After a day of intermittent glitches, the Herald, champion of complete fibs about Scotland, seems down and out. The paper version may still be on the streets, after being tossed away angrily by another of its shrinking readers. This was inevitable. All that deceit, all that cynicism, all that fiction, could only rot the soul. Maybe something good will come of this. If the Herald survives at all, it will need to clean up its act before any of us let it back in our living rooms. Continue reading Scots celebrate as Herald newspaper’s Colonialvirus infection forces it into isolation

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation: Until recently, a combination of social housing, Housing Benefit and the homelessness safety net has provided protection against poverty. However, on current trends, there is a real danger that the housing system will create poverty and deprivation. https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/housing-poverty-roundup-full.pdf The table above shows the level of house building including social housing, in Scotland since 2008. The contrast with England, 10 times the population, is stark: Overall, house building is at a lower level with 27 houses built for every 1 000 people in England and 35 built in Scotland but it is in the social … Continue reading 8% of the population but 15% of the social housing

I can’t access this story and get instead: I suppose it is an improvement on what you often get from Helen McArdle but it leaves me with only the headline and the miserable photograph of the Health Secretary to work on. Luckily, we need no more to know where it’s going. NHS Scotland has insufficient beds for the forthcoming epidemic and the Health Secretary is responsible. I don’t suppose they’ve mentioned this from September 2019: We note the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) have used a bed occupancy of 85% to estimate that NHS Scotland needs an additional 200 beds. … Continue reading NHS Scotland’s supply of beds far more ‘resilient’ than that in Johnson’s NHS England

Ludo Thierry Beeb website (main news page) is carrying the story about the courageous and visionary Scots drug worker Peter Krykant. This major story is FINALLY appearing on the beeb Scotland site (thanks only to The Victoria Derbyshire programme team). Incompetence? Editorial decision? – Anyway you care to look at it beeb Scotland doesn’t come out of this well. Link and snippet below: (I understand Victoria Derbyshire is being dumped by the beeb soon – following up too many stories with genuine public interest angles perhaps?): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51859518 A former drug worker has said he is launching a mobile “fix room”, … Continue reading Visonary Scots drug worker on BBC but not BBC Scotland

We saw yesterday largely tabloid anger when the Scottish First Minister acted while Boris Johnson appeared to dither or, as it transpired, revealed a willingness to sacrifice the elderly and the infirm for herd immunity and the freedom to get on with investing in the economy, unconstrained by any need to shut down any part of it. Yesterday, James Kelly pointed to the perhaps unique failure of Westminster to follow World Health Organisation advice and, worse, to lie to the people about what the WHO is advising: This is something that a lot of people haven’t woken up to yet.  … Continue reading Coronavirus reaction one more sign of a different more caring worldview in Scotland?

Headlining the Herald this morning: ‘Doctors are being put at risk by a lack of protective gear, a GP leader [Facebook Admin] has said. Andy Mcintosh, the chair of the GP Survival Scotland forum, which has around 650 members across Scotland [really 612 Facebook friends after 5 years], said ‘many’ had received no equipment so far. Those who had had usually only been sent a single box of 50 masks which would last only “two or three days”, said Dr Mcintosh.’ Speech marks around ‘at risk’ do not let the writer ‘off the hook.’ Readers will take this as a literal statement. … Continue reading Herald’s irresponsible and unreliable journalism as Coronavirus worries grow based on Facebook ‘chatroom’

Again passed to us by our Glasgow Health Fanatic, B McGowan: 3,100 more people smoke-free in Greater Glasgow and Clyde thanks to ‘Quit Your Way’ More than 3,100 people in Greater Glasgow and Clyde successfully quit smoking with help from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s Quit Your Way services last year. Since records began in 2010, ISD statistics show that more than 36,360 people within Greater Glasgow and Clyde have quit smoking in the past 10 years. Smoking remains the biggest single preventable cause of ill-health and premature death in Scotland. Tobacco use accounts for almost one in four of all deaths … Continue reading Nearly 40 000 Glasgow smokers quit after 10 years of SNP Government

Using the BBC Reporting Scotland editorial guidelines on the use of single sources, we are in a position to suggest that all is well right across the country based on one example. Readers will remember that one or two cases of mortality not due to staff errors have been used to condemn whole hospitals and to enable opposition politicians to call for heads to roll. Clearly the same must go for good news. See this passed on by our Glasgow Health Correspondent, Brian: Dialysis patient sings praises of Vale team A dialysis patient from Alexandria who was born with just … Continue reading NHS Scotland kidney dialysis service praised

Ludo Thierry Johnson has a deserved reputation as a teller of untruths. Even those most dedicated to avoiding any passing relationship with the truth must occasionally stumble and reveal some genuine information. So it was with Johnson when he, memorably, alerted the voting public to his stated policy position of “..F— business..”. Sadly, the voting public south of the border forgot to remember this stated policy when they came to cast their votes in December. As (currently) part of the Ukanian union Scottish business is as likely to be dragged through the Johnsonian mire as the, apparently, willing business voters … Continue reading First sign of consequences of Johnson’s two fingers to business?

Once more, BBC UK let their Scottish colleagues down by showing ‘Sturgeon’, as she’s known to them, too much respect. Today we heard: ‘The Scottish (emphasis) Government has indicated it wants to go further than Westminster at the moment…Just in the last hour or so, Nicola Sturgeon (respect?) at First Minister’s Questions said it was inappropriate to continue as normal and the point she was making is that if you have these large public gatherings requiring the emergency service like police and ambulance to be there on standby. It’s taking them away at times of intense pressure elsewhere. So that’s … Continue reading SNP leader offers to help Tory leader get on with his day job