By stewartb The House of Commons Library (HoCL) has just published a briefing paper entitled ‘Police Service Strength’ (Briefing Paper SN-00634). It provides a comparison of police numbers in the four nations of the UK, including the change in numbers that have occurred over time. Below are highlights from the report. The first graph (above) is the police officer strength (in thousands of Full Time Equivalents) between 2006 and 2020 in England & Wales. It reveals a period of relative stability in the total up to c. 2009 followed by a very marked fall during Tory dominance in Westminster. The … Continue reading Don’t let Tories anywhere near power in Holyrood – a lesson from police service staffing in England & Wales

Today Jeanne Freeman rejected claims Scottish Government officials spent days plotting how to spin a report into hospital patients being discharged to care homes. She said the comments from the Scottish Conservatives were “absolute nonsense”.  The comments came from Donald Cameron, above, and included these astonishingly tribal and stupid claims: Cameron seems unaware of his leader’s thoughts on this. In his Covid-19 Winter Plan updated on 2nd December, Conservative PM Boris Johnson made it clear that hospital patients who have tested positive can be discharged into English care homes and that staff moving between sites were the carriers of the … Continue reading Scottish Conservatives contradict the PM and accuse ‘all’ researchers of spinning care home deaths

According to the Herald today: The UK Government has contradicted Health Secretary Jeane Freeman’s prediction that vaccine supplies will “dip” in the coming weeks, forcing a slowdown of the vaccination programme. Ms Freeman said yesterday that the rollout would have to be scaled back in the next two weeks because of problems affecting supplies to the UK.  Then we read this: Backing up Freeman, BBC Wales had this to say: The number of vaccines supplied to Wales is expected to fall in the next few weeks, affecting some of the country’s vaccination centres. Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board says it is pausing vaccinations … Continue reading Why is only England NOT facing vaccine shortages?

Yeh, yeh, but read on: Wales will be the first UK nation to have offered the top four priority groups a Covid jab, the Welsh Government has said. Within hours, officials say, all over 70s including care home residents, will have been offered a first dose. Where have we seen this before? Their offer is no better than their word. Continue reading Welsh Labour sneak into a fake lead with an offer, just an offer of a jag

Has Mark Drakeford, Labour First Minister of Wales, forgotten what happened when they tried to to come out too quickly from their ‘firebreak’ in November? They were quickly condemned then: http://www.deeside.com/wales-came-out-of-firebreak-too-quickly-and-is-now-slamming-the-brakes-on-says-michael-gove/ Gove said: It looks, with the benefit of hindsight, as though immediately after their two-week lockdown they lifted restrictions too expansively. As a result of doing that, the virus once more got out of control, they’ve had to slam the brakes on again.” That’s one of the reasons why we’re exiting the lockdown cautiously across the country (England). We are taking a cautious approach (in England) because the example … Continue reading Welsh Labour takes risks again for votes

Vaccination slowdown is BBC Scotland’s preferred take as Scotland passes 1 million dose given, a record 63 178 today, 99.9% of care home residents and 97% of over 80s. BBC UK mentions only the Scottish slowdown. BBC England and Northern Ireland have nothing to say on the issue. Only BBC Wales reports the same problem there. In the BBC Scotland report we read: Scotland’s health secretary, Jeane Freeman, told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme earlier on Thursday that the issue was “about the supply into the UK, it is not about distribution around the UK” and would therefore affect … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s slowdown

By stewartb Dated 10 February, the BBC News website has an article entitled: “Covid: Care staff vaccinations ‘lagging behind target’ ”. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56012869 This is the first sentence of the BBC article: “There is a worrying shortfall in the number of care staff to have had Covid vaccinations, a survey of almost 1,500 services in the UK suggests.” These findings come, according to the BBC journalist, from the National Care Forum (NCF). The NCF is described by the BBC as an organisation which “represents not-for-profit care providers across the UK but mainly in England”. The Executive Director of the NCF … Continue reading Staff vaccinations ‘shortfall’: Can we take anything at face value in BBC News reports?

While the data tables for the above Savanta/Scotsman poll are still under wraps, wikipedia seem to know the numbers: Poor wee Conor, living in fear of the dread MacLennan, the Savanta poll actually shows a 1% increase in support for the SNP just ‘as internal divisions’ were supposed to be ripping them apart. Oh dear, that won’t do. That doesn’t fit. I know, thinks Conor. I’ll just ignore that and pretend the 4% fall from the last Savanta poll to this one is evidence that it’s ripping them apart. No one will notice, will they? Tee hee, muppet! Continue reading SNP support increases as internal divisions rip through it?

The above line graph suggests that definite support for ‘Yes’ may have flattened but far more noteworthy is what is happening to both the ‘No’ support and the undecided. As you know, I’m not a proper statistician but it seems clear that the ‘No’ support is much softer and in recent months has gone into a steep decline. At the same time, the number of undecided has begun to climb more steeply. I think, correct me if I’m wrong, far more of former ‘No’ supporters than of former ‘Yes’ supporters are becoming unsure, undecided. This is a good thing, isn’t … Continue reading The opposition is softening

I know, I know, this is a Hootsman-free zone but I couldn’t let this one go. Conor Matchett writes: Support for Scottish independence has dropped by four points in a month, a new poll has suggested, as internal divisions rip through the SNP. You have to admit, it is good. He has a flair for comedy if not for statistics. What he means is that support for independence, between two Savanta polls, has dropped by four points. It has but it’s meaningless. You need to look at the trend based on the averages of several polls, as in this below. … Continue reading I laughed. I had to.