Honorary Professor Jim Scott’s unsolicited (?) report to the Scottish Parliament does NOT demonstrate a significant impact of any kind on pupils. Indeed, in a telling section (p14) he reads a two-year decline (0.8%) from 2010, in the percentage of pupils leaving with no qualifications followed by another two-year increase (0.6%) by 2014 back to almost the same level (2.1%) it had been before the decline as evidence that Curriculum for Excellence changes were somehow responsible. Any statistics pupil knows that a two-year change does not a meaningful trend make. Any social science graduate knows that education is affected by … Continue reading The National and a Dundee prof’s dodgy statistics feed the Unionist press, Boris rants and that AngusTory MP on QT last night

‘Police move to protect vulnerable people being exploited by drug gangs in the North-East’ That’s the Reporting Scotland Down headline and the report which followed was careful not to tell us where the gangs were from other than deep into an extended report where we heard: ‘the dealers some coming from England can be particularly violent.’ That’s a remarkable statement. On their own website, in several articles with thousands of words but ‘England’ mentioned once or not at all, they do reveal way down the page: The operation is targeting the activities of predominantly English-based organised crime groups (OCGs), who … Continue reading The Big Bad Cuckoo (BBC) in Scotland’s nest squeezes out the news that we’re not better together with ‘criminals from English cities inflicting pain and suffering’ and that’s ‘tantamount to lying’

A question in Holyrood on Wednesday 5th November 2019 has triggered a response by expert on media effects, Professor John Robertson, late of the University of the West of Scotland: Bill Bowman (North East Scotland) (SCAUP): To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the findings in the Office for National Statistics report, Personal well-being in the UK: April 2018 to March 2019, which records 15.3% and 9.8% increases respectively in levels of anxiety over the last year among people in Angus and Dundee, and what its position is on whether the performance of NHS Tayside might have … Continue reading Massive rise in anxiety in Dundee AFTER BBC Scotland saturation coverage of NHS Tayside

In Holyrood, yesterday, Alex Cole-Hamilton expressed his heartfelt empathy for the poor, risking deselection: Having given the SNP an opportunity to remind us of what they have actually done to redress the effects of the Conservative/LibDem Alliance’s austerity programme, voted for enthusiastically, more than some Tory MP’s did, by his leader, his coat is surely on a shoogly peg when she finds out. Continue reading Scottish member of the Swinson Pro-austerity Party breaks ranks with leader

Research: Brian McGowan From NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde yesterday: Glasgow scientists have been awarded a major cash boost from Cancer Research UK to pioneer new radiotherapy technologies and techniques that could help more people survive cancer in the future. Experts from the Cancer Research UK Glasgow Centre are set to receive £3.5 million over the next five years. Glasgow has been chosen to be one of just seven centres of excellence** in a UK-wide network that will accelerate advances in radiotherapy research. Centres will also be located in Manchester, Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds and London. Cancer Research UK is investing … Continue reading New cancer treatment research centre for Glasgow

Legerwood: England and its imploding justice system. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/04/children-young-as-10-waiting-more-than-year-court-cases The article was on the front page of the on-line Guardian for most of the day and then was replaced by this grudging piece about the Scottish Parliament raising the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/04/scotland-stops-treating-under-12s-criminals While the article castigated Scotland for not doing more, as reports usually do, it fails to mention that in England the age of criminal responsibility is still 10 years old. In fairness it has to be said that there was a Bill going through HoC to raise the age of criminal responsibility to … Continue reading England and its imploding justice system.

The latest YouGov poll based on fieldwork on 5-6 November has the Tories still strong, 11 points ahead of Labour, and apparently unaffected by their apparently disastrous week: Con 36% Lab 25% DimLeb 17% Brexit 11% Click to access TheTimes_Sky_VI_191106_w.pdf With Rees-Mogg ‘misspeaking’ to reveal his contempt for the dead of Grenfell, Tory MPs laughing at poverty, lying in a rape case and with one candidate even suggesting the poor might be better ‘put down’, you might think they’d be damaged and we’d see a fall in support. The latest YouGov poll was taken in the midst of the media … Continue reading Tory-supporters don’t care what Tory politicians say because they’re nasty too?

Today, with fieldwork on 5-6 November, YouGov report: Con 22% Lab 10% DimLeb 8% SNP 47% Brexit 5% Green 8% Click to access TheTimes_Sky_VI_191106_w.pdf Following two earlier YouGov polls in the last week at 50% and 41%, this gives a confidence-inducing average of 46% which would wipe the decks leaving only one or two DimLebs clinging to the gunwales in the far north. Continue reading Three YouGov polls in a week put SNP support at average of 46% to wipe the decks

Ludo Thierry Further evidence of the success of Scottish Government and YES majority Scottish Parliament in finding ways to enable a Scottish economic climate which is fostering the development new businesses (to record HIGHS for both VAT registered and unregistered businesses). This resilience being achieved DESPITE Johnson and the Westminster Tories’ (of varied colours) best efforts to dislocate the Scottish economy with their Brexit/little England madness. news.gov.scot carrying the hugely encouraging results of the business survey from National Statistics of Scotland. Link and snippets below: https://news.gov.scot/news/business-survey-2019 Number of Scottish businesses at record high. A National Statistics Publication for Scotland. The … Continue reading Number of Scottish businesses at record high.

Ludo Thierry Remarkable resilience demonstrated in Scotland’s productivity figures released by Chief Statistician today. Scotland’s economy and workforce finding ways to counter Johnson’s Brexit carnage. Hope I’m not jumping any guns by offering link and snippets to news.gov.scot site below?: https://news.gov.scot/news/labour-productivity-up-1-3-percent-over-the-year Labour productivity up 1.3% over the year Scotland’s labour productivity has increased by 1.3% during the second quarter of 2019 compared to the same quarter in the previous year, according to statistics announced today by the Chief Statistician. Compared to the previous three months, labour productivity is estimated to have grown by 0.2% during April to June 2019. Continue reading Scotland’s labour productivity has increased