As Tory-run NHS England produces the worst A&E figures in history, the costliest building delays and the most dangerous places to be born, the Scottish Tories might do better to be quiet. Here’s why: Boris Johnson’s abundant failure in government as his NHS England A&E waiting time figures for December plummet to new depths below 70%! Scotland’s A&E departments treat 85% in less than 4 hours over Christmas and beat even the faked figures for NHS England in November Health Secretary photographed as NHS Scotland Cancer Treatment 95% target is met You are MORE THAN TWICE as likely to spend more than 12 … Continue reading Why Jeanne Freeman should be the last Health Secretary to go

On Thursday 23rd January 2020, in Holyrood, James Kelly (Glasgow) (Scottish Labour) asked the Scottish Government what its response is to recently reported alcohol-related brain damage statistics, which suggest that the number of people with this condition is at a 10-year high. The answer: Last year, ‎2018-19 shows a drop in the number of patients with ARBD, a decline of 3% from the previous year The actual data: 2017/18                810 2018/19                785 Click to access WA20200123.pdf Kelly has previous on arithmetical confusion. In 2016: “Of the cases that come to court, over half of them fail. So even if you … Continue reading SHOCK: James Kelly’s sums don’t add up again

McCardle writes: ‘MAKING the right decisions on medical treatments depends on sound, unbiased scientific evidence on whether drugs work.It is interesting then, that in the past week two separate papers – in respected journals, the Lancet and BMJ – have highlighted shortfalls blighting the reliability of clinical trials and studies.’ She’s correct that, no news though, we can’t trust big pharma. It’s just a bit ironic, comical even, that she should be the one to criticise bias and conflict of interest given the agenda transparent in her writing and the regular misuse of evidence to produce reports critical of the … Continue reading On the day before Burns Night, Herald’s ‘lousy’ Health Correspondent DOES NOT possess the power to see hersel as ithers see her!

Retired Sun writer, Naz T Bustard, has attacked the non-existent plan to include the boxes in aid-packages for Australia. According to Bustard: ‘Koala piss will pass right through these shoddy boxes and they’ll be no use at all if your baby is on fire.’ 116,141 Baby Boxes have been issued from the roll-out of Scotland’s Baby Boxes on 15 August 2017 up until 11 December 2019.The indicative current take-up rate is 96%. https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-201900009779/ Continue reading SNP Baby Boxes not suitable for Australia says expert

It is there down at the bottom with a less-than dramatic headline but containing this: ‘At least seven preventable baby deaths may have occurred at the trust since 2016, a BBC investigation found.’ Here’s how the Independent saw it: Though the Independent report has more disturbing facts, neither think to mention the Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock. There is certainly no picture of him. 130 brain-damaged new-borns on the watch of Tory ministers and BBC UK, even the at times mildly leftist Independent see no need to politicise the story, confining themselves to those who actually manage the hospitals. … Continue reading Should Reporting Scotland make an official complaint to BBC UK on their failure to politicise 130 brain-damaged babies?

Story idea: David Nicol In a disturbing piece on Channel 4 News last night, we heard: Untreated sewage is being released into rivers across England and Wales – perfectly legally – and campaigners are calling it a ‘dirty little secret’. This programme has now obtained exclusive figures showing how often and for how long it’s happening. Water companies are allowed to release a mixture of rainwater and sewage through special overflow pipes during spells of heavy rain – but we’ve discovered that during 2018 – there were 140,000 spills, lasting a total of 900,000 hours. https://www.channel4.com/news/900000-hours-of-human-sewage-and-rainwater-flow-into-uk-rivers-every-year-revealed The disaster of water … Continue reading Channel 4 exposes the filthy cost of England’s privatised water as Scottish Water stays clean and trusted

Thanks to a Freedom of Information request and response we can reveal consistently high and steadily increasing positive destination figures for Scottish school leavers over the last 5 year Year       Positive               HE          FE           Training               Employment 2014       91.7%                    38.2%    24.3%    2.5%                      25.5% 2015       92%                        36.8%    23.4%    2.7%                      27.8% 2016       91.4%                    37.3%    22.4%    1.7%                      28.7% 2017       92.9%                    38.3%    23%        1.7%                      28.3% 2018      93.2%                   39%        22.7%    1.7%                      28.3% https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-201900010285/ Continue reading Very Encouraging Scottish secondary school leaver statistics

Ludo Thierry: On the 31st Jan Scotland loses the services of 3 excellent YES/REMAIN supporting MEPs (there are also 3 ukanian types who shuffle off) due to Brexit. Interestingly, Scotland may yet acquire a NEW MEP based here. I discovered today that the wonderful Prof. Clara Ponsati (St. Andrews Uni) is due to be appointed as an ‘extra’ MEP for Catalonia due to the redistribution of MEP numbers to the remaining EU states following the exit of ukanian MEPs. (Spain is due a further 5 MEPs – one of whom should be going to the Catalonia list (where Prof. Ponsati … Continue reading Hope for Scotland’s favourite Catalan?

Ludo Thierry: Couldn’t help but be mightily amused by Fraser of Allander’s beautifully dry demolition job on Jackson Carlaw’s Scottish sub-branch manager campaign around ‘taxation’. ‘Union’ Jacko has come up with a taxation policy to close the income tax ‘gap’ between Scotland and Ukania for those earning between £27,000 and £45,000. Only thing is – it ain’t possible to do this without reducing Scottish revenue receipts by a whopping £270M. FoA trace through Carlaw’s pathetic gibberings and conclude that he must be planning to raise the income tax rate for earners in the Higher Rate band to 42p in the … Continue reading Failed businessman’s daft taxation plan

At Holyrood yesterday Graham Simpson MSP (SCAUP) asked for an update on the performance of local authority building verfication services. The response showed and improvement in the percentage of projects approved within 10 days of compliant details from 72.73% in Q3 2017/18 to 84.78% in Q2 of 2019/20. This dramatic improvement must have been particularly welcome to builders and to their clients. Click to access WA20200122.pdf I suspect the process will be even faster in England given their less rigorous demands and consequent flooded or burning housing. Continue reading New building approvals more than 16% faster!