In one of the sharpest examples of bias by omission ‘our’ MSM will not be pointing out the obvious, hyper-charged elephant in the newsroom. Scotland produces far more electricity and gas than it consumes, yet we will all share in the above crisis. With 8% of the population, Scotland produces 28% of the UK’s gas consumption. The rest comes mainly from Norway and Russia. https://www.gov.scot/news/oil-and-gas-production-statistics-for-2019-1/ And on electricity, none mention that Scotland produces 97% of its electricity from renewables, compared to only 35% in the UK or that 25% of the UK consumption is transferred from Scotland. https://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/19504045.scotland-reaches-renewables-top-three/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Scotland: “BEIS Energy … Continue reading Should that be ‘Scots warned to claim independence over energy supply crisis?’

In the Herald yesterday and, of course, headlined by BBC Scotland: A mother only discovered her cancer patient son had been put on preventative medicine because a Glasgow hospital was “dirty” from medical staff at a clinic in Florida where he had flown for treatment, an inquiry has been told. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19629211.scottish-hospital-inquiry-mother-learned-glasgow-hospital-dirty-us-doctors/ What is the actual risk to life from a supposedly dirty hospital? It’s hospital-acquired blood poisoning, sepsis. How common is sepsis? Is the trend up or down and by how much? Is the rate in Scotland higher or lower than elsewhere? Sepsis mortality data for recent years is still … Continue reading US doctors would know all about dirty hospitals

Scotland’s vaccination rate surpassed that of the rUK on the 25th September and began to accelerate away on the 2nd October. We’re now vaccinating around 50% more than the other 3 nations. This will explain in part our plummeting infection level: The MSM seems not to be reporting these data anymore with one of the last being the Times in May 2021, claiming ‘Scots lag behind in first Covid vaccine shots to over-40s‘: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scots-lag-behind-in-first-covid-vaccine-shots-to-over-40s-5xzgwprjt Continue reading Scotland surging ahead on vaccinations

From Public Health Scotland’s incident management team report on the Nike conference outbreak – March 2020: An outbreak of COVID-19 was identified in Scotland on 2 March 2020 following thedetection of a case among 71 delegates who attended a conference in Edinburghbetween 25 and 27 February 2020. The delegates were from Scotland, England,Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands. These WGS results strongly suggest that the actions taken by the incident management team (IMT) to manage the outbreak were successful in curtailing onward transmission. Considerable correspondence from the people of Edinburgh has praised the Health Secretary for her … Continue reading Jeanne Freeman praised as incident management team strongly successful in curtailing onward transmission from Nike conference

From Public Health Scotland today for week-ending 4 October 2021: As at 03 October 2021, there have been 575,231 confirmed COVID-19 cases; 15,050 of these were recorded in the most recent week, a decrease of 29.4% from the previous week. The proportion of all people who were admitted to hospital within 14 days of a laboratory confirmed COVID-19 positive test has declined, from 12% in the week ending 31 January 2021, to 3% in the most recent week ending 19 September 2021. The number of new admissions to Intensive Care Units (ICUs) for confirmed COVID-19 patients has reduced from 50 in the … Continue reading Nearly 30% weekly fall in Covid-19 new cases

From stewartb: The following was written by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) in 2019:“The Scottish Government’s decisive and compassionate move to bring in the new Scottish Child Payment is the lifeline children and their families need, and is a BEACON OF PROGRESSIVE POLICY for the rest of the UK’ ‘This rightly has been LAUDED AS A LANDMARK MOMENT and the MOST PROGRESSIVE POLICY BROUGHT IN SINCE DEVOLUTION 20 years ago. We’ve now seen the Scottish Government decisively put words into action and we believe this will be a foundational step in turning the tide on child poverty in Scotland. Once … Continue reading Not so much shame as a beacon of progressive policy

By Leah Gunn Barrett: According to the recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) report, since the UK Government controls 85% of social spending in Scotland and is completely responsible for working-age benefits, the “overall inadequacy [in social spending] falls at the UK Government’s door”.[1] An immediate example is the looming cut to Universal Credit (UC) and Working Tax Credits (WTC) which will affect around 450,000 families in Scotland, reducing their income by £1,040 a year. Although unacceptably high, poverty in Scotland is well below that of England. With its limited powers, the Scottish Government has protected many families from the worst impacts of … Continue reading The real shame is UK poverty

With typically immature photo selection, the Herald’s Tom Gordon sides with the Tories deliberately politicising a serious human rights issue. A more educated and, typically, more humane interpretation is different from that of the Blue Meanies in Holyrood who historically have favoured a harsher regime for even their own children to toughen them up as Masters of the Empire: Tom Gordon is, of course, well in with the English establishment. See this empathetic response to Prince Charles, from March 2020: A FORMER SNP MP has been slammed after using Prince Charles’s diagnosis with coronavirus to promote Scottish independence.  Clarence House confirmed this … Continue reading Herald’s Royal Correspondent sides with UK Court against children’s rights

Ed: From a letter published in the Herald but so usefully succinct and punchy it’s worth sharing again here: From Leah Gunn Barrett Scotland’s deficit isn’t a fact but a farce. Tory-designed GERS shows what it costs Scotland to be part of the UK.  First, the GERS ‘deficit’ includes billions spent outside Scotland “on our behalf” such as nuclear weapons, the military, English infrastructure, London civil servants, and lavish embassies.  Second, GERS is bad accounting. Scottish income such as rents, interest and insurance that should be recorded here is recorded in south east England where the companies receiving the payment are … Continue reading Scotland’s deficit isn’t a fact but a farce

Are retired medics really needed now that hospital admissions are falling from a peak last month of only half of the real peak in February 2021? Prof (not really) Taylor, well-spoken shop steward for the Glasgow Branch of the surgeons’ trade union, the RCPS, is a regular presence in the MSM finding fault and standing up, only, for her members aspirations. She tells us: RETIRED medics are an “untapped resource” who should be fast-tracked back to the frontline to relieve pressure on the NHS over winter, one of Scotland’s leading clinicians has said. Professor Jackie Taylor, the president of the … Continue reading Are retired medics really needed now?