Ill keep this short. It’s another Reporting Scotland-only story, not fully written up for their website because it’s just a feed directly to John Beattie or some other New Labour Luvvie in Pacific Quay. It is, of course, not news to help viewers make sense of the world they live in. Which former Labour leader thinks English-style city mayors are needed in Scotland? Gordon Brown, former PM. Which thinktank agrees with him? This one: Reform Scotland, like most right-wing, unionist, so-called think tanks is keen to project itself as somehow independent or non-partisan. Any social science student will tell you … Continue reading Mayors for Scotland Shock: Thinktank headed up by former Labour leader supports ideas of former Labour leader

In the Herald today: Jack’s MSP freund, Stephen Kerr, left, at a meeting in the Edinburgh bunker: Continue reading Scotland must free itself from the jackboot of Westminster

In the Herald, today (28 December 2022), ‘Sarwar fails to replicate Starmer’s success!’ No!! Whit!! Who’d a thunk? Well Talking Up Scotland on November 19 2022, 39 whole days earlier: I’m shocked. Kenny Farquharson hasn’t bother to look at the actual support for Scottish Labour to see if they might be replicating the Starmer surge in England. It’s so easy. In the last 5 full Scottish polls, August-October 2022, the SNP averaged 46.6% and Labour averaged 26.2%, more than a 20% lead, as the Con support collapsed. In March-April, the 5 poll averages were 44.8% and 24%, the same lead. So, a … Continue reading 1.1 ‘man’ blog beats 38 ‘man’ newspaper to punch

As someone with, last time we looked, only benign prostatis, I hesitate here, for fear of tempting fate. However, I’m going to suggest that the above Scottish Daily Excrement report may be over-stated and a bit misleading. Steady, dear reader. First, as the Times, makes clear, very year, more than 3,000 men in Scotland are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 1,000 die with the disease. That does not mean they all died because of it. About 1 man in 41 will die of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer can be a serious disease, but most men diagnosed with prostate cancer … Continue reading Dying with a cancer is not the same as because of one and waiting times in Scotland are far lower

The head [convenor] of Scotland’s doctors union says the NHS is haemorrhaging crucial staff. The BMA’s Iain Kennedy says action’s needed to keep under-pressure health service workers. ‘They’re telling me they they’re not sure if they can go on much longer.’ No doubt all day today across BBC Scotland, TV, radio and the website, we’ll be hearing the above story with not a trace of any numbers or trends in those numbers to help us decide if we can trust this trade unionist any more than say someone from the RMT or the EIS. BBC Scotland is supposed to fact-check … Continue reading ‘They’re telling me’ is not adequate evidence for the national news

From Brian Wilson, in the Herald today: THE SNP’s treatment of local government has been consistently brutal. Year after year, funding was cut in real terms, both for capital projects and service provision. Freedom to innovate and meet the needs of its own communities was steadily whittled away. https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/23213753.snps-sustained-brutal-assault-local-government/ Wilson, a minister under Tony Blair’s New Labour from 1997 to 2003, seems to have forgotten his own role in slashing local government funding. From the Guardian in 1998: The Blair government is on course to spend relatively less than any administration since that of Harold Macmillan 40 years ago, according … Continue reading How Brian Wilson’s Labour cut local government spending below that of Thatcher

For the second day running the Herald gives the Scottish Lib Dumbs a platform to show just how liberal and dumb they can be with the facts. Yesterday, like a well-past-it boxer ACH claimed they were making a come back, the facts, no recovery in the polls despite the collapse of the Cons. Today, we read, barely able to keep a straight face: SCOTLAND is facing a “sharp crisis in mental health staffing”, the Lib Dems have claimed, as new figures obtained by the party revealed more than a quarter of senior posts have not been permanently filled. Freedom of information requests … Continue reading 97% of ‘top’ psychiatric roles being carried out by somebody qualified to do it

From the Herald’s Mark Smith today showing all the hardness of a former Eastenders actor writes: SO this is it. There’s just a few hours to go before the Gender Recognition Act becomes law and there’s a crowd outside the Scottish Parliament singing and chanting and cheering and jeering and I’m right in the middle of it – the banners and placards and angry faces – wondering how we got here and what happens next. I’m worried, I have to say. https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/23212200.mark-smith-frontline-trans-war/ Was he scared one of them might shove her merkin in his face? Much as they would have loved to … Continue reading Herald’s Mark Smith does a Ross Kemp and gets out of Holyrood before a few elderly feminists ‘kick off’ and thrust their merkins at him

After a year in the cockpit of his four-seater biplane, ACH has engineered a ‘bounce back’ from their Holyrood election ‘blow.’ Evidence? As much as there has been for Sarwar’s Scottish Labour recovery: 6.9% in the May 2021, election. 7 or 8% recently as the Cons collapse but they switch to Starwar Labour. Lib Dems bypassed by disgruntled Cons finding comfort in Labour well to the right of the SNP? What a slap for the frankly creepy ACH? Continue reading Lib Dems ‘bounce back?’ They haven’t even gained from the Tory collapse

In the Scotland edition of the i today, we read that Patricia Hewitt, a former Labour (New) minister has recommended, in a review, that NHS England just abandon targets. They’ve been ignoring a few, such as hospital-onset Covid figures, and fiddling others, such as A&E waiting times, for years now, so this is a the logical conclusion to their strategy. That a former Labour (New) minister chaired the review, tells us that Labour shares the Cons’ desire to just hide the collapse of state-provided health care, and will say nothing. The BBC, not even BBC Health, and UK press (not … Continue reading England gives up on NHs targets in a media and opposition silence