Resisting pressure from the Scottish Tories to follow the UK decision to scrap taxes for more affluent house-buyers, for properties up to half a million pounds, Kate Forbes, the Finance secretary, has limited the relief to properties under £250 000. According to Insider: House buyers in Scotland will not pay tax on properties sold for for less than £250,000 after the Scottish Government responded to the Westminister Government’s Stamp Duty holiday. The change will mean about eight in 10 house buyers in Scotland will not pay LBTT. The average cost of a residential property in Scotland was £178,991 in 2018-19. … Continue reading Further SNP progressive taxation decision enables additional £50 million for first-time home-buyers

Not for the first time, this kind of news in the Insider online magazine doesn’t make it into the MSM coverage: Take-up of large industrial and logistics space hit a record high in the first half of 2020 despite the pandemic, according to real estate firm Savills. The firm’s latest Big Shed Briefing reports leases of properties of more than 100,000 sq ft totalled 704,531 sq ft across four transactions. That was a 165% increase on the long-term first half average and 95% increase on the first half of 2019. The deals included Iceland committing to 284,000 sq ft on … Continue reading 165% increase in large industrial space demand suggests Scottish economy more resilient than BBC ‘picture’

Here’s the truth about care home deaths: Data from research by LSE, reported on May 14th in Care Home Professional: More than 22 000 care home residents in England and Wales have died during the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research. In a new paper, the LSE said data on deaths had underestimated the impact of the pandemic on care home residents as it did not take into account the indirect mortality effects of the pandemic and/or because of problems with the identification of the disease as the cause of death. The paper said current data only accounted for an estimated 41.6% … Continue reading The FM is too polite to say it but the death rate in Scottish care homes was 21% lower than in England and Wales

I know, I know, it’s just click-bait. It’s just what journalists do to enable corporate profit. There are times, tiring, I think that, but then I remember that headlines like that might cause real damage. If some people believe them and become dispirited by them, they may become more casual in their covid hygiene. So, I rebut them in the hope that at least one person is not deceived by them. In 2014 and before, the Herald had a clear anti-independence, anti-SNP agenda. Nothing was allowed to stray from that. Today, things are chaotic, anarchic, laissez-faire, free market. We still … Continue reading The Herald no longer has a solid anti-SNP agenda but allows anything even that which will risk lives to attract sales

Taking the second point in the headline first, Macwhirter’s ‘some in the SNP‘ has no real evidence for it other than that from a tiny handful of disgruntled former leading members, with links to the Scottish media. There has been no poll asking Scots if they think the FM has lost the desire for independence. As for what Nicola wants, here’s Macwhirter’s theory based on his reading of her personality based on her behaviour in the Covid crisis: So, because in dealing with the most significant, life and death, leadership challenge of her life, where she is surrounded by expert … Continue reading Macwhirter’s cod psychology is just a more genteel form of attack on the SNP leader

In the Herald, yesterday, yet another SNP Civil War prediction from a Tory, blue or red version. Support for the SNP is at 54/55% in the last 5 polls, up from 45% in 2019, in a period when the Alex Salmond case has been positively drooled over by the MSM. It’s not going to happen. Stevenson is also the latest in a long line of contributors in the Herald with their identities concealed from the reader. We see John McLellan (Con), Brian Monteith (Brexit) and Brian Wilson (Lab) on a regular basis with no mention of their inevitable biases rooted … Continue reading So much wind: Struan Stevenson (Con) and yet another SNP Civil War prediction

On Good Mourning Scotland this morning, Gordon Brewer interrupted Professor Bauld to shout: You, you, you, sorry to interrupt [no he isn’t] Linda but, you say that, but the brutal fact is we’ve had something like 4 000 deaths which is about a tenth of the UK. It’s about a population share of the deaths in the UK. As a consequence of the 4 Nations approach Scotland did suffer massive loss of life but since the Scottish Government strategy kicked in, both cases and deaths have fallen steadily until, as we see in the graph above, the 7 day average death rate … Continue reading Dear Gordon, ‘brutal fact’ is covid-19 deaths in Scotland are currently 24 times lower per head of population than in England

Early this morning, the Scotsman’s Gary Flockhart (14?) jumps up excitedly when he sees the surge of 18 new cases on Thursday, up from only 6 the previous day. Who can be responsible for this failure? The buck stops with the FM! Gary goes back to bed only to wake up and find there were only 7 new cases on Friday, one down from the 7 day average of 8.1. How unlucky can he be? Has Gary (14?) learned a valuable lesson? A one-day variation does not a trend make? Has he gone back to bed? Nope, he’s on a … Continue reading Scotsman cub reporter accuses Sturgeon of failure to control infection rate fluctuations

On Good Mourning Scotland this morning after Professor Bauld said: Scotland’s done well. we were behind the curve in terms of when the virus came into Scotland. We locked down when we were at a better stage in terms of the numbers and we’re now seeing as we’ve heard from Ken, no deaths yesterday and slight rise in the number of cases but still very low. It’s inevitable we have to open up but as we go forward… Brewer interrupts: You, you, you, sorry to interrupt [no he isn’t] Linda but, you say that, but the brutal fact is we’ve … Continue reading Gordon Brewer stupidly interrupts a professor with irrelevant facts about historical deaths in Scotland as the infection rate in England soars to more than 20 times higher per capita

What Where? Will the window-cleaners be happy with this choice? What about the Chinese laundry workers? The little ukelele-makers? Will members generally feel they have been waiting for a Godot-awfully long time for the decision? If Beckett forgets his lamppost again, what will Formby lean on? Why am I blogging at this time? Continue reading The Tusker founder suffers suspected ‘Acid Flashback’ after hearing ‘Formby backs Beckett for Unite General Secretary’