Ludo Thierry Congratulations to Scottish High Court Justice, Lord Bonomy, for his prestigious appointment to a major UN Court. Story carried on Scottish Legal but haven’t noticed it carried anywhere else. Ed: I’ve checked. It’s only in three legal online sites. Nowhere in our ‘Scottish’ MSM Link and snippet below: https://www.scottishlegal.com/article/lord-bonomy-appointed-to-un-judicial-post Lord Bonomy has been appointed as the UK’s judge on the United Nation’s roster of judges of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. Lord Bonomy graduated from Glasgow University and practised as a solicitor from 1970 until 1983. In 1984, he was admitted to the Scottish bar and, … Continue reading Scottish judge appointed to UN Court of no interest to our MSM

Ludo Thierry The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to support Spain’s ‘veto’ over any Brexit agreement regarding the EU, the UK and Gibraltar. Making friends and influencing people is surely the Ukanian way. Link and snippets below: https://www.gbc.gi/news/eu-parliament-votes-support-spains-veto-gibraltar The Spanish MEP Esteban Gonzalez Pons has told the European Parliament that Spain will defend its own priorities post-Brexit including the ‘decolonisation of Gibraltar’. This comes as the European Parliament today voted to support a Resolution on the EU’s future relationship with the UK which includes Spain’s right to veto any agreement between the EU and the UK over Gibraltar. This formed … Continue reading Good omen for Scotland as European Parliament sides with Spain against UK over Gibraltar?

Ludo Thierry Further encouraging news of Scottish business confidence having been buoyed up by the stunning SNP wins (82% of Scottish Constituencies delivered) in the December election. Today it is the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Scotland who are noticing the increased business confidence since the SNP’s big win across Scotland. Link and snippet below: Sales in the Scottish housing market picked up with increased optimism in January, according to the latest official figures. A net balance of 11% of surveyors in the RICS Residential Market Survey said there were more newly agreed sales in January compared to December. This … Continue reading SNP’s big win a boost for business

From stewartb The Yahoo article above is amplifying something written in The Conversation.com/UK, an online magazine which has a tag line ‘academic rigour, journalistic flair”. Based on its headline: “Scottish National Investment Bank looks hardwired for failure – here’s why” – and now having skip-read the full paper on which the the article is based – I would suggest that ‘journalistic flair’ has won out! Source: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/business/rbf/workingpapers/RBF19_020.pdf The source paper is IMHO a bit of a ramble. It is a working document rather than a peer reviewed paper: it would benefit greatly from such a review. Not to make too much … Continue reading Scottish National Investment Bank criticism is a ‘bit of a ramble’

https://www.thecanary.co/?s=Scotland I can’t remember finding fault with anything written by the Canary, but Scotland’s own Ferret? Funded by Cooperative/Labour and often writing for the Scottish MSM, they’ll insist, no doubt, they are impartial but they’re kidding themselves and their readers. See: FFS The Ferret’s claim that Mike Russell’s claim is False is FALSE FFS! Labour and BBC-friendly Ferret feeds new salmon crisis I’m getting rid of the Ferret but keeping the Canary. It’s been biting the SNP for the Herald Continue reading Scots can trust the English-based Canary before Labour’s Ferret

On BBC 1 at 1pm today: Waiting times for A&E in England improved slightly in January. Over the course of the month 81.7% were seen within four hours. This is wrong and they’ve been up to this trick for years. Here’s the data source: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2019-20/ Only Type 1 A&E departments are full resuscitation, consultant-led and comparable with those in the rest of the UK. Type 2 and 3 are small drop-in minor injury sections in hospital with no A&E. NHS England, alone, collect the data for these and use them to generate fake data which much of our MSM just … Continue reading BBC UK still deliberately using wrong NHS England A&E data to inflate performance for January by 10% but it still falls well below NHS Scotland

Disclaimer: I’m not an economist, thank God, but I think I know what’s wrong with this stoatally wrong ‘Fact Check’ and can weaselly rebut it. Famous last words. Maybe I should ask Contrary before I post this. Ah, WTF, I’m going for it. The Ferret piece is here: https://theferret.scot/claim-scotland-pays-out-more-than-gets-back-false/ I’ve read it and it seems to rely on GERS figures, just like the Tories do. These data are almost entirely based on estimates. I know the SG now colludes in the process, but no one really knows how much revenue Scotland would have. See this from Professor Murphy who knows … Continue reading FFS The Ferret’s claim that Mike Russell’s claim is False is FALSE FFS!

In the Herald today, Murdo ‘Queen’s Eleven’ Fraser’s rubbish complaint gets the usual frontpage treatment regardless of how rubbish it is, again. As always, the Scottish Tories try to distance themselves from the brutality of their Westminster bosses, but they’re fooling no one. On the matter of rubbish, here’s a wee reminder of how Tory ministers are ‘under fire’: Council cuts due to austerity ‘twice as deep’ in England as rest of Britain, study: English local authorities have slashed services on average by 24 per cent – compared to 12 per cent in Wales and 11.5 per cent in Scotland … Continue reading Hah! Tory attacks SNP funding of recycling while other Tories slash funding in England

Just below the image, the reporter tells the truth: ‘Before the Queensferry Crossing opened in August 2017, its designers claimed it would not be closed by high winds and they have been correct. Instead, an unexpected problem has been detected with ice.’ It’s there, so does it matter? You can hear the editor: ‘We respect our readers’ intelligence! Headlines cannot be too long!’ That the bridge should never close ever at all regardless, has become a popular myth spread by headlines. Its impact is similar to the ‘Once in a lifetime’ myth. I guess, intuitively, most of us would think … Continue reading ‘The bridge that should never [sic] close’: The damage done by inaccurate headlines is all too real

Ludo Thierry Scottish Government may be purring gently but is showing its claws ever so slightly. The Westminster govt have recently announced that they are holding a UK wide conference to discuss drug abuse/misuse and have arranged it for Glasgow on Feb 27th. They deliberately played silly beggers though and didn’t include the Scottish Govt (or Welsh Govt, Irish Exec, or any other relevant authority) to participate in the organisation and agenda setting. The Westminster Home Secretary isn’t attending and the Westminster minister chairing is Kit Malthouse – his brief, clearly, being to maintain Westminster/Whitehall ‘control’ of drug policy and … Continue reading A clever case of challenging Westminster by being helpful?