In the Scotsman today, Prof Tomkins back at Glasgow Uni, but hopefully not doing something like teaching where you need to be interested or research where you need to be honest, so probably management, has a great idea to help the Scottish Tories beat the SNP. Policies won’t be enough, he insists. Well thank Frank for that, eh? What policies have they got? Eh, there’s, em, oh yes: No to Indyref2 No to Indyref2 No to progressive taxation No to land reform No to taking away private schools charitable status No to banning fox hunting No to Indyref2 No to … Continue reading What, the Scottish Tories have policies but should give us all a doing with their presentation skills?

As with the spike in drug-related crime by ‘County Lines‘ gangs operating out of English cities, ‘terrorising rural and small town Scotland‘, so the spike in farm thefts is by English gangs is being concealed by BBC Scotland and the MSM. The above BBC Scotland report makes no reference to the origins of the gangs responsible for a 44% spike in the theft of farm machinery. Reporting Scotland are, of course, unable to suggest such a thing. That would be ‘anti-English’, racist even. Only a few in the regional media identified the drug gangs as English and it is only, … Continue reading English cross-border gangs cause spike in cost of rural crime but BBC Scotland dare not say the ‘E’ word

In ZDNet yesterday: Scotland is working on its own contact-tracing app, which is expected to be available to download in the Apple and Google app stores in the autumn. NHS England is yet to provide a specific timeline for the launch of its contact-tracing technology, after the organization had to scrap the original designs for the app due to technical difficulties.  Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman said that the new tool will complement the existing manual contact-tracing program in place as part of NHS Scotland’s Test and Protect system. “It builds on existing person-to-person contact tracing which remains the most … Continue reading Scottish Unionists rage at latest Celtic Connections as Jeane Freeman leverages Irish software

For some time now, the opposition parties and much of the MSM have clung to the historical data and ignored more recent trends in a vain attempt to persuade the general public that Scotland’s apparent covid-19 success is mere spin. In June, even as infection levels and deaths plummeted here, the FT characterised Scotland’s success as PR and encouraged a swathe of commentators from the MP Ian Murray to Iain Macwhirter and Gordon Brewer to loudly claim the same: As recently as July 23rd, by which time recent trends had become starkly different, Sky’s Adam Boulton was still repeating: It’s … Continue reading Adam Boulton: After months of divergence Scotland ‘has done better’as even England’s TOTAL death rate pro rata reaches 67% higher

From Richard Horsman, The Tusker‘s North of England Correspondent As the Grampian contact tracers work on the coronavirus outbreak with a connection to a pub in Aberdeen there was a timely piece which touched on contact tracing in England on this morning’s Radio Five Breakfast ( BBC Sounds at 8.38am 3/08)     The topics being discussed were local lock-downs and the new 90-Minute test. As the UK government seems to have delegated current responsibility and presumably blame to council level, Public Health England now publishes a full list of weekly cases and Cases per 100 000 population, by town or … Continue reading Sheffield goes full Scottish on testing and tracing

Today’s Opinium Poll mapped by Flavible, above, suggests the SNP would take all-but-one of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats in the next General Election. While the Tories have a strong majority at the moment, trouble on the streets in poor and ethnic-minority areas after an attempt to impose more brutal local lock-downs could lead to the current regime thinking they should just get out and let Labour deal with the mess and deliberately lose a snap confidence-vote election. In that scenario like that, would the SNP have the guts to go in with a manifesto stating that a vote for them … Continue reading Scottish Tory voters to hang onto only Westminster seat

Submitted today at 14:28. Continue reading BBC Complaint over unethical and unreliable reporting of chronic pain sufferers

This Freedom of Information request from the recurring and mysterious Manfred Stobartson, is of interest to us. He wrote: Dear Scottish Government, In the last 52 weeks:1 in every 87 of Scotland’s population died,but only1 in 89 of Wales1 in 102 of England1 in 113 of N Ireland Is there a ‘Scottish Gov’ version’ of the above statistics that might make them look less horrific? What actions are intended to be put in place to address this issue? What is the main reasons [sic] for such a far higher death rate in Scotland? https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/deaths_in_scotland_last_52_weeks?nocache=incoming-1610816#incoming-1610816 The Scottish Government replied today and … Continue reading Not the most successful union the world has ever known? Mysterious researcher exposes the dark legacy of Scotland in union with the Empire

I’d forgotten about this when I wrote the earlier post on chronic pain sufferers but it’s worth a free-standing post to consider, though your gorge may rise, Fiona Stalker’s failed ‘stalk’ or should that be ‘ambulance chase?’ Stalker tweeted the above sneaky wee call for evidence, three weeks ago, then all went quiet. Serves her right, I thought, but no, she got two, including one well-known (Hughes) to Labour’s Monica Lennon, through her long-term presence in Holyrood committees. So, armed with the ‘evidence’, Stalker wrote this: The report is of course missing a few things, like contextual evidence to inform … Continue reading Reporting Scotland’s unethical stalking expedition for the scent of chronic pain sufferers going south finds only TWO!

Today, three out of five headline stories are about the the public inquiry into new Scottish hospitals in Glasgow and Edinburgh. In one case, the most photographed mother and child tragedy image ever, appears again to make the puzzling case that a forthcoming inquiry, regardless of the facts, must come up with the finding that suits the ‘truth’ acceptable to the parents and to the opposition politician, sponsoring their protest against the health board’s expert report. As Scotland’s remarkable success in suppressing the coronavirus outbreak continues and as England slides into despair, BBC Scotland gives that little attention and no … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s proxy war ramps up