By stewartb The news that Scotland had missed out on Westminster’s backing to develop its first carbon capture and storage facility was greeted with a range of reactions yesterday – shock, disbelief, anger and also something like ‘what did you expect anyway?’  Many well informed sources had hoped – indeed expected – that the Acorn Project at St Fergus would be supported and go on to begin operations within a decade. After all the Project ‘owners’ had been working towards this for a long time, working to survive prior set backs caused by Westminster! On social media I’d spotted allusions … Continue reading The Unionists’ art of blending ‘threat’ and ‘promise’ to deceive – a case study

At 6:08pm, Sarah Smith reported with the above graph, on the BBC News that ‘Covid cases have been falling in Scotland’ and there has been a ‘rapid decline’ but later, Reporting Scotland were having none of that whitaboutery. Things are bad here, it’s a crisis, don’t go think you’re any better, or heaven forbid, that SNP Government might be managing the pandemic better. BBC 1 News staff have a different agenda. They’re mostly Blairite, Europhile and Toryphobic. They have to be reminded to be Unionist. Several times, they’ve dropped their northern colleagues in it: Continue reading Sarah Smith tells the UK things are different in Scotland but BBC Scotland won’t tell us

…..are rising by at least 10% week-on-week. BBC News at 1 today Well, only if your researchers are not including Scotland or Northern Ireland because infection levels are pretty much flat there, after falling even faster than 10%, week-on-week to below that of England and Wales: As for hospital admissions, in Scotland they’re falling steadily and ICU admissions are disappearing, as the total falls to 51, down from more than 100 in September. In England, hospital admissions are climbing. Finally, deaths: Haven’t they flattened? Hey, Reporting Scotland Badly, Scotland has the highest death rate in the UK but the other … Continue reading Across the UK all is the same bad if you don’t bother looking at the figures too closely

Apparently ‘parents and teachers’ are against the wearing of masks in classrooms. On reading the above and the Daily Record version, we see it’s only those wee Facebook parent groups, often run by former Tory activists and with far too few members to be representative of Scotland’s 1.5 million parents of schoolchildren. As for the teachers, TWO, anonymous. This is just more anti-SNP propaganda. What about ‘teachers’ in a real sense, ie thousands of them? The EIS has welcomed the announcement. What about the science? Covid-19: Don’t abandon mask wearing in schools, say health experts, BMJ May 2021: https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1186 How … Continue reading Campaigning against masks in schools is a disgrace

As of 19th October, Public Health Scotland reported delivery of 344 045 booster vaccines: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/phs.covid.19/viz/COVID-19DailyDashboard_15960160643010/Overview On the same date, NHS England claimed to have delivered 3 846 287 booster doses. However, as they point out these data include a number of third primary doses for those who are severely immunosuppressed and will be reclassified when the appropriate data is (sic) available. Leaving aside the fact that the reporter does not seem to know that data is a plural noun, this kind of qualified accounting to make results look better is well known, from for example, their A&E data. https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/ Anyhow … Continue reading Vulnerable English wait even longer, maybe forever

Who will they get to inform us if it’s the right call? Scotland in Union members, former Tory candidates and assorted bams keen to attack the SNP. Will they mention the WHO guidelines and the recommendations of umpteen experts? Will they report this (already posted here)? Infection rates are climbing steadily in England and surging in Wales. They’re pretty much flat in Scotland and Northern Ireland: The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has been monitoring behaviour changes in terms of facemask wearing and social mixing. Notably, for the week-ending 29 September 2021, with rates falling slightly or flat … Continue reading BBC Radio Scotland: Your science-free pandemic zone

With the help of the Lib Dem (4 MSPs) leader and of course no comparative data, BBC Scotland platform the fake news that Scotland is lagging on booster delivery even if we are ahead on every other jag: Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton accused the Scottish government of “sneaking out” the changes. “We know that caseloads are still far too high so there can be no excuses for these delays,” he said. “The health secretary needs to tell the public what steps he will take to speed up this rollout. The MSP added: “Last winter we were facing an … Continue reading Scotland ahead on booster jags?

I’m not, under any circumstances, suggesting that our wildlife is not at risk or that more, much more, needs to be done. Even 1% is too many. My concern, as always, is on the politicising on such trends to attack and to distort the performance of Scotland and its government so as to make it seem no better than the UK in the approach to COP26. Scotland is home to over 90 000 species. I appreciate that the Herald headline confuses and conflates wildlife (species) and habitats to come up with its 1 100 in ‘poor state’ but the point … Continue reading Scotland’s wildlife: only 1% of species at risk

From BBC Wales today, opening a very long report: Some trainee doctors and consultants at one Welsh health board are “scared to come to work”, a report has found. A report by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) described “frightening experiences” staff faced at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. Chronic understaffing and excessive workloads at the Grange hospital in Cwmbran were causing “very serious patient safety concerns”, it added. The Health Board said it had taken the findings of the report very seriously. The report, obtained by BBC Wales, said that some trainee doctors and consultants were worried about working … Continue reading Trainee doctors scared to come to work not responsibility of Health Secretary

Infection rates are climbing steadily in England and surging in Wales. They’re pretty much flat in Scotland and Northern Ireland: The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has been monitoring behaviour changes in terms of facemask wearing and social mixing. Notably, for the week-ending 29 September 2021, with rates falling slightly or flat across the UK, they noted in their data: Self-reported facemask wearing for those who have at least one non-home contact appears to have reduced below 70% in England, though this overall figure masks differences by age. Reported face-covering wearing has stabilised in the over 60s but … Continue reading Masking the UK’s diverging infection rates