By Brenda Steele: Yesterday  I received an e-mail from a friend with this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55152472    SNP internal election results may cause problems for Nicola Sturgeon My friend thought that  “Overall this report sounds quite fair” but not being an SNP member wanted to hear from someone closer to the action. My reply started off with this. Overall, it has some validity, but it betrays bias in the idea that these are highly organised factions with traditional allegiances. In particular, this: The left-leaning Common Weal group has secured 11 seats on the party’s ruling body – the national executive committee (NEC) … Continue reading There is no Common weal Group in the SNP

Douglas Ross, that trippy athlete, recycles his former colleague on taking a risk with gym opening in high infection areas. Their case is science-free. Here’s some: I’m no scientist but I would not go anywhere near a gym. In a pub, sitting comfortably, you might after a few drinks project your voice a bit more than is desirable in the circumstances but the plume will be much smaller. Is this just my opinion? Is there science which the Scottish Government is following? Yes: During 24 days in Cheonan, South Korea, 112 persons were infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus … Continue reading Scottish Tories not fit for anything

DOCTORS have branded the £500 “thank you” payment for their services during the pandemic as “embarrassing and not needed”. Highland GPs questioned whether the sum, announced by Nicola Sturgeon on Monday at the SNP conference, “is just” when many of their patients have faced reduced earning, jobs losses or business closures as a result of the pandemic. We don’t know just how many GPs were involved in this protest or how representative even of GPs they are. We don’t even get one named person in the Herald report. I can’t imagine the less well-paid NHS and care staff think it ‘embarrassing.‘ Rather … Continue reading Stop moaning and give it to your cleaners?

As hospital-onset cases of Covid climbed, Lisa Summers was quick to tweet the bad news about our hospitals, rounding 189 up to 200, gleefully, and forgetting to mention that it was only 2% of all cases and well under the rate in England of between 18% and 25%! Regardless, it then became a big story across BBC Scotland: Today, we see the numbers fall again: Where’s the report? The public have a right to know that it’s even safer to have to go into hospital, in Scotland that is. Continue reading Hospital onset Covid: Good news is no news for Reporting Scotland’s Lisa Summers

Are Covid deaths at a higher rate in Trump’s USA than in Tory England? Ask anyone. I’ve asked some neighbours. Much higher in the USA, they say. I ask how they know and they tell me they saw it on the news. The BBC News? Yes. I’ve seen it too. They have a full-time correspondent there and he reports regularly on the scale of the deaths and the collapsing health infrastructure. They particularly love to show President Trump making things worse. But, see this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/ Yes, the death rate per million in the US is actually lower than it is … Continue reading Why is the BBC not telling the relative truth about US deaths from Covid?

Scotland has had 3 848 confirmed Covid deaths or 704 per million putting her in 22nd place. England with 52 601 deaths or 935 per million would be in 5th place and Wales with 2 638 or 837 per milliom would be in 11th place, just slightly worse than the USA. Northern Ireland with 542 would be way down the list. ONS and NRS data tabulated by: https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/ Continue reading The Facts: Scotland has 24th highest covid mortality rate

Get me the facts I need! England’s infection rate 50% higher. England’s death rate 24% higher. But, but England tests more than other UK nations so why are infection and death rates not lower because of that? Because testing is not a ‘silver bullet.’ You need to contact at least 80% and get them to self-isolate. Scotland does. England does not. All graphs, based on ONS and NRS data, by: https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/ Continue reading Marr Update: Nope still not worse than England

Of course, you’d never know it from the BBC Scotland reporting but the failure to get care home staff test results back quickly enough is down to the outsourced UK system funded by the Scottish taxpayer, not performing: Care home staff might be among the first to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in the coming weeks BUT testing is still a major concern for one provider who’s warning turnaround is taking to long. The ‘provider’ turns out to be the private Balhousie Care Group currently benefiting from free testing at the taxpayer’s expense while charging around £1 000 per week for … Continue reading UK testing service still failing Scotland’s care homes

By stewartb There are times when a journalist pens a phrase that leaves a mark. I experienced this – and not in a positive way – when reading Kevin McKenna’s piece in The National on 2 December, entitled ‘The SNP’s woke team have been defeated – here’s what that means”. Much could be written about his polemic with its attacks on the Scottish Government and SNP leadership but it merits no further amplification from me. However, one phrase is worth noting: “the insidious whim of self-identification”. It was made in the context of negative criticism of proposed reform to legal … Continue reading An international phenomenon – the curious case of “the insidious whim of self-identification”

James Kelly suggests there’s another YouGov poll on the way and warns us it might be bad: http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2020/12/yougov-indy-polling-gossip.html I had a quick look and found the above, showing that they’ve reported Yes leads of only 1%, and 5% in a period when the average lead across all pollsters has been 7.5%. This too is of interest: YouGov was founded in the UK in May 2000 by Stephan Shakespeare and future MP Nadhim Zahawi, at the time both active in the British Conservative Party. In 2001 they engaged BBC political analyst Peter Kellner, who became chairman, and then from 2007–2016, President. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouGov#:~:text=YouGov%20was%20founded%20in%20the,from%202007%E2%80%932016%2C%20President. It’s all down to … Continue reading Don’t fear the next YouGov poll on indepedence