On 24 hours in A&E – a tale of media not medicine- a case study in BBC Scotland’s approach to ‘informing’ the voting public. By stewartb – a long read This post is prompted by a recent article on the BBC News website authored by two BBC Scotland journalists: ‘Scots NHS doctors: Rise in patients waiting 24 hours in A&E “shocking’’. (See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67242402) That piece was about NHS Scotland: this post is about BBC Scotland and its reporting of NHS Scotland. What follows offers an analysis of content and technique. It assesses the statistical information on which the article is … Continue reading Nearly FIVE times as many wait 24 hours in A&E in England

Thanks to Indiman https://twitter.com/merchant47 for alerting me to this from Diarmid of Future Economics, as ambulance-chasing Scottish lawyers circle the Scottish Government in the Covid inquiry: The Scottish Guidance It is of note, as the Court recognised, that the Scottish equivalent guidance of 26th March stated that …[i]f a patient being discharged from hospital is known to have had contact with other COVID- 19 cases and is not displaying symptoms, secondary care staff must inform the receiving facility of the exposure. The receiving facility should ensure the exposed individual is isolated for 14 days following exposure to minimise the risk of … Continue reading Hospital discharges into care homes – Scottish Government guidance was stricter and thus it ‘is not exposed to legal liability’

From How covid-19 spreads: narratives, counter narratives, and social dramas, published in the BMJ in 2022: Public masking became a libertarian lightning rod. Libertarianism is a political ideology that favours individual choice, freedom, and a retreat from state and institutional control. Libertarians resist imposed rules and like to do their own research rather than trust scientists or government. Uncertainty and conflict about the value and place of public masking allowed libertarian messages and practices to flourish. https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-069940 FM Nicola Sturgeon despite being caught once by gleeful hacks forgetting to put her mask back on, consistently encouraged their wearing. PM Johnson … Continue reading Research suggests trust in the SNP Government saved thousands of lives

In a January 2023 piece by Labour pal Rachel Watson of the Sun rag, we read the shocking fact that thousands of kids who have not applied for the SNP free bus pass have not received one because, allegedly, they’re too ‘thick’ to complete the application form. Did Neil Bibby MSP have a look at the form and get a headache? Anyhow, Bibby, with great comic phrasing said: Thanks to mismanagement, the scheme was overly complicated. Too many young people are paying the price for the SNP’s incompetence. Bus services are being cut across the country, leading to many young people … Continue reading Labour MSP humiliated as SNP’s ‘complicated’ free bus pass scheme for the young is easily understood by up to 93%!

Deactivation means all the archives are lost even the more useful exposures of BBC bias in recent times. Why on earth have they done this if they haven’t been hacked or threatened? It’s hard to think of a reason any in the Yes movement could be happy with. I was a big fan of all of the above sites in the headline, until they either went off in a huff with the SNP or, now, they just disappear with no good explanation. I’m staying despite or perhaps because I’m the oldest? MSM had 40 000 plus twitter followers compared to … Continue reading The excellent MSM Monitor de-activated, Wings and Scot Goes Pop lost in Darkest Albaland, Craig Murray thinking of other things…it’s getting lonely here

I’m grateful to Ruth Henderson https://twitter.com/RuthHen05786097 for alerting me to this Open Democracy exposé at https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/who-funds-you/ Our Scottish Future, These Islands and Reform Scotland appear regularly on BBC Scotland with ‘research’ pointing to some inherent weakness in Scotland in its potential be independent. All three feature in the lowest of the 5 categories where annual income, funding and the names of funders are not disclosed. In sharp contrast, the excellent Business for Scotland, rarely if ever seen on BBC Scotland, is in the top category with full transparency. Transparency is, of course, essential so that we detect any suggestion of … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s favourite thinktanks are ALL in the worst group for funding transparency

By stewartb Deary me! Gordon Brown’s Scottish Future doesn’t seem too bright if the Guardian’s Scotland Editor (no less) has distilled the best bits for his article from the thinktank’s latest output . The journalist seems particularly taken with output statistics provided by Mr Brown and his team: ‘the Scottish government has been suffering from “consultitis” by publishing more than 1,000 consultations, plans and strategy papers in nine years’ and ‘Since September 2014, there have been 529 strategy papers or plans, or more than one published every week, and 669 consultations’. Notwithstanding the matter of what constitutes a ‘plan’ in … Continue reading A Labour government with even more severe ‘consultitis’