I know that there are several ‘ah buts‘ in this report from the Marine Conservation Society’s Great British Beach Clean 2021 results but the fact remains that, based on the data in the bar graph above, the investigators found less litter per 100m on Scottish beaches than on those elsewhere in mainland UK. Continue reading Scotland’s beaches cleanest in UK

The 2021 Scottish Election campaign began on 25th March 2021. According to the Herald, Public Health Scotland was due to publish a report, undertaken by Stirling University, on care home deaths, the day before, but did not. It was supposedly published on 17th May 2020. It did not expose any scandal and concluded only: This could indicate that by emptying hospitals to prepare for a potential influx of COVID-19patients (which was partially averted by effective lockdown measures), the “normal place ofdeath” shifted for a large proportion of individuals. Any assessment of “excess deaths” in carehomes should, therefore, be viewed in … Continue reading Civil service reports are always held back till after elections

The Times has not released the full data as far as I can see but, even from the above front page, we can see some more revealing headlines: Johnson plummets to minus 62 in ratings! Every leader suffers fall in ratings! Sarwar suffers biggest fall in ratings! Ross massive 50 points behind Sturgeon! On a more serious note, is the fall in support for the FM simply those Labour, Lib Dem and even Con supporters returning home as BBC coverage also returns to demonising her? Continue reading Ross minus 38, Sturgeon plus 12

As another campaigning group ask the Scottish Government to top up a UK Government-determined benefit, the Winter Fuel Allowance of £100, by £50, BBC Scotland fail to give us any context. That’d be because, still worrying, it’s a better picture here than in England and Wales. These are, crudely, small numbers, but the 4% difference with Labour-led Wales is more than 5 000 pensioners. Continue reading Pensioner poverty in Scotland second-lowest in UK

By stewartb I want no-one to be homeless ever, anywhere. And I want to live in a country where national government and local government and local charities and communities and voters all strive to end homelessness. And I would criticise severely any government – SNP-run or otherwise – not working hard to address this! Although of lesser importance on a basic human level, I am also glad to have this information from TuS because it calls out a potential additional example of ‘bias by omission’ by corporate media and especially the BBC in Scotland. (Have we not a right to … Continue reading The charges against our (so called) public service broadcaster mount by the day

Look out for the above story making it onto BBC Scotland but don’t hold your breath Their record is not good. In September, I had to source this from a Welsh free newspaper: Public Service Broadcaster? Aye right! Continue reading Another opportunity for Reporting Scotland to tell us the truth on homelessness

It’s a longstanding tendency at Reporting Scotland to conceal interviewees’ association with opposition parties or groups with a Unionist agenda but Eleanor Bradford, really? Five years after Bradford left to be replaced by the perhaps even-less-capable, Lisa Summers, Bradford pops up with no mention of her past to be presented as another ‘mother’ let down by agencies responsible to the Scottish Government. In a Drivetime interview, with old colleagues such as John Beattie, fully presented on the website, there’s not a suggestion of her former employment with BBC Scotland. It’s a tragic tale, most of us would prefer to reflect … Continue reading Do they really think we’ve forgotten her?

Above, from the only good Scottish Labour MSP ever, scientists’ reaction to growing BBC schadenfreude regarding Germanic lockdowns, and vaccine jingoism, easily exposed by simply looking at the data from the whole pandemic: Continue reading BBC England’s ‘great Covid success’ doesn’t survive collision with facts

like so-called street valium, has risen sharply during lockdown. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbcone Reporting Scotland content themselves with a negative view. Things are clearly getting worse, they imply but they leave out this, in the online version: The Scottish Prison Service said it has invested in new ways to detect drugs. Paragraph 4 of around 30 A spokesman for the SPS said it treats the issue of smuggling drugs into prisons “very seriously” and the service had “invested in technology to better detect suspicious substances and work closely with partner agencies to garner relevant intelligence”. “We have over the last few years pointed … Continue reading Scottish prisons: Major success in detecting drugs and protecting inmates