Strangely fed by following the Twitter feed of Andy Burnham, in turn estimated based on data compiled by the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Record thought it was able to trumpet the above bad news yesterday, as Scotland began to loosen its breakdown: It’s hard to see where they get their headline from when you look at the column for the R no. Every area is between 0.7 and 0.9 with Scotland in the middle at 0.8. Then when you look at actual infection rates as opposed to … Continue reading Scotland’s actual covid-19 infection rate is pretty average

For Opinium on 28th-29th May, with 169 adult Scots (18+), 64% overall and 67% of Labour voters, trust the information on coronavirus provided by Nicola Sturgeon. 39% of Conservative voters also trust her despite Jackson Carlaw’s repeated claims that she has lost the confidence of the public. https://www.opinium.co.uk/public-opinion-on-coronavirus-28th-may/ Readers may remember the YouGov poll in January in which only 8% trusted Carlaw, just ahead of Richard Leonard on 6%! https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/01/30/less-than-1-in-10-scots-trust-jackson-carlaw-latest-yougov-full-poll-puts-yes-ahead-and-better-together-leaders-in-the-bin/ Continue reading Nearly 40% of Scottish Tories trust the FM!

From stewartb Its high time we devoted more resource to exposing the ways and means adopted by Westminster governments over the funding of public services in England and the negative impact these can have on Scotland. How much do we NOT know? We hear very little from the Scottish news media about financial scrutiny of governments in Westminster. In Scotland we have little or no exposure to investigations by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Commons or those by England’s National Audit Office (NAO). This means that too often we are unaware of the financial competence or … Continue reading Westminster Tories damage England’s NHS – and harm Scotland (Part 1)

From stewartb This is the second article for the TuSC motivated by a view that it’s high time we devoted more resource to exposing the ways and means adopted by Westminster governments over the funding of public services in England. It’s important to highlight the negative knock-on impact on Scotland. We hear very little from the Scottish news media about financial scrutiny of governments in Westminster. In Scotland we have little or no exposure to investigations by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Commons or those by England’s National Audit Office (NAO). As a result, we are … Continue reading Westminster Tories avoid responsibility to address the needs of England’s NHS and this harms Scotland (Part 2)

By Brenda Steele: Ian Murray is getting a lot of press mileage out of the  Nike Conference “Cover-up” https://www.theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2020/05/murray-continues-to-probe-over-nike-conference-in-edinburgh/ Murray continues to probe over Nike conference in Edinburgh More than 70 Nike employees from around the world attended the conference in Edinburgh on 26 and 27 February 2020, and a BBC investigation found that at least 25 people linked to the event contracted Covid-19, including 8 in Scotland.At the weekend, in the Mail on Sunday, it was reported that several workers who came into contact with delegates, including kilt-fitters in Edinburgh and staff who shared a building with Nike in … Continue reading The Nike kilts were fitted two days BEFORE the virus is thought to have arrived in Edinburgh

From the Scottish Government News site: An additional £20 million has been announced for the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), bringing total Scottish Government investment to £75 million. The investment in the facility, which includes the existing Lightweight Manufacturing Centre which opened last year as a specialist technology centre, will help develop the future of Scotland’s manufacturing sector as the economy rebuilds after coronavirus (COVID-19). The announcement comes as a contract is signed between University of Strathclyde and Morrisons Construction to build the new National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) facility. Operated by the University of Strathclyde, NMIS will be an … Continue reading SNP Government invests £75 million in manufacturing

I’n not persuaded, so I haven’t paid. Knowing who the writer is, I suspect it will be just more Tory propaganda. I’ve seen several pieces by McLellan and none of them own up to his back-story. Are they worried that might affect interest? I’m guessing it’s another sneaky attack along the same lines as Macwhirter in the Herald last week but a bit more literate than Ian Murray’s Zoom spluttering for Guido Fawkes yesterday. It’s not just him. Brian Wilson, former New Labour minister, Brian Monteith, Brexit MEP and former tory MSP and Gina Davidson, Labour adviser, appear regularly without … Continue reading If the Scotsman wants us to pay for news ‘we can trust’ shouldn’t they tell us when we’re reading a Tory councillor on Nicola Sturgeon?

In a report by BBC Scotland ‘Data journalist’, Marc Ellison, Google ‘community mobile’ reports are used to compare the movement of people before and after the lock-down in March and before and the divergence between England and Scotland’s policies on 10th May. The data is harvested from smartphones which as fans of crime shows will know, bounce signals off every mast they pass near. Comparing trips to parks in Edinburgh with 5 English locations you can see both a greater tendency to stay at home even in the first days of the combined lock-down in Edinburgh and, dramatically, after the … Continue reading The lock-down more respected in Scotland

In some ways, this is astonishing. Around a third of English respondents, presumably based only on short inserts in the UK news about what is happening in Scotland and featuring Nicola Sturgeon, feel Scotland is handling the outbreak better. The attempts by Sarah Smith and Ian Murray, to tell a very different story in those same broadcasts, have been ineffective. The survey was based on 2 883 GB adults surveyed on May 29th. The Scottish sub-sample will have been around 8% or 230. Even if they all selected Scotland as having done better, a further 36% of mainly English respondents … Continue reading At least a third of English people know they’ve been betrayed by the Tories

Two weeks ago, Jackson Carlaw feared the worst for the people of Scotland: All Jackson’s efforts pushing those lazy SNP folk has now paid off: In Herald yesterday: THE SCOTTISH Government has now reached its target of recruiting 2,000 contact tracers as Nicola Sturgeon refuted claims that pressure is being put on health boards to roll out the test and protect strategy.  Speaking at her daily briefing, the First Minister said that Scotland now has “more than a pool of 2,000 across the country” who will act as contact tracers as lockdown restrictions are eased.  Let’s hear it for Jackson! Ah, no, I can’t really … Continue reading Jackson Carlaw claims credit for getting Scotland’s contact tracing teams fully staffed and up to ‘world beating’ standards