By Alasdair Galloway: One of the qualities regularly observed in the SNP over the years has been its “tribalism” – the SNP “tribe” against the Unionist “tribes”. Whether this is fair or not, it has been one of the assets of the party, insofar as. far and away, the biggest part of the independence movement (SNP) stood against a much more balkanised Unionist movement – Labour, Tory, Lib Dem. If you believed in independence there weren’t too many other places you could go. If not the SNP, then the choice was between the Greens and a variety of splinter, splintering, … Continue reading Tribalism and Iron Discipline

Caitlin Hutchison of the Herald has turned the switch from blue to white envelopes into a delay in the vaccine rollout: White envelopes will be used for the first tranche of coronavirus appointments for those aged 70-79 because blue ones were not ready in time, the Scottish Government has announced. OMG Caitlinn! How long do you think it took to go and get the white envelopes from the stationery cupboard. Did the GMB porters refuse to do the job without full consultation? Caitlin likes a bit of hyperbole. See this back in October: For her, three is quite enough for a multiple. … Continue reading 15 minutes wasted in trip to stationery cupboard leads to GMB call for Health Secretary to resign

From the SNP Media Unit: The SNP has said independence is the only way to regain the full benefits of Scotland’s EU membership – as UK consumers and businesses are hit with more charges as a result of Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit deal. Mastercard has said it will increase fees more than fivefold, when UK shoppers and businesses use a debit or credit card to buy from EU-based companies. The ‘interchange fee’ is capped by the EU for Member States but the cap no longer applies to the UK following Brexit – leading to higher costs for UK consumers. Mastercard … Continue reading TORY BREXIT HITS UK SHOPPERS WITH FIVEFOLD INCREASE IN CREDIT CARD FEES

From Norm M I’ve been reflecting on why I enjoy this blog and the work the Prof (Ed: I’m only a ‘vessel’… for the ideas of Noam…..not Norm!) is leading through it. It can be summed up in its name: Talking Up Scotland. There is so much media openly hostile to independence, no more than ever has it been important for there to be outlets where we can highlight the positives (and throw honest un-spun light on the negatives). One of the things that contributed to this reflection is chatter elsewhere about the minutiae of opinion polls. In this area I … Continue reading ‘Just one poll’

From Norm M So, Gordon Brown is being wheeled out again, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s Groundhog Day not Burns Night! In their ‘analysis’ Nick Eardley seems to forget something:  The Tories already setup a fundamental review of the UK’s power structures, it’s called The Dunlop Review into UK Government Union capability. Commissioned in July 2019, and concluded in the autumn of 2019, but the UK Government has never published it (despite numerous briefings to the press that it’s “coming soon”). We can’t be too surprised that Nick forgot it, as the UK Government is awful shy about it too. … Continue reading Aren’t you forgetting Lord Dunlop, Nick?

On the Marr show yesterday, the Health Secretary responsible for the pandemic strategy in England was asked about the rates in the UK as-a-whole. Why? Does using the term England soften the blow a little? It drags the other three nations into the failure but, of course, it’s quite inaccurate. The UK has only the second-highest death rate: Tragically for our friends and relatives, everyone, down there, England has the highest number of deaths per head of population. Wales has a slightly worse figure and Northern Ireland a slightly better figure than Scotland but the rate in in England is … Continue reading Matt Hancock, why has England the highest Covid-19 death rate in the world and will you resign?

On Sunday, Andrew Marr asked the First Minister for Scotland: ‘There will be lots of people at home in Scotland in their eighties, watching this interview, still waiting for their vaccine appointment and reading that down south in England, more than 50% of eighty-year-olds have been vaccinated already. What would you say to them?’ This required her to point out that Scotland had followed the firm and clear guidance from the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to vaccinate care home staff and residents first and then the over-eighties. As a consequence, Scotland had vaccinated a much higher percentage … Continue reading Matt Hancock, why has England vaccinated far fewer in care homes than they have in Scotland?

Dr Mike Galsworthy spotted this in the Times/Panelbase poll report today. The gap in the first graph is 5% and 6% in the second but look at how much bigger the bad news for Yes campaign is in that second graph. Continue reading The scale of deception

It’s bad news all round if you’re a Herald reporter. Hospital admissions fell for the second day, down from 2 053 on the 22nd January to 2 011 in the last 24 hours. ICU bed occupancy also fell for the second time from 161 to 157. Almost certainly triggering these falls, new cases reduced for the 17th day in a row, from 2 649 on 7th January to 1 195 in the last 24 hours. The fall may be accelerating in the last three days, falling from 1 591 to 1 195. There were 30 004 new cases across the … Continue reading Hospital admissions down slightly and cases falling to one-third UK rate

By Alasdair Galloway, the antidote to George Galloway This paper is a follow up to WTF, expressing considerable bewilderment about events surrounding the investigation by the Scottish Parliament of the conduct of Alex Salmond, while still First Minister. Of course, Salmond was found not guilty (or in one case, “not proven”). The focus, now that the possibility of hanging the independence cause on the tree of his guilt (though implications of “aye, but he’s still a bad yin – got away wi’ it, didn’t he?”), has now shifted to the First Minister who was involved in (or organized) a conspiracy … Continue reading WTF 2