From Public Health Scotland today: A sharp 43% increase in the number of children with no obvious decay experience in Scotland from 2007 to 2023. And even sharper fall of 66% in the number of decayed, missing and filled teeth after 16 years of SNP rule. Source: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/national-dental-inspection-programme/national-dental-inspection-programme-20222023/ Continue reading 66% less decay after 16 years of SNP rule

STV, 7 hours ago, not too prominent I know, but there: This is a hugely important sign of the success of the SNP in Government despite lacking full control of taxation, benefits or any ability to borrow. It should be a big story, at least much as drug deaths but it’s nowhere. BBC Scotland? 14 hours after the JRF embargoed release, nothing: Continue reading Destitution – Watch STV News if only to remind BBC Scotland they’re more popular with Scots

By Alasdair Galloway The promise by Humza Yousaf to use a majority of SNP seats at the coming UK General Election as the trigger for negotiations with Westminster to transfer powers for the holding of independence referenda has been well received by the membership of the SNP. The motion passed at their recent Conference commits them to a strategy in a number of parts. The SNP scale Part 1 of their strategy focuses on the next UK General Election being used as an “opportunity to advance the cause of independence, and to demonstrate how the powers of independence would enable … Continue reading Independence – a chorus in every scale including not getting stuffed

Let me just fend off accusations of insensitivity here, a bit anyway, with ‘Drug deaths! Drug deaths! Only the Guardian seems to be covering this. BBC Scotland? Ho ho! 1.31% of Londoners live in destitution, compared with 0.8% in Scotland. That 0.51% more would mean nearly 10 000 Scots. Glasgow, the only Scottish town in the 30 worst locations fell from 11th worst in 2019 to 26 worst in 2022. Still bad I know but SNP takes Glasgow out of worst 20 places for destitution in the UK? Source: https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/destitution-uk-2023 Continue reading Anger as Labour-run London has 64% more destitution than Scotland and SNP take Glasgow out of 20 worst places!

In the Scotsman suggesting a ‘crisis’ and in the Herald suggesting a ‘risk to life’, repeated on BBC Scotland’s early morning inserts to the BBC Breakfast broadcast, the firefighter’s union survey of some of its members opinions get an uncritical showing. Older trade unionists will remember a day when the media in Scotland were not friends at all. In the 1970s, researchers at Glasgow University revealed strong media bias against the unions [https://www.worldchanging.glasgow.ac.uk/article/?id=46] and as recently as 2008, my own research showed their exclusion from TV debate on the UK budget [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443710361659] Hmmm…what happened to change all that and make … Continue reading A risk to life in fire? Well a firefighter union wants you to believe that yet fire deaths are down by 60% but staffing is only down 13%

From the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Destitution in the UK 2023 report today: There has been a shameful increase in the level of destitution in the UK, with a growing number of people struggling to afford to meet their most basic physical needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed. This has deep and profound impacts on people’s health, mental health and prospects; it also puts strain on already overstretched services. This study, the fourth in the Destitution in the UK series, reveals that approximately 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022, including around one million children. This is almost two-and-a-half … Continue reading Latest research – SNP policies kick in to make destitution significantly less common in Scotland

Today in the Herald is the latest from that most unconvincing of pro-independence supporting writers, Kevin McKenna: It’s time for Robison to join her former boss on the backbenches. In Scottish politics, has there ever been a more ignorant and dangerous comment than that made by Shona Robison last year during the passage of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill?  In responding to concerns that some aspects of the legislation might put women at risk, Ms Robison said: “There is no evidence that predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory … Continue reading It’s time for Kevin McKenna to join his soulmates in the Daily Mail

From NIFerry yesterday: Stena Line is celebrating winning the ‘Best Ferry Company’ category at the Northern Ireland Travel and Tourism Awards for the 30th time. The awards event is the highlight of the Northern Ireland tourism industry year and was held on 13 October. In the 31-year history of the awards, there is only one occasion when Stena Line and predecessor Stena Sealink Line didn’t win the award.  This was when P&O Ferries had a one-off success in the mid-1990s. The event, organised by NI Travel News, was held at the Slieve Donard Resort and Spa and was attended by travel industry VIPs from across … Continue reading Northern Ireland’s ‘Best Ferry Company’ is far less punctual than CalMac

By stewartb There are lessons from recent UK history about how a mandate for a referendum on constitutional matters can be secured. The mandate for the EU referendum in 2016 provides a case study. Much has been made, rightly, of the outcome of that referendum – notably Scotland (and NI) being ‘dragged out of the EU against its will’ – but perhaps less well remembered is how the mandate for it came about. This history is of contemporary relevance. The election manifesto In preparation for the 2015 UK General Election, the Tory Party published its manifesto (for full text see … Continue reading Mandate for a referendum – what it takes to get one under a FPTP voting system.

In the BBC Radio 4 ‘More or Less’ episode on 28 June 2023, you can hear the clarification that we’re only talking of ‘tidal stream energy’ from the LSE researcher, 40 minutes in at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fxmcgy The BBC reporters make much of the fact that other forms of wave power have been developed globally that generate far more power than tidal stream power but say nothing of the environmental problems these larger scale technologies create. More below on this. Earlier in June 2023, the National print edition headline had the word ‘stream’ removed but it stayed in the online version. There … Continue reading Scotland does have leadership in tidal, ecologically sound, STREAM capacity