IMPORTANT: I nearly missed re-posting these comments, worthy of a wider audience than can sometimes be had, posted below another piece and after many readers have moved on. This is just what I have worried might happen since the dramatic swelling in our traffic over the last few months. I can’t keep track of everything. Just for interest, after a long time ticking over at around 2 000 views per day, we’re, for reasons unclear to ‘the management’, currently beyond 5 000 per day and apparently still climbing, with more than 9 000 last Friday alone. I’m grateful to Contrary … Continue reading The NHS privatisation Scotland must resist

Scott Britt lives with his parents, Charles and Camilla, his sister Bronwyn and brother Billy. Charles and Camilla both work and earn average wages but have a lot of debt from past excesses and from current over-spending. Both spend more on their cars, holidays, food, drink and recreational drugs than they have coming in. Bronwyn and Billy both work but their jobs are insecure and pay only the minimum wage. Scott, a university graduate, has to give all of his above-average earnings to his parents and gets only an allowance in return. Often his parents moan about his allowance and … Continue reading The Britt family and how their son Scott would be better off leaving home

Headlining a myth entirely of their own creation is classic media construction of reality. Media Studies students as young as 16 have pounced on this for their latest projects because it’s an easy one. They can run a wee focus group with their pals and see how many believe the story is true. They can probably get their granny to say it must be true because it’s on the BBC. Of course it’s not true. The whole idea comes from Nick Eardley’s essay two days ago, which I failed with an E grade. Here’s my deconstruction [meeja word] of his … Continue reading SNP Civil War III is pure fiction

I know some poor folk in one Scottish village were flooded out of their homes but we never heard just how many and, other than that, all the Scottish media had were some flooded roads and fields, while in England and Wales, thousands of homes were flooded again. In the Observer today, SIX prominent academics lined up to blame the Tory Government for its lack of action and to warn of far worse to come. Meanwhile BBC Scotland did find one woman who had to be rescued from her car but then returned to her disappointingly dry house and preferred … Continue reading ‘UK’ flood defence plans far inferior to those in Scotland

In the Observer today: ‘But the latest NHS figures show the problem is returning. December 2019 saw 148,000 delayed days across England, 15% higher than the same month a year earlier. The combined figures for the last quarter of 2019 were the highest in two years.’ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/23/bed-blocking-highest-since-2017-hospitals-nhs Meanwhile, from NHS Scotland: ‘In December 2019, the average number of beds occupied per day due to delayed discharges was 1,465. In November, the daily average was 1,497.’ The graph below, shows that the average daily number of beds occupied by delayed discharges [‘bed blocking’] has been falling for the last 5 months. https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/health-and-social-care/delayed-discharges/delayed-discharges-in-nhsscotland-monthly/ … Continue reading Bed blocking 10 times higher per head of population in NHS England than in NHS Scotland!

Ten years ago, S. aureus which can cause serious infections such as pneumonia, seemed notably absent from Scottish hospitals. Remember this? Private cleaners barred in war on [Scottish] hospital bugs https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/oct/19/mrsa-health-scotland-private-cleaners Ah but, as Lisa Summers, Reporting Scotland Down’s Health Correspondent, will tell you, that was before the SNP really got going, screwing up the NHS and making it unsafe to vote SNP. And, that was before those SNP-run hospitals let pigeons crap everywhere and caused some babies to die of unrelated conditions but ‘after’ they got a fungal infection which might have been a minor contributory factor. However, TuSC’s … Continue reading SNP accused of deliberately making Scotland a hostile climate for bacteria and viruses

I have no idea, really, where I’m going with this but ‘race’, in two forms admittedly, in all five of the top stories this morning, online. For a brief moment, I thought the Question Time story might be about anti-Scottish panel and audience selection procedures but, hey, I’m not that daft, for long. But, FOUR stories about free music tuition in schools!? Does the editor have a bairn or four with a flair for the recorder or for screeching the neighbours mad with their violin? Pardon me if I didn’t know how important this issue was for the body politic … Continue reading RACE!!! Is this a record? Can the editor not afford music lessons for his bairns?

Ed: I hope the headline makes some sense in the light of what seems like too useful a comment to be left ‘at the foot’. There is no functioning editorial process here. No staff and little time. From reader Graham The level at which a pass is awarded is not fixed but changes from year to year. In fact “pass level” is an almost fictitious entity. Many years ago I marked Standard Grade English. At the Examiners’ Meeting it was explained that the pass mark was modified each year to take account of externalities: ie the different cohort, the different … Continue reading Why exam pass rates tell you next to nothing about the competence of politicians, SNP or otherwise

Reader bigjon999 has drawn our attention to a Guardian report yesterday suggesting a real crisis in access to GPs in England and Wales: ‘More than one in three patients has to wait at least a week to see a GP, and one in seven cannot get an appointment for between two and four weeks. Research suggests that general practice is at “breaking point” as rising demand forces 34% of people to wait a week or more for a consultation. A survey of 4,022 adults in England, Wales and Scotland, who form a cross-section of the population, found that 17% get an appointment … Continue reading In NHS England 83% wait longer than TWO WEEKS to see a GP while in Scotland 92.5% wait only TWO DAYS!

This survey has some pretty obvious limitations to its validity but, nevertheless, does offer some evidence that just over 5% of the followers of TuSC have switched to Yes from having been No voters or undecided in 2014, not necessarily because of TuSC. A 5% swing would, of course be enough to reverse the 52 to 48 loss in 2014 to a narrow win of the kind we’ve seen in recent polls. In sharp contrast, only 0.4% seem to have swung from Yes to No or undecided. On Twitter, TuSC has 3 888 followers and the post today, trying to … Continue reading Preaching to the converted? Is Talking-up Scotland helping to persuade some former No-voters and undecideds to change?