In Business Insider yesterday: Sweden’s strategy for dealing with the novel coronavirus so far has not included a lockdown. Instead, the country has allowed people to go to parks, bars, and restaurants and to keep working, while encouraging but largely not enforcing social distancing. It’s a strategy that most in the country appear to support. But it has sparked alarm among some experts who point to the country’s relatively high death toll, the effects on vulnerable groups, and what they say is an approach that ignores much of the best research on COVID-19. https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-plan-is-a-cruel-mistake-skeptical-experts-say-2020-5?r=US&IR=T And, the strategy did not work, with … Continue reading Is Sweden’s failed and cruel, herd immunity strategy, a surviving trace of their dark history and one which the Johnson regime almost tested on us?

The less well-known brother of Ed and David, Glen Milliband, has become the centre of media attention after he set up a mock machine gun nest in the entrance to his caravan park at Shankend in the Scottish Borders. Milliband had been threatened by a surge in camper vans from England trying to enter his site without proof of two negative covid-19 test results. Armed only with the anal thermometer he uses with his dogs, Milliband ran into opposition when he offered to test anyone with an English accent, arriving at his site. When asked, Milliband claimed his brother Ed … Continue reading Third Milliband brother Glen calls for hard border to keep infection out of his Borders caravan park

From Deadline on March 11th, the seven contenders for the post of BBC Director General. https://deadline.com/2020/03/bbc-director-general-candidates-1202879325/ The seven, their school and university: Tim Davie: Independent boarding boy’s school and Cambridge University Charlotte Moore:  Independent boarding girl’s school and Bristol University Jay Hunt: Independent girl’s day school and Cambridge University Alex Mahon: Independent girl’s day and Imperial College London Jane Turton: School unknown and St Andrews University Simon Pitts: School and university unknown George Osborne: Independent boy’s boarding school and Oxford University So, at least 5 of the 7 attended gender-segregated private schools, often boarding. Jane and Simon, I’m going to … Continue reading Private schools for segregated boys and girls and elite universities: The reproduction of the BBC elite

Thanks to the reader who sent this. All informers protected! Missed it yesterday behind the Scotsman’s paywall. Right at the end, Prof Burns writes: I’m coming to the conclusion that my friend David Hamilton was correct. If we had shut the border years ago, we would have been able to protect ourselves from UK Government incompetence. I’m reminded of my own earlier suggestions of the same, regarding county lines drug gangs, measles epidemics, novovirus and listeria seeping north: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/05/11/coronavirus-tips-the-balance-in-the-argument-for-a-real-border-with-england/ And, more recently, camper vans from Husbands Bosworth: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/05/11/you-can-drive-to-other-destinations-close-the-border-scotland/ Continue reading If we had shut the border years ago, we would have been able to protect ourselves from UK Government incompetence

Poll after poll putting the SNP at 50% or more and the First Minister trusted by 10 to 12 times as many Scots as the Scottish Labour leader, Shadowy Secretary of State for Morningside, Ian Murray, must be shattered by the public’s lack of confidence in his party and, if they recognise him, him. The YouGov poll yesterday has the SNP at 51% and Labour at 15%, 10 points behind even the appalling Tories led by the frankly unappetizing Carlaw. The wider data here suggest a surge by the English leader, Sir Keir Starmer, to as high as 37% in … Continue reading Murray shattered as Scottish public sticks with the SNP again

In an extensive report with only one reference to the Scottish Government, toward the end, we read: The council said the cost would be split between the Scottish government (£63m), the local authority (£15m), walking and cycling charity SUSTRANS (about £9m), Scottish Water (£665,000) and Transport Scotland (£500,000). So the SNP Government as the Conservative leader likes to call them, is funding more than 70% of the costs for flood prevention in a strongly Tory area. Scottish Borders Council is a Conservative/Independent coalition with only 9 out 34, SNP councillors. Continue reading BBC Scotland hides the SNP Government’s massive contribution to flood prevention in Tory region

Helen McArdle, real journalist, driven by a desire to inform the public and by a corporate pay package, thinks no care homes in these East Asian countries can teach us, well really Nicola, how to do things properly. Aren’t journalists expected to be skeptical especially about such claims? A mere sociologist, I thought, instantly, let’s see if that’s true once we have a wee dig around. I feel sure the facts will not be easily found, so this will be only a starter. I feel equally sure that some friends of this blog will be on this like a pack … Continue reading No care home deaths in South Korea? Doesn’t that teach us to dig a bit deeper?

In the Times yesterday: Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she refused to follow England out of lockdown because Scotland was “behind the curve” has been called into question by official statistics. The First Minister has not mentioned the curve recently but did on the 7th May: And we are not yet confident that the all-important R number is comfortably below 1 – and I’ve explained and set out before why it is so important to get it and keep it comfortably below 1. Indeed, we think it could still be hovering around 1 just now – which means that any significant … Continue reading Times writers fail to check just what First Minister said

Two weeks after the Nike Conference in Edinburgh where 25 people may have contracted the virus, over 250 000 attended the Cheltenham four-day horse racing event and: Prof Gabriel Scally, former director of public health in the south west and visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol, said there “seemed to be” a high number of virus cases in Gloucestershire.’ Government data shows there have been 972 cases of the virus in Gloucestershire, and 147 people have died. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-52380282 Local Conservative MP Laurence Robertson, whose constituency Cheltenham is in, attended this year’s festival but said there should … Continue reading Does Jackson Carlaw now think the public has a right to know if cramming 250 000 into the Cheltenham festival two weeks after the Nike Conference caused a spike in deaths in the area?

By Brenda Steele: In December last year, newspaper circulation continued to fall across the industry. Even The Sun reported a 13 per cent fall in just that one year. All paid-for newspapers continued to see their sales fall year-on-year, with the smallest drop (three per cent) at the Observer. Then the COVID-19 crisis came and ad revenues crashed. More than 2,000 staff across the UK’s national and regional press have temporarily lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, Press Gazette research has found. Across the country, news publishers have been furloughing staff, cutting wages and suspending print … Continue reading The Nike reporting shows just why the press is dying