Monica Lennon, Willie Rennie, Murdo Fraser and assorted wee media jackals are salivating at the prospect of collateral damage to the First Minister and the SNP by taking down a hard-working civil servant. Remind me of what they said when an already-diseased Prince and his retinue of bottom-wipers were flown into Balmoral, from whichever of his umpteen homes in England, that he caught it in. When they find out that Alex Salmond once pecked her on the cheek at some do, you’ll hear the sound of growling and snapping for miles. Continue reading SNP aide’s ‘hypocrisy’ contrasted with Royal Couple’s ‘charitable work’ in Scottish Highlands.

Above from the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of health and social care in England. Above from the Care Inspectorate in Scotland. Continue reading In this month of death by coronavirus 96 care homes in England are ‘inadequate’ while NONE in Scotland are

The care inspectorate have a wide remit to inspect but found no weak or unsatisfactory institutions in 145 inspections in the last month. They inspect: https://www.careinspectorate.com/ Burlington Court in Cranhill, where there may have been a coronavirus outbreak was inspected last April and found to be ‘Adequate.’ While by no means an impressive rating, any problems with infection control procedures would have denied them that. Last year, 1 in 4 English care homes failed inspection: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/care-homes-fail-inspections-cuts-13882196 Continue reading UPDATE: Scotland’s Care Inspectorate finds NO failures among 145 inspections in last month. Burlington Court passed last year.

In the Herald last night: ‘Police in the Highlands are stepping up patrols in a town centre after receiving concerning calls about a ‘coronavirus march’.‘ You’ll be horrified to hear that HIPD say nothing of the sort. ‘Extra patrols’ are not to be found anywhere not even in their Facebook timeline with 68 comments on this: https://www.facebook.com/HighlandIslandsPoliceDivision With regard to ensuring social distancing the closest they get to that kind of proposed action is: ‘Lochaber Police will fully monitor the High Street to ensure this is complied with.’ Not quite the same thing? Does that not matter? Did the reporter, … Continue reading This is just another big fib!

I had to subtract the deaths in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales from those published for the UK as a whole because figures for England are not published by the BBC. They’ve been headlining death daily in Scotland and with linked photos of the First Minister. In sharp contrast BBC UK has used UK figures and neither have linked them with photos or Johnson or Hancock despite reports elsewhere of their responsibility for increasing deaths by inaction. *Of course, even the 641 is an acknowledged understatement, unlike the Scottish figures. We know this from the Guardian and bizarrely from a … Continue reading 641* covid-19 deaths in one day in England but please don’t mention them because they’re nobody’s fault

Only suspicion and vague ‘linking’ but clearly a story, picked up from the Sun newspaper, that BBC Scotland want to dwell upon and hammer into the collective consciousness. No evidence, no test results and so the deaths in a Scottish care home were not recorded as covid-19 deaths. Clearly disappointed, BBC Scotland reported what the NHS England director had to say on the matter: ‘It is with great sadness that deaths do unfortunately happen in the community,” Mr Powis said. “The figures we report from the NHS are the number of deaths in hospital.’ That’s ironic given what we’ve recently … Continue reading Just a rumour but one worth repeating as BBC Scotland strive for higher deaths by consulting NHS England

Though the number of deaths shows no sign of slowing, the number of new cases leading to hospitalisation seems to be flattening out. After peaking at 430 four days ago, the number has stayed below that since then. Too early to be sure but perhaps evidence that social distancing is beginning to work and something to hope for. Continue reading Is the number of new cases flattening out?

The Herald posted the story 1 hour ago. BBC Scotland got it up on their website 40 minutes later. That’s investigative journalism for you! As my previous post on the Herald piece exposes, there is nothing here, only rumour and scare-mongering. BBC Scotland claim: ‘The Care Inspectorate have said they are in contact with the local health and social care partnership after Burlington Care Home in Cranhill, Glasgow, confirmed 13 residents have died of suspected coronavirus in the past week. A spokesperson said: “We are aware of the tragic death of residents at this care home as a result of … Continue reading Hot on the heels of the Herald BBC Scotland get scare-mongering for your anxiety

In classic tabloid journalese, remniscent of Reporting Scotland’s use in the pigeon poo scandal, Elle Duffy (?) employs the ‘after’ word to construct a link between the coronavirus pandemic and deaths in one care home: ‘More than a dozen residents at a Lanarkshire care home have died after a suspected COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 13 people at the Burlington Court care home in Stepps, North Lanarkshire, have died in the past seven days. Their families have been told the deaths could possibly be linked to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. None of the patients had been tested for Covid-19 as they were not admitted … Continue reading You should really worry about your old folk now! Irresponsible scare-mongering from the Herald is no surprise ‘after’ what we see regularly

In Insider yesterday, nearly missed by us [Where/who is our Business Correspondent?] and of course missed by our MSM: It is one of the least known facts about the Scottish economy. A handful of players within two square miles in Glasgow manage a significant percentage of the world’s merchant shipping fleet. While shipbuilding and ferry contracts may have been headline news, ship management and other parts of the marine and maritime sector and the overall scale of it are very much under the radar. “People really don’t realise that the two largest ship managers in the world are based in … Continue reading Big tax revenue for an independent Scotland as ‘Two largest ship managers in the world are based in Glasgow’