Professor John Robertson OBA From the Scottish Government today: From 1 April 2025, the minimum rate of pay for childcare workers delivering funded early learning and childcare (ELC) in Scotland is £12.60 per hour. This is in line with pay rates for adult social care workers and children’s social care workers. https://www.gov.scot/publications/early-learning-and-childcare-minimum-pay/ There is no lower rate in Scotland for younger workers. In England, there is no equivalent, only the National Living Wage of £12.21, which ‘most’ adult childcare workers, 21 and over, receive. 18-20 year-olds receive only £10.5. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/minimum-wage-rates-for-2025 So Scottish adult childcare workers receive 3.2% more and under 21 year-olds receive … Continue reading Early learning and childcare workers minimum pay now higher in Scotland than than in England

Professor John Robertson OBA As a pro-independence Scot, I’ve been interested in the breakaway movement in eastern Ukraine, for some time, since well before Putin’s brutal exploitative invasion, just as I have for those in Quebec, Catalonia and the Basque Country. I generally avoid comment on trans, the Rangers and Ukraine. I get enough personal abuse on the ferries. However, I like a survey, so hopefully to add some light. As I understand it, opinion polls in that febrile world are not too reliable. However, this 2020 survey [n1 666] from the Center for Insights in Survey Research, a US … Continue reading As Trump suggests Ukrainian territory loss to Russia is he all wrong?

Professor John Robertson OBA There has been a clear increase in the use of tasers by police officers as reported somewhat hysterically by the Daily Record, above, but at the same time we see a significant decline in the number of assaults on officers resulting in injuries. As taser use began to climb, from 500 in 2020/2021, to 2 084 in 2023/2024 (latest confirmed data) assaults on officers resulting in injury, in the same period, have fallen from 2 100 to 1670, a very significant 20% reduction in only 3 years. While there may have been other factors at play, … Continue reading Increased taser use by Police Scotland officers justified by significantly declining rate of injuries resulting from assaults, 20% in only 3 years!

Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to Dottie for alerting me to this. In the Guardian yesterday, the above and: GPs can no longer guarantee safe care for millions of patients because of a dangerous shortage of medics, Britain’s top family doctor has said. Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), said surgeries were desperate to hire more doctors to meet soaring demand for care but could not afford to do so because of a lack of core funding. Exhausted family doctors have been working “completely unsafe hours” because their surgeries did not have the cash … Continue reading In Scotland each GP is responsible for 1 680 patients while in England and Wales it’s between 2 241 and 2440, around 500 more, nearly one third more. That can’t be healthy, can it?

Professor John Robertson OBA Readers will remember the scale of the police investigation into £600 000 given to the SNP by its own members for a campaign, and which they then, according to one complaint from a member of Sperm of the Gall, spent on something else. A blue tent had to be put on Nicola’s lawn, on advice from intelligence, just in case there was a body too. More recently a massive fraud case in Ayr required a big blue tent on the Low Green but, on advice from intelligence, local police decided not to proceed so the big … Continue reading Large blue police tent to be move from Ayr Conservatives corruption investigation to Orkney investigation of missing taxpayer money – £850 000 – misplaced by Lib Dem council

Professor John Robertson OBA According to Homicide in Scotland 2024-25 and its 4 predecessor reports, there were 67 female victims of murder in the last 5 yrs, 40% down on the previous five up to 2019/2020.1 41% (27) were killed by partners or ex-partners, with the remainder primarily by other male relatives or acquaintances. I see no sign of the 39, above. The trend in the last 5 years has been flat – 10, 16, 13, 13, 15 suggesting a disappointing bottoming that may not reduce further but not in any way a ‘National Emergency.’ In the last 5 years … Continue reading Falling trend in Scotland with 40% fewer women killed by men in last five ‘less violent years’, to level 13% below that in England, suggests a still shocking number but no national emergency