Yesterday’s Opinium poll based on fieldwork on 26th March, had the astonishing 55% support for the abominable PM as its headline but, deep in its innards, we see Con support in Scotland at 34%! This sub-poll of only 104 also has Labour and Lib Dems disappearing off the chart at only 8% and 3% respectively. SNP support is at 52%. I find it hard to accept that 1 in 3 Scots are now Tories. Mind you, I live in South Ayrshire where I’d be happy with that! Surely all Scots can see the awfulness of the Westminster Conservatives and make … Continue reading Are one-third of Scots now Tories?

With fieldwork on 26th March, today’s Opinium poll puts the SNP at 52%, reinforcing the larger Panelbase poll on Sunday putting it at 51%. Notably, the respondents indicated that in June 2017, only 41% had voted SNP. Support for Labour and Lib Dems was down at 8% and 3% and Con support up at 34%. If more widely true, this suggests a continuing polarisation of political support around only the SNP and Cons. The respondents indicated that in June 2017, 20% had voted Labour and 7% Lib Dem. The larger Panelbase poll put Labour at 14% and Lib Dems at … Continue reading Second poll puts SNP support up 11% to above 50%

From stewartb: I experienced a fairly rare event today – a story on the BBC News web site about Coronavirus in Scotland that was positive, measured and offered sensible perspective. Mind you it is overwhelmed in terms of page prominence by two headlines that manage to report Cofid-19 deaths in Scotland in two different ways!! This rare article is prominent only in the Edinburgh, Fife & East page. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-52097379 Headline: “Coronavirus: Edinburgh hospital ‘calm, controlled and ready’” It reports a consultant stating: ‘there were not the “apocalyptic” scenes that people might be imagining.’ And he says it was important to … Continue reading “Many more people have died in recent weeks of heart disease, strokes, dementia and other illnesses than from Covid-19,”

As of 13.40 today, there have been 60 deaths from coronavirus up 13 from yesterday. 1 993 have tested positive up 430. BBC Scotland have broadcast and posted the above. BBC 1 have also shared it with their viewers. Neither have told you that the mortality rate in Scotland has held steady at around 3% for a week now or that the UK average mortality rate is around 6.3% and in Italy it is 11%. They did let a Glasgow anaesthetist allege repeatedly that Scotland was in danger of becoming like Italy because hand sanitisers were not well signposted. Continue reading BBC Scotland don’t tell you but thanks to NHS Scotland coronavirus mortality rate is steady at 3% and one of lowest in Europe

No mention of the 1 408 UK deaths, no NHS England figures at all nor the 6.3% UK mortality rate. No UK deaths or cases figures on the UK page but a link to Scottish deaths. The Scottish deaths TWICE for impact. That’s five days in a row where the UK and England pages do not list deaths or cases but the Scottish page does and often twice, Continue reading Day 5 and still only Scotland’s coronavirus deaths are headlined by BBC

From sam: There is a lot to be critical about the approach of UK government to covid 19. The long initial delay of months before anything was done – first, a COBRA meeting. The useless “herd immunity” stuff and flawed modelling that first did not take account of the number of fatalities that letting it rip would cause and followed that by the worse blunder of excluding from modelling the effect of mass testing, the well-known and well tried method of controlling pandemics. Then there was the failure to follow the advice in the 2011 report into policies to be … Continue reading One-size-fits-all approach covid-19 is not appropriate

There’s been some anger about the cancellation of the wee Scottish inserts into BBC Breakfast. Some have suggested that it’s to hide the NHS Scotland coronavirus performance from English viewers. Mind you, the website coverage would support that idea. However, I’ve noticed a change in me, already. I used to get all wound up at 06:27 as we heard about Scottish drug deaths, a parent claiming their child had been killed by NHS Scotland, a parent claiming their child had been killed by NHS Scotland, a parent claiming their child had been killed by NHS Scotland, a parent claiming their … Continue reading No BBC Scotland breakfast conspiracy? I’ve been feel a lot better thanks Gary

Top story in the Herald last night, the above headline followed by: Nearly one in three patients in intensive care in Scotland is now being treated for complications caused by coronavirus. The figure emerged as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon revealed that breast, cervical and bowel cancer screening is being suspended to help free up NHS staff and reduce the risk of virus exposure to patients. The headline, especially, but also the opening line too, are just wrong and potentially, panic-inducing. Patients who were admitted to intensive care units (ICU) for some other reason are not then being ‘struck down’ by the … Continue reading To be very clear, NO patient has contracted the virus AFTER admission to a Scottish hospital: Panic-inducing and misleading coronavirus report from Herald

In just wo years the Scottish Government target to increase the number of modern apprenticeship starts by those identifying as disabled or with a health condition has increased four-fold from 3.7% in 2015/16 to 14.1% in 2018/19,beating the 2012 target of 12.5%. https://www.gov.scot/publications/fairer-scotland-disabled-people-employment-action-plan-progress-report/ Continue reading Scotland beats target to increase modern apprenticeships for the disabled by TWO years

From A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People Employment Action Plan – Progress Report, released today, we can see that Scotland has the smallest gap between median pay for the disabled and non-disabled. https://www.gov.scot/publications/fairer-scotland-disabled-people-employment-action-plan-progress-report/ This is not the result of median wages for the non-disabled in Scotland being particularly low as Scotland has the highest median pay outside of the South of England and London. [Link in comments below] And, the above fits in with a wider pattern in Scotland which we can be proud of: 8% of the population yet 28% of the living -wage employers https://news.gov.scot/news/1-000th-living-wage-employer Only Scotland and … Continue reading One more difference: Scotland has lowest gap in pay between disabled and non-disabled