By stewartb NHS A&E waiting times performance is a recurring topic here on TuS.  We know that the weekly releases of data for meeting the 4-hour standard in Scotland is also common feature of BBC Scotland’s news coverage – well at least it is when the latest release records a decrease in performance, however small.  Improvements in overall performance or exemplary performance by individual hospitals or health boards aren’t newsworthy it seems. The waiting times performance of A&E in Scotland includes two sets of statistics, one just for ‘Main’ emergency departments (reported weekly) and the other for ‘All’ emergency departments … Continue reading BBC reporting of A&E statistics: Failure to understand or deliberate misrepresentation?

Raw sewage, microplastics and slurry are coursing through all of England’s rivers, putting health and nature at risk, a parliamentary report concludes. Agriculture and water companies are the biggest contributors to this “chemical cocktail”, the Environmental Audit Committee warns. Car tyre particles, oils and wet wipes are also clogging waterways. People across the country using rivers for activities ranging from sports and swimming to fishing risk falling ill from bacteria in sewage and slurry. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59955624 There’s only one comment about Scotland in the report: Scottish Water is publicly-owned and directly accountable to Scottish ministers. https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8460/documents/85659/default/ Will that have mattered we … Continue reading Every single river in England too dirty to even paddle in!

By Alasdair Galloway John’s recent publication of an SNP Media piece (https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2022/01/11/electricity-transmission-charges-england-subsidised-scotland-to-pay-465m/) focuses rightly on the charging regime imposed by National Grid on generating plants to carry their electricity. The SNP claim that Scotland is paying £465 million a year to put electricity on the grid, but England and Wales get a £30 million subsidy. The reason for this is that a plant in the North of Scotland (Peterhead for instance) would pay £7.36 MWh while one in the south (Torness) would pay £4.70. In England and Wales the (average?) charge is but £0.49p and certainly there are some areas … Continue reading When will the lights go out?

By Alasdair Galloway This morning Tom Gordon in the Herald performs his one trick pony trick of talking about the First Minister. I think he might be a bit annoyed, for he suggests that she is in danger of “making a fool of herself”, and that after all is Tom’s job. I might have written a letter about it, but I have had far too many letters critical of Uncle Tom hit the spike to be bothered, so I wrote this instead hoping that John would not take the same view as Drew Allan. You can find the article here … Continue reading Uncle Tom drops a bomb

‘Case rates lowest in unvaccinated?’ We know that many do not read beyond headlines, so that line matters. The article does go on to explain with the help of Prof Kao at Edinburgh University: So, this does not mean vaccines don’t work but the headline implies that. Irresponsible. Continue reading Herald’s irresponsible headline encourages vaccine deniers

All of the MSM coverage has sided with the academics given the task of making recommendations to the Scottish Government on how to reduce drug deaths. Yet, the same media, fed by opposition parties, have accused the ‘the SNP Government’ regularly of failure to act, of betraying drug-users. The taskforce was set up in July (not September as BBC Scotland say) 2019. Millions have been allocated to fund the task force with, no doubt, Stirling University charging ‘full costs’ for Prof Matheson. I note that Matheson is also a ‘freelance Research Consultant.’ So, only P/T at Stirling? Matheson has 30 … Continue reading Drug deaths crisis: Well-funded but dithering task force lets SNP Government down

By cuckooshoe  The number of new cases in Scotland has fallen again “Today, 7,606 new cases were reported, which is a decrease from yesterdays figure of 10,392. We are currently averaging 10,833 new cases per day, which is a decrease from this time last week, when we were averaging 16,220.” http://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker/ UK data, announced today, show a large increase in the number of deaths over the last seven days. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ Deaths within 28 days of positive test Daily – 398Last 7 days – 1,724 There has been an increase of 529 (+44.3%) compared to the previous 7 days England has … Continue reading BBC ignores Conservative Government sacrificing thousands of lives

You may have noticed that the MSM are quiet on any suggestions that the SNP measures are making no difference, now that their errors have been pointed out. That difference of 1% between Scotland and England can seem small if you don’t think about it. If you do think about it, 2 per 100 000 in England means 600 per week, 300 of whom might not have died in Scotland. In Scotland, the 1 per 100 000 means 54 per week instead of 108 had they been subject to conditions in England. Continue reading 54 lives saved every week by SNP pandemic measures

By stewartb The letter writer in ‘Stop sweating the small stuff and keep our eyes on the prize‘, refers to the cost to the UK government of Covid-19 and then links this with how much better off Scotland must be as part of the Union. As well as the important counter to this based on how public finances work, there is also a complementary, strategic health investment perspective. The health think tank, the Nuffield Trust last November contributes to this other perspective in an article headed: ‘Health spending during Covid-19: how does the UK compare?’. It examines how health spending … Continue reading Countries that spent a larger share of their economic wealth on health over time had more stable levels of funding in 2020

By stewartb Reader ArtyHetty writes in response to ‘Stop sweating the small stuff and keep our eyes on the prize’.. ‘last time the ‘YES’ movement were often cornered by questions ..’ Thinking about this reminds me of the revealing book – ‘Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate’ by George Lakoff. What follows are extracts from blog posts written by Lakoff in 2018, firstly from one entitled ‘A Modest Proposal: #ProtectTheTruth’ (See: georgelakoff.com/blog/ ) The blog is written in the context of US politics and Trumpian/Republican Party campaigning but seems to have wider relevance: Lakoff’s … Continue reading Next time, the Yes campaign needs to know its values and frame the debate