’s botched Brexit deal was agreed – confirming that the so-called ‘teething problems’ of Brexit are here to stay.  The report also highlighted that the overall value of food exports, including Scottish seafood, is lower now than in any month of 2020 – having dropped by £300 million … Continue reading Scottish exports hammered by Brexit

From SNP Media this morning: Nicola Sturgeon will today (Wednesday) set out a revolution in Scotland’s childcare system with wrap-around childcare available all year round and free early years education extended to all 1 and 2 year olds. She will announce that a re-elected SNP Government will extend childcare to before and after-school, all year-round, with those on the lowest incomes paying nothing – allowing more people to afford to return to work, raising family incomes. Speaking while campaigning in Glasgow, the SNP Leader will highlight the huge investment the SNP government is making in Early Years, including the expansion … Continue reading SNP promise ‘wrap-around childcare’

In the STV Leader Debate last night, Anas Sarwar told us that sending Covid-positive patients into care homes had ‘devastating consequences‘ and that not doing it would have just been ‘common sense‘ of the kind he presumably possesses but which highly qualified medics don’t. He was, of course, hoping to lay care home deaths at the feet of Nicola Sturgeon and some viewers might think that’s where they went but he knows what he is doing, distorting the facts for political gain. The decisions to place Covid cases in care homes was taken by hospital medics in consultation with care … Continue reading Anas Sarwar claims better judgement than medics

On STV’s Leader Debate last night, Anas Sarwar confronted Nicola Sturgeon with the suggestion that, when Health Secretary, she had known the water supply in the about-to-open new Southern General Hospital was dangerous and yet had allowed the opening to go ahead. She insisted his claim was untrue. Who are you going to believe? Undaunted he then suggests that the water infection had ‘resulted in two deaths including Millie Main, just ten years old.’ There is no scientific evidence reported anywhere to warrant that claim. It is not true. Sarwar has been revelling in telling this tale since the tragic … Continue reading Sarwar’s use of the Millie Main tragedy goes too far now

In last night’s STV Leader’s debate, Willie Rennie tells Anas Sarwar that he doesn’t want to see a national care service because he worries about the mistakes we made in centralising the police. Let’s leave that bizarre notion for another time because Sarwar’s response surprised me. He said: I think we’ve got to have national standards. You’re right to say that but it’s got to be a mix between the public sector, the voluntary sector and local government and the private sector to make sure we get the right mix. Really? The Labour Party wants to keep the private sector … Continue reading Scottish Labour to oppose nationalisation of care homes

BBC Scotland this morning repeated from 6am to 9pm, opened with this, foregrounding industry demands ahead of Government and expert health advice. After four sentences explaining the industry view, one sentence suggesting, only, that the Scottish Government ‘believes‘ its approach is justified by the data. So the industry view is stated as a fact while that of the SNP administration with its published data is only a belief? It’s only the beginning. At 7.15am, an extended piece with James Cook travelling around Scotland to allow various business owners to tell us that while they ‘understand’ the need for caution they … Continue reading Too slow, too science-based?

The very first words of BBC Scotland’s series of news inserts between 6aM and 9am, this morning: It won’t be viable for two thirds of pubs to re-open on the 26th April Yesterday morning on BBC Radio Scotland: The day before dominating their website page and on Reporting Scotland: There was none of this: In sharp of contrast BBC Wales favoured the Welsh Government position over that of bar owners: BBC Scotland is campaigning against the SNP by its choices of what to report and which position to foreground/headline. Continue reading Eat out to die out: BBC Scotland is campaigning against the SNP by its choices of what to report and which position to foreground/headline

From SNP Press Office The SNP will use today’s (Wednesday) debate on lobbying to ramp up pressure over the Tory cronyism rife in Westminster – demanding that the Ministers involved in the Greensill scandal come before Parliament to disclose their exchanges immediately. Speaking ahead of the debate, SNP MP Brendan O’Hara said the Greensill scandal – the most recent in a long list of Tory cronyism scandals – has revealed the extent of access granted to government departments to firms with close links to the Tory party. David Cameron lobbied the Chancellor and Health Secretary, as well as senior Government officials, to … Continue reading SNP RAMP UP PRESSURE OVER GREENSILL SCANDAL

Comparing the reporting of BBC Wales with that of BBC Scotland is one of the more convenient and objective measures of the biases in the latter. Today BBC Wales has foregrounded an academic supporting the Welsh Government’s more cautious approach to coming out of lockdown and questioning the approach in England. In Sharp contrast, BBC Scotland took a pub-owner’s side and headlined this yesterday: This morning they invited the public to call in to their radio show on the initial premise that Scotland is ‘missing out’ on the benefits of the approach in England It’s their preferred position. Earlier evidence: … Continue reading BBC Wales exposes BBC Scotland’s agenda once more

At the end of his introduction to Resist, reform or re-run: Scotland and independence referendums in the long and short term, Professor Ciaran Martin’s much trumpeted presentation on the constitutional issues related to the referendum, Professor Tom Devine says: If you consider almost all of the three-hundred plus years of the Anglo-Scottish Union, what we have been seeing since 2016 and in particular since Brexit and subsequent developments is a real, major rupture in the way how things used to be done in order to manage a stable, successful and indeed friendly association between England and Scotland. Throughout, Devine makes much of the respect … Continue reading The Union was very bad for most Scots long before 2016