Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks again to Dottie for this: From the Standard yesterday: A new front door at a main entrance to the House of Lords, that cost nearly £10 million, does not work, it has been disclosed. The project has been described as “a complete white elephant and a disaster”. Peers heard a member of parliamentary staff had to be permanently stationed at the door to press a button to open it. It also emerged that the price tag of the project spiralled by nearly 60% from the original estimate of £6.1 million. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/house-of-lords-parliament-westminster-conservative-b1232687.html What else could we … Continue reading £10 million ‘opens doors’ to the Isles for a year but is not enough for a working door in the Lords

Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian today: Rachel Reeves has effectively cut £2.5bn from the government’s national energy company by sharing the £8.3bn it was promised with a separate nuclear power body set up by the Conservatives. The Labour manifesto had pledged the full amount to Great British Energy to invest in clean power projects. However, the chancellor’s spending review said the company would share this funding with a separate body tasked with spearheading Britain’s nuclear renaissance. The Treasury’s spending plans said the “two allied publicly owned companies with a shared mission” would spend the £8.3bn on “homegrown clean power” including … Continue reading GB Energy budget raided to develop dangerous small nuclear reactors for England

Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks once again to Dottie for alerting me to this. In Private Eye No 1651, this week, the above report on their Freedom of Information Request revealing millions of fines issued to often confused ands subsequently traumatised vulnerable people. The report goes on to quote a charity chief: Had the Scottish Government not maintained free prescriptions these last 18 years, based on these figures, we might expect around 280 000 such fines causing anxiety and distress here. This is not the first sign of the wider benefits of Scotland’s long-standing commitment to free prescriptions for all. … Continue reading How Scotland’s free prescriptions are protecting thousands of pregnant women and the vulnerable from NHS fines and being treated as criminals

Professor John Robertson OBA From Regional gross domestic product: all ITL regions published by the ONS in April 2025 but, of course, not reported by any of the so-called Scottish media, the above stunning figures revealing the success of the Scottish Government’s economic policies In February 2024, Anas Sarwar claimed – Scotland ‘closed for business’ under SNP and Greens as Anas Sarwar’s Labour economic policy branded ‘flimsy’ https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/scotland-closed-business-under-snp-32121060 Kind of makes you think that Anas is talking out of his…. Continue reading Edinburgh has overtaken London as the most productive city in the UK as SNP prove Sarwar wrong

Professor John Robertson OBA The above map is based on data for 2019, showing Scotland to be one of the safest, from robbery, countries in Europe while England & Wales are amongst the most dangerous. Were this the other way round, the SNP Government would be blamed so, given what it is, they must get at least some of the credit. The figure for 2023/2024 is 20.4 per 100 000: https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2023-24/documents/ In the last days of Labour (2006) it was 70 per 100 000, more than three times higher! https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2005-06/ The map below, looking more closely on regions within European … Continue reading No longer raised on robbery? Scotland after 18 years of SNP rule has a robbery rate one quarter of the rate in England & Wales now and less than a third of the rate it had under ‘Scottish’ Labour

Professor John Robertson OBA From Scotland’s unpaid carers over £4,400 better off published yesterday: This Carers Week (9 – 15 June), unpaid carers across Scotland are being encouraged to find out if they are eligible for social security support – through Carer Support Payment, Carer’s Allowance Supplement and Young Carer Grant.    Carer’s Allowance Supplement – a payment only available north of the border – was the first benefit delivered by Social Security Scotland in 2018 to provide extra financial support for carers, recognising their important contribution.    Since the payment’s introduction, unpaid carers in Scotland will be up to … Continue reading Only in Scotland, unpaid carers will be over £4,400 better off than in rest of UK but BBC Scotland ignore that and the Herald find an unreliable survey to cast some gloom instead

Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian today, the above and: People living with sickle cell disease in England are to benefit from quicker and more accessible treatment due to a £9m investment, the government has announced. Apheresis services, which are a type of treatment that removes harmful components from a patient’s blood, are to improve across England through the funding of more specialist treatment centres. The funding will ensure the wider availability of machines that remove a patient’s sickled red blood cells and replace them with healthy donor cells. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/13/sickle-cell-patients-quicker-more-accessible-treatment-england Typically there’s no mention of Scotland in the above nor is … Continue reading Sickle cell patients to have quicker and more accessible treatment in England nearly one year after Scotland

Professor John Robertson OBA, former Faculty Research Ethics Chair It’s kind of sad that when I see headlines like the one above, in the Guardian today, I immediately think: Did they bother checking NHS Scotland? When they say ‘England’, do they mean ‘UK?’ There’s no mention of Scotland in the report, but not for the first time, I find something that shows their habitual Anglocentrism. From Myeloma UK, undated but posted in March 2025: Approval – the licensed treatment is approved for general use on the NHS. Approval is based on clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Two of the appraisal bodies … Continue reading Blood cancer patients in England first in world [not including Scotland] to be offered ‘Trojan horse’ drug