‘Top doctor’ is more a top propagandist shamefully using his part-time experience and ignoring these 12 facts to misrepresent NHS Scotland
Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA Dr Iain Thomas Robert Kennedy is a Highland GP with a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. That’ll come in handy in his local area. Kennedy is just the doctor’s trade union, the BMA, rep in Scotland. You remember when your union advertised union rep vacancies? Who applied? The best? The top? Aye right. ‘Top’ doctors, to my mind carry out cutting edge research or are, at the very least, involved in that. Alternatively, they are in charge of several doctors in … Continue reading ‘Top doctor’ is more a top propagandist shamefully using his part-time experience and ignoring these 12 facts to misrepresent NHS Scotland
The Scottish values that Reform UK cannot align with, but which produce an ‘impenetrable wall’ of support for the SNP?
Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA This was first published in Scots Independent in July 2025. A recent survey by pollster More in Common for GB News, has cast doubt on Reform UK’s prospects in Scotland and suggests an ‘impenetrable wall’ of support for the SNP. On 19 July 2025, GB News reported: Reform UK’s hopes of generating a tartan tidal wave have been handed a damning verdict as a pollster has told GB News that the party’s values do not fully resonate with Scottish voters. According to a … Continue reading The Scottish values that Reform UK cannot align with, but which produce an ‘impenetrable wall’ of support for the SNP?
Gone, in less than a day – The Labour MSP charged over indecent images and the secret of English drug gangs targeting vulnerable women
Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA Above, the BBC Scotland website at 7.30 pm, last night, on 21st August 2025 with two stories completely gone after a very short time ‘in the news.’ Less than 24 hours before, we saw the Labour MSP charged over ‘indecent images’ in top place and down at the bottom, the County Lines gangs ‘targeting vulnerable women.’ By this morning, the MSP was in second place and the gangs were as they were: Tonight, they’ve gone. Now I don’t have a file of images … Continue reading Gone, in less than a day – The Labour MSP charged over indecent images and the secret of English drug gangs targeting vulnerable women
16 000 more pass exams at 16 years of age than would have had they gone to school in England
Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA From the Guardian today: While those who achieved a grade 4 and above (pass) was 70.4%, a slight increase from 70.4% [sic] last year.1 GCSE is, of course, only undertaken in England, Wales and Northern Ireland by pupils around 16 years of age. In Scotland: Scottish National 5 certificates grade A to C are equivalent to GCSEs grade grade 4 to 9 . 2 How did Scottish pupils do in this assessment also typically taken by pupils at the end of 4th Year, at around 16 … Continue reading 16 000 more pass exams at 16 years of age than would have had they gone to school in England
As English councils sell 8 times as many houses as they build, Scotland’s councils sell none for 9 years and build nearly 8 times as many homes, per head of population
Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks again to Dottie for alerting me to this: In the Guardian today: England will sell off more than eight times as many council homes in 2025-26 as were constructed the previous year, research has found. Right to buy is depleting council housing stock more quickly than public housing can be replaced, forcing people to spend more money on private market rents and obtain less secure tenancies, a report from the thinktank Common Wealth finds. Its analysis of government data in England … Continue reading As English councils sell 8 times as many houses as they build, Scotland’s councils sell none for 9 years and build nearly 8 times as many homes, per head of population
Scottish taxpayers to pay another £100 million every year to keep an English steelworks in business as Scotland no longer produces any crude steel, just recycles old stuff, only weeks after hearing we must also contribute around £100m every year to save an English oil refinery so that it can replace a Scottish oil refinery to refine oil almost entirely from Scottish waters
Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to Dottie once more for alerting me to this. In the Guardian yesterday, the above, and: Ministers have lined up special managers to run Liberty Steel’s South Yorkshire operations if they are put into administration, according to a revelation at the high court in London. The development shows that the government is ready to step in immediately to secure the continued operations of the Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), which employs 1,450 people at the group’s operations in Rotherham and in Stocksbridge. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/20/ministers-line-up-plan-to-run-liberty-steel-south-yorkshire-plants-in-administration There’s … Continue reading Scottish taxpayers to pay another £100 million every year to keep an English steelworks in business as Scotland no longer produces any crude steel, just recycles old stuff, only weeks after hearing we must also contribute around £100m every year to save an English oil refinery so that it can replace a Scottish oil refinery to refine oil almost entirely from Scottish waters
Will Jackie Baillie suggest that West Streeting order NHS England and NHS Wales to copy NHS Scotland and get 12 hour emergency waits down to its level?
By stewartb Reporting an example of poor performance by a big, complex institution is linked to dodgy trend analysis by an agenda-driven newspaper – another mainstream news outlet in Scotland typically averse to the provision of context, perspective and comparative analysis. It achieves the objective for the British Labour Party and Unionist cause. in Scotland. It amplifies the false messaging that ‘NHS Scotland is crap’ and ‘it’s all that SNP’s fault’ towards voters in advance of the 2026 Holyrood election. After a gap of a couple of months, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has issued (August 14) a … Continue reading Will Jackie Baillie suggest that West Streeting order NHS England and NHS Wales to copy NHS Scotland and get 12 hour emergency waits down to its level?
As the US authorities tell Walmart to pull radioactive shrimp from shelves for fear of damage from long-term, low-dose exposure, why must Scottish consumers accept levels doubling the risk of child leukaemia, caused by Sellafield and banned in places like Japan?
Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA From the New York Post, yesterday and in four other major US newspapers: US regulators are warning customers not to eat or serve potentially radioactive shrimp sold at Walmart — citing possible health dangers including a higher risk of cancer. Frozen raw shrimp sold by Walmart’s private label Great Value has been recalled after US Customs and Border Protection detected Cesium-137 in the supplier’s shipping containers at ports in Los Angeles, Houston, Savannah and Miami. Cs-137 is a radioisotope that is typically … Continue reading As the US authorities tell Walmart to pull radioactive shrimp from shelves for fear of damage from long-term, low-dose exposure, why must Scottish consumers accept levels doubling the risk of child leukaemia, caused by Sellafield and banned in places like Japan?
Major study by respected Nuffield Foundation finds higher educational achievement across the board in Scotland
Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair From Comparing inequality and outcomes across post-16 education in the UK, published in the last few days: Since the formal introduction of devolution in the late 1990s, post-16 education and training (E&T)has looked increasingly different across the four nations of the UK, particularly as policyapproaches have diverged. With such differences in post-16 E&T across the UK, there are clearopportunities … Continue reading Major study by respected Nuffield Foundation finds higher educational achievement across the board in Scotland
As British Labour Party politicians persist in gaslighting Scotland, is Labour’s disturbing legacy of 26 years of devolved government in Wales fair game for examination?
Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details By stewartb “To put it bluntly, educational outcomes are a source of major concern in Wales” (Education Policy Institute, July 2025). When the BBC News website published an article headlined ‘Pass rates up for Scottish pupils in latest exam results’ on August 5, it reported (but did not headline) that there had been a reduction in the attainment gap: ‘The SQA said the attainment gap – between the level of qualifications achieved by children from the most affluent and the least affluent areas – … Continue reading As British Labour Party politicians persist in gaslighting Scotland, is Labour’s disturbing legacy of 26 years of devolved government in Wales fair game for examination?
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