John Power does have a decent head of hair (right) but clearly imagines an even more powerful bouffant ‘bearskin’ (left) to top his superiority mug. Yesterday, from the deep South, he announced to us: He doesn’t seem to have had a wee look at the polls. In 2026: A Purple Patch – Even skewed by still adjusting the sample to suit the 55% NO 2014 Referendum, 12 years ago (!), support is very strong and would be almost 100% if you take out the YouGov outliers. YouGov has not found a YES lead since September 2022! Two years ago: Looks … Continue reading In 2026 almost every poll not owned by Tories DOES show a surge for independence and now 52% to 43% – 9%!

The Daily Record back in gear only days after being slapped by the recent election results, has a tale of one person getting the wrong test results. If they were a real newspaper, here’s some research they might have done if it didn’t spoil their agenda. From Public Health Scotland Cancer waiting times published in April 2026: There were 4,797 eligible referrals, a decrease of 0.2% from the previous quarter, and an increase of 28.8% from the quarter ending 31 December 2019. 72.6% of patients started treatment within 62 days, compared with 70.7% in the previous quarter. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancer-waiting-times/cancer-waiting-times-1-october-to-31-december-2025/ The equivalent figure for NHS England … Continue reading NHS Scotland’s faster than NHS England cancer treatment service saved an extra 5 000 lives in the last 10 years but Daily Record finds one wrong test result to front page today

From STV today, the above and: CalMac has revealed a timeline for all major vessel routes to return to service after a number of ferries required repairs. MV Hebrides is due to return to service on the Little Minch on Wednesday afternoon following work to address a leak on her bow visor seal, which came at the end of her planned annual overhaul. By the end of this week, CalMac expects all major vessel routes to have planned levels of service. https://news.stv.tv/scotland/calmac-reveals-timeline-for-all-major-vessels-to-return-to-service-following-challenging-few-weeks It’s what they’ve been screaming for this last three years but will they tell anyone? BBC Scotland currently … Continue reading All CalMac routes in full service by Friday but will that be reported?

From CBC News yesterday, the above graphic and ‘Highway on the Sea’: How decisions made about B.C. Ferries decades ago led to problems today – After building 12 major vessels in its first 21 years of operation, B.C. Ferries has only managed to build five major vessels that managed to consistently work in the 45 years since — resulting in stagnating capacity as older ships have retired. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-ferries-deep-dive-2026-9.7193809 Despite having roughly twice the GDP of Scotland, British Columbia (Canada) has built only 3 ferries in the last 20 years, compared to10 built for CalMac. ‘We don’t live in Canada‘ some … Continue reading Canadian state with twice Scotland’s GDP builds fewer than half the number of new ferries for its lifeline island services

Above, the sharply contrasting MSM media coverage of two very similar ferry projects. From The Advocate, yesterday: A bungled delivery of two Bass Strait ferries, in which the vessels were finished before a berth was ready, has cost $717 [£360m] million more than an original business case. And the overall cost to taxpayers will be even higher, with bailout money and the price tag for ongoing temporary berths not included in the figure. https://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/9245119/botched-bass-strait-ferries-717-million-over-budget/ How do the two projects compare? Once you normalize the accounting treatment, the Tasmania and Scottish ferry disasters become much closer than the headline numbers initially … Continue reading ‘Botched Bass Strait [Tasmania] ferries’ overspend budget is greater than for Glen Sannox & Glen Rosa hybrid ferries but media coverage is the opposite

From a BBC Scotland interview with Prof Alan Riach (above) on the 10th November 2025, the text: Listen at: Alan Riach (b.1957) Poet and Professor of Scottish Literature, Glasgow University. BornAirdrie, Lanarkshire, studied at the Universities of Cambridge and Glasgow, worked at theUniversity of Waikato, New Zealand, 1986-2000, returned to Scotland 2001. Books includepoetry: The Winter Book (2017), Homecoming (2009), Wild Blue: Selected Poems (2014),The MacDiarmid Memorandum (2023); criticism: Representing Scotland (2005), HughMacDiarmid’s Epic Poetry (1991), and co-authored with Alexander Moffat, Arts ofResistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland (2008), described in theTLS as ‘a landmark book’. His 734-page … Continue reading Glasgow professor and poet watches BBC Scotland News ‘to see how the enemy is working’

Thanks to Legerwood for alerting me to this. In the Telegraph yesterday: In 35 years at sea, HMS Iron Duke only ever fired her guns in anger a handful of times. She did so to hit a gun battery during the war against Colonel Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, and before that while seizing drugs in the Caribbean in 2009. For a Type 23 frigate, designed in the 1980s to take on the might of the Soviet navy, it was small-scale stuff. But at a time when the Cold War seemed long over, it was a reminder that a well-resourced … Continue reading Frigate fiasco as Royal Navy has only five (33%) functioning frigates