From the Guardian yesterday: Hundreds of extremely vulnerable children at risk of being recruited by criminal gangs are being thrown out of schools in county lines hotspots. Exclusion is widely regarded by child protection experts as a trigger point for criminal exploitation as pupils removed from classrooms lose the structure of the school day and the oversight of teachers. Some are left unsupervised at home and others are sent to pupil referral units, where gangs often recruit. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/29/hundreds-of-children-thrown-out-of-school-in-english-county-lines-hotspots There were 578,280 temporary exclusions (suspensions) up from 352,454 the previous year and 6,495 permanent exclusions from Schools in England in 2021/2022: … Continue reading School exclusions in England more than seven times more frequent, as County Lines gangs target them and before they terrorise Scottish towns and cities

From Wales online on 6 August 2023: The Welsh Government are refusing to disclose vital information into how they handled Covid 19. In the early months of the pandemic the Welsh Government were desperate to get as many people out of hospitals and into care homes as possible in order to free up capacity. Then health minister Vaughan Gething initially refused to test anyone who had no symptoms for Covid, a decision which likely seeded the virus into the part of Welsh society which was most vulnerable. A WalesOnline investigation proved that policy makers were made aware of the risks posed by asymptomatic transmission … Continue reading Scottish Labour demand a Covid inquiry but Welsh Labour won’t have one and won’t even co-operate with the UK ‘gold standard’ one

As the SNP Government in Scotland increases the transformative Child Payment and higher pay rates for carers than elsewhere in the UK, there’s a taste of what Labour will do in government from this in Wales: Children could slide deeper into poverty if Wales’ councils suffer more cuts, a charity has warned. Councils expect a combined shortfall of £394.8m over the next two years, leaving services at risk. One youth club said securing long-term funding would be a challenge and feared the effects on the young. As data showed 34% of Wales’ children are impoverished, the Welsh government said ending poverty was an … Continue reading Rutherglen Alert – The massive council cuts UK Labour will bring you

Actually, it’s probably not just the second brainless headline in a row but I’m not prepared to look any further back than yesterday’s claim that dropping S4 exams would lead to an increase in school violence, from an unattributed failed Lib Dem candidate. Today, it’s Douglas Ross, possessor of a diploma in unpleasant farming practices, telling us the minimum unit pricing policy (MUP) has failed and that the 2% increase in alcohol deaths is proof of that. We know for certain that the increase trend in alcohol deaths is largely a consequence of patterns of behaviour triggered by the pandemic … Continue reading Scotsman makes it a double with second brainless headline in a row

I know, tabloid writers have to find the bad news. Good news is no news, I’ve heard some say, but you deserve better – a reality construction that might make you want to go with hope in your heart. So the Herald view is that Scotland’s drink problems have ‘overtaken’ our drug problems on a death spiral to the bottom and just stay at home for the rest of the year. You don’t want to go out. There are corpses everywhere. What might you want to think instead? Well drug deaths are down 2 Alcohol deaths are up 2% (statistically … Continue reading Drug deaths (0.019% of the population) plummet 21% below alcohol deaths (0.023%) which are down 11% on Labour era!

BBC Scotland continues with another of its selective readings of the latest statistics to suggest a worsening situation in Scotland. We’ve had alcohol deaths ‘the highest since 2008‘, carefully avoiding the 2006 figures, the last year of Labour rule, when they were far higher then than today and are actually plateauing after a pandemic spike. Also, we’ve had ferry cancellations supposedly spiralling over 5 years but ignoring the 20% fall in the most recent year, to give 97.2% reliability. Now we have: Child homelessness in Scotland hits new record high. In total, there were 29,652 open homelessness cases in March, … Continue reading Homelessness applications were almost twice as high under Labour/Lib Dems in 2006

From the Scottish Government today: The families of more than 316,000 under-16s were benefitting from Scottish Child Payment by the end of June this year, according to the latest official statistics. New figures published today show the payment of £25 per week, which is unique in the UK, was reaching 316,190 – an increase of more than 13,000 compared to 31 March 2023. The Scottish Fiscal Commission had forecast that the average take-up in 2023/24 would be 309,000. The total amount going direct to lower income families is now more than £350 million since the payment was launched in February … Continue reading More than 3 million children in England could be lifted out of poverty by Scottish Child Payment but Labour do not support it

There were 1 417 alcohol deaths in 2006 in the last year of the Labour/Lib Dem Scottish Government, up dramatically from only 1 144 in 2000. At the end of the first year of the SNP administration in 2007 the figure had fallen to 1 282 and by 2018 had fallen to 1 020. The pandemic years saw a steep increase in cases across the UK, to 1 245 cases in Scotland in 2021. Today BBC Scotland is headlining: Alcohol deaths rise to highest level in 14 years carefully choosing the 2008 figure and not the last year of Labour’s … Continue reading Alcohol deaths were 11% higher under Labour but are now plateauing after pandemic spike

Only in the National today: A SENIOR Scottish Labour councillor has been arrested and charged in relation to alleged child grooming offences. Anas Sarwar’s party has suspended David Graham, a senior figure on Fife Council who sat on the cabinet, while the police probe is ongoing. Graham, 41, is a councillor for Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss villages and Fife’s representative at Cosla. He is also appointed as a non-executive director on the board of NHS Fife. https://www.thenational.scot/news/23751829.scottish-labour-councillor-arrested-amid-child-grooming-allegations/ The story is nowhere on BBC Scotland or on any of the national newspaper front pages. Even though the date for the Rutherglen and Hamilton … Continue reading Scottish Labour councillor grooms children in run up to a by-election – BBC Scotland apply purdah rules and hide it

It’s the GMB, the last fully solid SNP-hating trade union (they like building nuclear weapons), headlined in the Herald again, on behalf of Scottish Labour. It’s excrement of the male bovine once more. The actual facts: There are 11 water boards in England, so on average slightly smaller in terms of population served but much much smaller geographically than Scottish Water. Scottish Water has maintained 90% of water courses at ‘good or better’ condition. England’s water boards have only managed 10%: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/08/13/englands-water-nine-times-more-likely-to-contain-sewage/ The Herald is telling us indignantly that the Scottish Water chief is getting a £50K bonus and earned £300K … Continue reading Labour spouses union accuses Scottish Water of paying CE just over a quarter of England’s water bosses’ average