From BBC London today: A men’s prison in south-west London has been deemed “unsafe and inhumane”, a watchdog report has warned. HMP Wandsworth has seen “no real progress” in the past year and reflects “the failures of the prison system as a whole”, its Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) said. The report was written before the alleged escape of Daniel Khalife from the prison. A Prison Service spokesperson said it had taken “decisive action” to address the “serious issues” raised. The report does mention ‘the government’ but only to defend them, in this: A spokesperson for HM Prison Service said it had … Continue reading Only Scottish prison safety can be politicised by the opposition parties

From BBC Scotland today: Three patients who had a colonoscopy died after a doctor failed to carry out appropriate follow-up care, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has revealed. They were among six patients harmed between 2020 and 2022 when they did not receive suitable care following the procedure. The male consultant responsible was suspended but resigned before disciplinary proceedings started. The health board has apologised and contacted all affected patients. but then concluded with: Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “This is deeply concerning and it is shocking to think that there have been colonoscopy patients in Glasgow missing … Continue reading BBC promoting Labour though still the third party in Scotland

In the Herald, under Tom Gordon’s drivel today a comment that I think I am free to share here: by Gerard Gerard Because of different publication schedules, there is a delay before a direct comparison of A&E waiting times performance for the latest month can be made for the NHS across the UK. Direct comparisons for the month of June, 2023 can now be made: the focus is on England, Scotland and Wales. Rather than rely on own analysis and interpretation of raw official data, fully referenced extracts from statements published by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM: see … Continue reading Thousands waiting longer in A&E in England and Wales

Two days ago, former National and Sunday Herald editor, Richard Walker, took unfair advantage of his connections to present himself as the candidate for Central Ayrshire, at the imminent General Election. Only at the very bottom of the report, do we see: Walker will battle against two other SNP candidates – activists Scott McFarlane and Annie McIndoe have also put themselves forward for nomination. https://www.thenational.scot/news/23841877.national-founding-editor-richard-walker-seeks-central-ayrshire-s/ Left out entirely is the fourth candidate, Julie Dettbarn and, significantly, the frankly greater credibility of the other candidates. Dettbarn is an experienced South Ayrshire councillor with particular experience in Community Justice. McFarlane is an … Continue reading Unfair campaigning for Central Ayrshire SNP candidacy

By the Rev Alasdair Galloway: Stephen Noon enjoys a somewhat legendary status in the SNP. Previously a policy adviser to Alex Salmond, then strategist for the 2014 campaign and credited for much of its positive development, including the 2015 virtual wipeout, he left to become Director of the London Jesuit Centre for seven years. Now he is part of the Public Affairs team for Weber Shandwick in Scotland, as well as a Research Associate at the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow. This Sunday (8/10) he was interviewed by Martin Geissler on BBC’s “The Sunday Shown and … Continue reading Noon, Troughers, go for it, and the future

When I saw the above, I didn’t at first recognise the above SNP potential candidate for Central Ayrshire to replace the retiring ‘Mighty’ Philippa Whitford. I was shocked, on two counts. First, last time I saw him, he looked like this: A bit of harmless reinvention going on there but second and more concerning is a risk to the candidate selection process designed to ensure credible, authentic, as opposed to celebrity, candidates. Needless to say, the National article does not mention this from only 8 years ago: Less well-known was Walker’s refusal to even mention my research in 2014 which … Continue reading SNP candidates need to be genuine

From the NZ Herald yesterday: The on-time performance and reliability of Interislander’s ferries have improved in the past financial year but still fall short of KiwiRail targets. The improvement comes after what was described as a “horror run” in the previous financial year that was by far the worst for Interislander services in recent times. KiwiRail has published the ferries’ latest performance results in its 2023 annual report. On-time performance has improved to 83 per cent of ferries arriving within 15 minutes of their scheduled time. This is a 10 per cent increase compared to the previous year, although still short of the … Continue reading CalMac operating between 14% and 30% more reliably than ‘horror run’ in affluent New Zealand

The Daily Mail’s unconvincing Scottish edition has been making much of how quickly a Turkish shipyard can build ferries while making little of the deaths in their yards, the massive subsidies and considering how reliable they will be longer-term. We can already see that the cheap Pentland Ferries boats, built in Vietnam, are breaking down only a few years after coming in to service. TuS regular Bob Lamont has perceptively noted: Well they would hardly go with “Oi Rishi! How did Turkey manage to build and begin operating 628 miles of double track high speed rail in less time than … Continue reading Oi Rishi! How did impoverished Turkey build 628 miles of high speed rail before you could build less than half of that and plan 6 200 miles by the end of this year?