In the Herald today: MATT HANCOCK has disputed claims he mishandled care home discharges and said the Scottish Government had the “same issues” to deal with as he did. Speaking to MPs this morning, the health secretary was put under pressure to explain the allegations made against him yesterday by former senior aide Dominic Cummings. He’s right, we did have the same issues. To make sure hospitals were not overwhelmed and to protect the vulnerable more at risk in hospitals than back in care homes, NHS Scotland and NHS England discharged patients, some not tested, more quickly from hospital wards back into … Continue reading In defence of Matt Hancock

In the Herald, from Tom Gordon: NICOLA Sturgeon has effectively accused Boris Johnson of adding to the death toll from coronavirus by failing to take quick and decisive action during the pandemic. Despite Scotland broadly mirroring the lockdown south of the border, the First Minister said “bitter experience” had shown the importance of “responsible decision-making” by leaders. I’ve just read a letter by friend of TuS, Leah Gunn Barrett, rebutting the same suggestion by Ian Murray and using TuS-sourced evidence. It’s typically well-put so why reinvent the wheel: Tom Gordon tries to assign equal blame for the UK’s catastrophic Covid deaths on Holyrood, knowing full … Continue reading Tom Gordon knowingly repeats the lies about pandemic control

For three years now this story, with the parents ‘probably’ groomed by Anas Sarwar, has returned to MSM reports at least eight times, according to my records. Most recently in the days before the election, Anas Sarwar shouted ‘what about Millie Main’ as a debating point with Nicola Sturgeon. Today, 27th May 2021, the story of the death of one child has returned to headline for BBC Scotland in the above ridiculous terms. On May 3rd, in time to not help Labour’s vote at all, it seems, Reporting Scotland headlined the story. As for the cause of death, it was … Continue reading Sarwar nominated for creepiest politician of the year

The evidence they work for everyone: The largest review ever undertaken, of 349 research studies, from across the globe though mostly in Europe, carried out by the Centre for Criminology at the University in South Wales in 2017, found that ‘safe’ or ‘supervised’ injection rooms significantly reduced drug-related harms, dramatically cut mortality and offered a range of benefits for the wider population, in terms of reduced crime, nuisance in public spaces, violence and trafficking. https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-01/180320atisn12038doc2_0.pdf Today from SNP Media On the 50th anniversary of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the SNP has pledged support for the all-party campaign to … Continue reading Renewed calls for drug consumption rooms.

Virtually all Scottish MSM ‘SNPbad‘ headlines like the one above take little effort to rebut. This is about the decision to build a shared campus in Edinburgh. The alleged ‘fire‘ is no more than corks from a pop-gun as one professor and one anonymous or invented spokeswoman misread ‘a general presumption‘ as ‘a manifesto commitment‘ and a ‘pledge‘. Here it is: So, if there was wider agreement in the Gaelic-speaking community, you’d think there’d be more than one prof and a rep not prepared to come out into the open. Are they representative? Would there be enough bairns in Edinburgh … Continue reading Unrepresentative and ill-informed on bilingualism?

The QEUH did have more deaths but then it does have more beds so that doesn’t tell us much. When you divide the number of deaths by the number of beds you get a more useful ratio. It was 0.56 for the QEUH, the same as in Ayr, a bit higher than in Kilmarnock at 0.5 and lower than for the Royal in Glasgow at 0.67. How difficult was that for BBC Scotland’s several graduate staff? Needless to say such open transparent data is not available, as far as I can see, for hospital in England. Continue reading BBC Scotland fails P7 sums test on Covid deaths

We’re still beating round the bush as the terrible truth emerges that care services based on the profit motive care less and in a pandemic allow more to die. The above, from the BBC based on a Care Inspectorate report, takes us ever closer to confirming what I was sure of a year ago: The rate of residents dying from Covid was higher in larger care homes than smaller ones, new data reveals. Care Inspectorate figures show there were 2.1 virus deaths per 100 places in care homes with up to 20 beds. This contrasts with 12.6 deaths per 100 … Continue reading Large private sector care homes had six times more Covid deaths

From SNP Media: SNP Westminster Leader Ian Blackford MP has accused the Prime Minister of being “missing in action” when the country needed him most at the height of the covid crisis.  Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Blackford said thousands of people have paid the ultimate price for his failures. 128,000 people have died of coronavirus in the United Kingdom, and this morning, the Prime Minister’s most senior former adviser, Dominic Cummings, apologised on behalf of the UK government.  Commenting, Ian Blackford MP said:  “We know the Prime Minister has made a series of catastrophic errors throughout this crisis. … Continue reading ‘A circus act when we should have had a serious government’

In the Herald today: POLICE have received “a number of complaints” following a tweet from an SNP councillor which said “we hate the United Kingdom” in the aftermath of the Eurovision results. Rhiannon Spear, who represents the Greater Pollok ward in Glasgow and is the SNP’s national women’s convenor, has been accused of using “abhorrent language” after she wrote: “It’s ok Europe we hate the United Kingdom too. Love, Scotland.” Really? Get a life! ‘A number’ means Annie Wells and two of her pals. ‘Assessing’ means they are just about to toss them in the bin. From an admittedly small sample … Continue reading Poll: Majority of Scots think UK is abhorrent