SNP Council Tax freezes – Councils were over-compensated!
By stewartb Whilst on the subject of council tax, this evening [Tuesday 17 October] on BBC Radio 4 (at c. 1730hrs) we got a very partial account of the FM’s conference speech. The BBC correspondent sought to link the new commitment to freeze council tax across Scotland next year with concerns (unattributed) about a negative impact on Local Authority (LA) budgets. Last time the SNP in government froze council tax (between 1999/2000 and 2015/2016), Labour repeatedly claimed in Holyrood that the council tax freeze had been “underfunded” to the detriment of LA budgets. A rebuttal of this claim was carried … Continue reading SNP Council Tax freezes – Councils were over-compensated!
Councils have always been compensated for council tax freezes before. They and BBC Scotland know that
..to freeze council tax Not for the first time, good news from the SNP Government is quickly flipped to present a negative narrative. it’s the easiest and most effective of propaganda moves. BBC Scotland this morning lead with above and fail to mention this buried in their online report in paragraph 7: Council tax had either been either frozen or capped at 3% since the SNP came to power in 2007, with the Scottish government providing local authorities with extra funding in return. Or this in paragraph 23: Humza Yousaf did not spell out how the freeze would be funded … Continue reading Councils have always been compensated for council tax freezes before. They and BBC Scotland know that
Factcheck – Humza Yousaf’s council tax helps those in the middle of the income distribution and those at the very bottom
The Daily Record’s Paul Hutcheon claims: Humza Yousaf’s council tax gamble helps the wealthy and does nothing for the poor https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/humza-yousafs-council-tax-gamble-31210722 It’s a quick little-researched stab derived from an anti-SNP starting point. In 2020, the Institute for Fiscal Studies put a bit more intellectual elbow into and concluded that the Conservative Party’s council tax freeze, beginning in 2010, would lead to these outcomes, illustrated in the graph above: The biggest beneficiaries in proportional terms are those in the middle of the income distribution and those at the very bottom. Many poorer people gain little or not at all, because council … Continue reading Factcheck – Humza Yousaf’s council tax helps those in the middle of the income distribution and those at the very bottom
Steve Bell’s Netanyahu cartoon was not anti-semitic
I’m indebted to our Cartoon Correspondent, Ian McAnulla, for educating me on this. In 1996, US cartoonist David Levine drew the above cartoon replacing the scar from US President Lyndon B Johnson’s recent gall bladder operation with an outline of Vietnam and thus cleverly pointing to the scarring effects of the Vietnam War on his career. A few days ago, the Guardian’s Steve Bell explicitly repeated the idea with an outline of Gaza on Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu’s stomach, cleverly suggesting it would be his Vietnam. Bell is clear about his reference to Levine on the drawing, bottom left. Several … Continue reading Steve Bell’s Netanyahu cartoon was not anti-semitic
38 years young and still steaming…..ahead and on time – the ferry that will not die
Umpteen lesser ferry correspondents than me, including the Herald’s Captain Maritime Williams, have predicted the MV Hebridean Isles would not sail again just as those new ferries will never be finished. The old lady is back on duty between Kennacraig in Argyll and Glen Campbell’s Islay, 2 hours and 20 minutes each way and you can monitor her at: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:182556/zoom:8 I don’t know about you but I’m getting a warm glow deep in my lower decks when I think of her, steady amid-ship and making 14.3 knots, while the passengers get through the range of malts. Makes you winder how … Continue reading 38 years young and still steaming…..ahead and on time – the ferry that will not die
Latest – NHS Scotland has 5% more beds despite Conservative Government’s winter pledge
In the Times last night, the above. From NHS England at the end of 2022, there were 129 857 beds. From NHS Scotland for the same period, there were 13 695 beds. With only a tenth of the population, all things being equal, NHS Scotland might have been expected to have only 12 985 beds but had 13 695, 710 or 5% more. https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/bed-availability-and-occupancy/bed-data-overnight/ https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-quarterly/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-quarterly-quarter-ending-31-december-2022/data-summary/#:~:text=There%20were%20on%20average%2013%2C695,the%20percentage%20occupancy%20was%2089%25. Continue reading Latest – NHS Scotland has 5% more beds despite Conservative Government’s winter pledge
‘Cut-price doctors’ twice as common in NHS England
From the Daily Mail yesterday: PLANS to recruit an army of cut-price doctors to plug gaps in Scotland’s crisis-hit NHS have sparked safety fears. There are already almost 150 medics with only two years of training working across the health service in Scotland. Now NHS chiefs are considering expanding the roles of ‘physician associates’ to plug gaping holes in the frontline workforce. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12633761/The-cut-price-doctor-Health-chiefs-raise-safety-fears-plans-recruit-doctor-associates-two-years-training-chronic-staff-shortages-NHS.html You’ll not be surprised to hear there are more gaping holes in this story than there are in Scotland’s NHS staffing. First, Physician associates are clinical graduates trained in the medical model. They must pass an intensive 2 year … Continue reading ‘Cut-price doctors’ twice as common in NHS England
Two reasons why the gap between Scotland’s faster A&E performance and that in England & Wales may be even greater
In 2018, the above document from the UK Civil Service, attracted no media coverage at the time, to my knowledge, and only became known to me after a reader, I think, drew my attention to it. It’s stunning. Look at the text in the box at the bottom on the right for those waiting more than 12 hours. A&E patients in England who have to wait more than 12 hours had the clock restarted once they were transferred from A&E whereas in Scotland, for all who wait over 4 hours, the clock is not restarted and the time of first … Continue reading Two reasons why the gap between Scotland’s faster A&E performance and that in England & Wales may be even greater
Violent prisoners NOT to be let out early
The contrasting realities of life as the Daily Mail sees it in England and Scotland, are inadvertently exposed today. Nothing could more quickly confirm that there are no plans in Scotland to release violent prisoners early than the Daily Mail‘s failure to replicate the bad news for down south, up here. There is, of course, not a sniff of the phenomenon in Scotland. Try searching for ‘Scotland release violent prisoners early‘ and get only the same stories about England. What could explain this, given the regular stories in Scotland of over-crowded prisons, pushed into a compliant media by the opposition … Continue reading Violent prisoners NOT to be let out early
Class far less important in population of Scotland’s less-segregated schools
For those more ‘normal’ folk who, unlike me, don’t get excited when they see a scatter-graph like the one above from the IFS six days ago , let me explain. The closer clustering of the dark blue Scottish dots, each representing a local education authority, means that the range of children attending schools in that area is very like, in terms of, in particular, income, parental qualifications, job status and property value, the range of such attributes in the neighbourhood around the school. Put crudely, children from more affluent homes tend to attend the same school as those from more … Continue reading Class far less important in population of Scotland’s less-segregated schools
