From the Scottish Government today: New powers enabling councils to charge up to double the full rate of council tax on second homes have been agreed by the Scottish Parliament. Councils will be able to increase the charges from 1 April 2024, with rates for the first year being based on those from 2023-24. The change brings second homes into line with council tax policy on long-term empty homes and aims to increase housing availability by encouraging more homes to be used for living in. New owners of properties that have previously been empty for more than twelve months will … Continue reading More progressive SNP taxation – second and empty homes

In a sad attempt to trick readers into thinking this has something to do with Scottish-government owned CalMac, the best ferry service in the world based on extensive comparative international research done here, the 11th best ferry correspondent in Greenock suggests that the Highland Council-owned mainland Corran ferry is somehow part of a set of ‘Scottish ferries.’ Like the Herald is a ‘Scottish newspaper?’ Highland Council is not mentioned until the 12th paragraph. As for the survey sample of 1 000 from communities served by the ferry, including Morvern, no detail is offered. We know it was hand-delivered leaflets which … Continue reading Corran ferry is not CalMac, the survey is crap and and a tunnel is a bad idea in an earthquake zone

..beginning to affect the NHS and patients are being put at risk by dangerous delays. Crews are enduring long waits outside A&E in England because hospitals are struggling to deal with overcrowded wards. ..here spent almost two hours outside a hospital because there was no space in A&E. The Scottish Ambulance Service figures reflect wider pressures on the service with hospitals having few beds available for patients who need one. In Scotland, bed occupancy in the most recent quarter, ending June 2023 was 87%. In the quarter ending December 2022 it was 89%. In England, the comparable figures were 93% … Continue reading Reporting Scotland lie about bed availability in NHS Scotland to chase England’s ambulances

From cuckooshoe: Compare this 👇 https://www.gov.scot/news/achievement-of-curriculum-for-excellence-cfe-levels-2022-23/ Official statistics have been released today on school pupils’ Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels (ACEL) in the reading, writing, listening & talking and numeracy ‘organisers’. The statistics, based on teacher judgement, report on the percentage of school pupils in Primary 1 (P1), Primary 4 (P4), Primary 7 (P7) and Secondary 3 (S3) who have achieved the expected CfE Levels relevant to their stage. The results show: For P1, P4 and P7 pupils combined, more than seven in ten pupils (73 per cent) achieved the expected CfE Level for literacy in 2022/23. This … Continue reading A lesson in how BBC Scotland twists the facts to undermine our confidence in ourselves

Fife councillor Altany Craik has quit the selection race after being exposed as a writer of horror stories including some on child sacrifice. In one, he writes: “Baring his fangs he gently bit the neck of the weakening sacrifice. As it began to drip its soul into the well, he dropped the child, rewarded with a splash and a scream,” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/13/labour-councillor-altany-craik-quits-selection-race-after-concerns-over-sexy-satanic-novels The name Altany comes from Slovakia in Eastern Europe, not that far from Transylvania. In August 2023, Labour Leader, Sir Keir Childstarver, said that Labour would keep the two-child benefit cap and associated rape clause which is known to … Continue reading Child sacrifice and the Labour Party

By Leah Gunn Barrett After the recent disinformation about the state of Scottish education, today’s news that Scottish students across all levels are performing better in literacy and numeracy compared to last year is welcome.[1] The Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (ACEL) uses teacher judgment to report the proportion of students reaching targets for their grade level and the 2022/23 results show a rise in attainment levels across all primary grades and S3 since 2021/22.  The other piece of good news is that the attainment gap between students from the most and least deprived areas has narrowed across the board, … Continue reading Scottish students across all levels are performing better in literacy and numeracy compared to last year

From the NZ Herald today: The Government has declined KiwiRail’s request for an extra $1.47 billion for portside infrastructure needed for Cook Strait’s new mega-ferries. KiwiRail says it cannot proceed without further Government funding and its board will now oversee the wind-down of the project and review plans for the vital transport connection. The state-owned enterprise was replacing its increasingly unreliable and ageing Interislander fleet of three ferries with two new rail-enabled ferries under the Inter-island Resilience Connection project (iReX). The stakes were high after Kaitaki narrowly avoided disaster this year when it lost power in the middle of Cook Strait with 864 … Continue reading Chaos as new ferries and harbour bill doubles from $1.5bn to $3bn, New Zealand government refuses to pay for Labour incompetence and KiwiRail cancels the ferries

Last night, Reporting Scotland‘s Andrew Kerr, cast doubt on the evidence of attainment increases and gaps narrowing in Scotland’s schools because an ‘expert’ said it was comparable to ‘teachers marking their own homework.’ I guessed straightaway in was the above regular SNP critic. Here’s why: National Improvement Framework: Consultation on measuring the attainment gap and milestones towards closing it Submission by Lindsay Paterson1 4. Why using teacher judgements is unreliable https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/files/134464725/submission_by_Lindsay_Paterson.pdf And: Why is Paterson not an expert at all? This: Professor of Educational Policy at Edinburgh University, Lindsay Paterson is a statistician with a background in agricultural and medical … Continue reading ‘Teachers marking their own homework’ The so-called expert on Reporting Scotland

I’m guessing most of you know how to answer the above question but I hope to add something. Why is Scotland’s largest teacher union, the EIS, not jumping quickly in to defend the professionalism of its members. Imagine the Scottish Government blamed them for some failure of pupils learning? Here’s the EIS site on news today: Not a word in defence of their own members’ reputations. What are the latest statistics on attainment in Scottish Primary schools? Attainment at a record high The proportions of pupils in primary achieving expected levels of literacy and numeracy have reached record highs for … Continue reading Is the largest teacher union not defending its own members against BBC accusations of amateurism, as attainment climbs and gaps narrow under SNP, taking one for the team, Labour?

A Labour Party leaflet might hesitate on some of these claims and the outrageous wording. Missing from the drug deaths headline is the word ‘suspected’. These are official stats but they are not based on tests proving the presence of a restricted substance in the blood. They are based only on police assessment of the scene. When these figures were plummeting in 2021 and 2022, they were largely ignored by our media in favour of the NRS data where the dramatic fall we saw at the end of 2022 had not yet appeared in those stats based on post mortem … Continue reading Daily Record front page is just a Labour Party leaflet based on suspicion and careful lies