Image: Ian Rutherford From a reader: So BBC Scotland is ever seeking single cases to show how the NHS in Scotland is performing in this time of trial. OK, here’s one – mine. Let’s take it step by step. First off, I’m an 81 year old Scottish male who seemed in pretty good health in February 2020. That month I began to have some bowel problems and met my local GP to discuss things. He checked me out and decided that further investigation was needed pretty urgently. I was referred to Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital for a colonoscopy which was … Continue reading What does this one case tell us about NHS Scotland in a time of virus?

This is wrong in England just as it is wrong in Labour Wales and in SNP Scotland. The Public Accounts Committee, chaired by Meg Hillier (Lab) and populated with enough Labour members, Lib Dems and Tory exiles to support it, has produced a report which fails to consider the key evidence from research which convincingly demonstrates the role of the extensive use of agency workers in spreading the virus across the care home sector. From MHA, the UK’s largest charitable care home provider: I think it’s very difficult not to see that the only real way that this can have come … Continue reading The Tusker exposes anti-Johnson Government lies from English Labour and Tory exile-dominated committee

In the above post, now deleted, I implied that Ms Lax had colluded with a member of Scotland in Union’s covert letter writing group, to share exactly the same letter and to send it to two different newspapers. I had inadvertently misread the naming of the writers, attributing one of the letters to a known member of the group when, in fact, both had been written by Ms Lax who is not on any list of the group’s members and insists that she is not a member. I sincerely regret that mistake. Ms Lax is clearly committed to the Union, … Continue reading Sincere apology to Jane Lax of Craigellachie

Two days ago, BBC Scotland drew our attention to this: Nearly half of Scotland’s 4,193 coronavirus deaths have been linked to care homes. So what do we know about these men and women who succumbed to a disease that has ravaged the world? Surprisingly, the answer is very little. They went on to tell us: Data also reveals that since mid-March there have been 2,365 “excess deaths” [all causes] in Scottish care homes as measured against the five-year average. Their data comes from: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/covid19/covid-deaths-report-week-29.pdf They asked ‘What do we know?’ but did not think that we might like to know how that … Continue reading SHOCK: Excess deaths in Scotland’s care homes 10% LOWER than England and Wales despite higher background mortality

In a typically jaundiced piece from the Herald’s Helen McArdle, with an appallingly dishonest headline, we read, but well down the page, that NHS GGC will increase the number of infection control staff across its hospitals from 43 to 46. However in another Scottish MSM report, before a public inquiry, the Herald relies on ‘sources‘ to try to undermine the the health board. Sourced no doubt by the RCN, the three additional staff replacing one infection control nurse are contemptuously associated with a risk of ‘lost skills and leadership’ because they will not be medics. Professor Sridhar is not a … Continue reading NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to increase infection control staffing

Here’s the evidence that the New Southern General is ‘sick’: Molly told BBC Reporting Scotland: “That building itself is sick.” No one doubts the sincerity of Molly but we must doubt the validity of one person’s opinion in the judgement of the performance of a complex massive system. BBC Scotland, had they any journalistic principles, should share those doubts and refrain from this kind of trashy headlining. Sadly, this is a preference, a sickness in Pacific Quay, to use single cases based on one person’s subjective experience and often the all-too-natural suspicions of parents that more might have been done to … Continue reading BBC Scotland is morbidly relying on single cases using mere opinion to harm NHS Scotland BEFORE an inquiry

Readers will the remember this kind of reporting and the faux-empathy shouted by the likes of Carlaw and Leonard. In Scotland, this evidence of it’s rebuttal by reliable evidence did not appear in ‘our’ media though it had in England: I think it’s very difficult not to see that the only real way that this can have come into our homes is through staff picking it up, just through the community contacts they would have had. Absent from BBC Scotland’s coverage but covered by BBC UK where the Conservative Party leadership is preferred but feared target, this report clarifies the role … Continue reading Why were hospital discharges into care homes only dangerous in Scotland?

In the wake of BBC Scotland’s Disclosure series misrepresenting the deaths in Scotland’s care homes: [https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/07/28/alert-bbc-scotland-disclosure-tonight-on-care-homes-likely-to-miss-the-point/], the excellent MSM_Monitor has drawn attention to the clearly different agendas of BBC Wales under Labour and BBC Scotland under the SNP. I was reminded of previous examples and the value of building up a portfolio of the evidence to counter the defence of it being accidental. So, working backward, see this from April 1st 2020 and note the choice of image they have chosen to associate with the covid-19 deaths: Depoliticised in Labour Wales. Politicised and demonising in SNP Scotland. On the 30th … Continue reading How BBC Wales offers us clear evidence of BBC Scotland’s anti-Scottish bias

With new infections in England stalling at around 700 per day, 20 times higher per capita than in Scotland and only just below the average in Spain, and with deaths stalling at more than 60 per day, compared to zero in Scotland, the Conservative Government has recognised defeat and has jumped at the Scottish First Minister’s offer of a ‘shared approach.’ Though the BBC Scotland report is not on the UK or England websites, the UK Government’s feelings are protected by the headline and opening sentences but it soon becomes clear what is happening here: Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon … Continue reading Sturgeon persuades failed UK Government to U-turn on Covid strategy

By Brenda Steele: Many of those who come to this site are probably regular viewers of the ScotGov Coronavirus briefings and have watched the FM handle a hostile press. Quite clearly the objective of many questions is fodder for shrieking Sturgeon/SNPBaaad headlines. Nicola Sturgeon is not the only target. WHO also has press briefings. WHO officials are subjected to very similar treatment for the same tawdry motives. The briefings can be found at: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/media-resources/press-briefings I only began watching recently, but at each one I have detected what can only be described as fishing expeditions.  The briefing of 27 July is … Continue reading UK press goes fishing in Edinburgh and Geneva – catches crab in both locations