I post the above with some reservations but it looks, as of today, 27th December 2021, that the 7 day average in Wales, N Ireland and Scotland has fallen while in England, it soars. BBC News tonight painted a very different picture with Scotland headlined as Covid capital again and, from Savid Javid, Health Secretary for England: …the new year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbcone Continue reading If you were Savid Javid, what would you do?

Headlining on BBC Scotland: Christmas Day saw 8,252 cases. Boxing Day registered 11,030 confirmed cases and Monday’s daily total was 10,562. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59802261 Wow! I wonder what the news for BBC UK is? There it is. In the UK, Scotland’s Covid cases! The headline story with analysis by Nick Sniggle makes no mention of infection rates in England over the last three days. Wonder why? Wait, bottom left, see it, the latest UK data? Ah, 2 days ago. The latest they have, for last week, is 122 186, still higher, pro rata, than Scotland’s record high of 11 030. Continue reading UK shocked to hear of record Covid level…..in Scotland

I’ve had the booster jab now so if you see me in the street, do feel free to get up close, pat me on the back perhaps or tell me which of my columns is your personal favourite. After all the months of distancing, the social interaction will do me good. We could also talk, maybe, about something specific that happened at my booster jab, something I wasn’t expecting. On the whole, it all went pretty smoothly – the vaccines were being done by a mixture of local staff and soldiers brought up from England – and I was in … Continue reading My personal favourite? Really, you think that might happen?

165 000 working days over two and a half years? Why two and a half years, Jamie? It’s to make the number bigger for a headline, Professor Robertson. We had a class on that. Notice anything else, Jamie? Aye, nae percentages. Why is that a problem? It’s so they can claim something is a big problem without having to prove it is. I mean, even if it’s thousands but it’s less than 1%, it’s not a big problem. We had a class on that too. Anything else? Aye, the data are from a Freedom of Information by the Lib Dems. … Continue reading 15 year-old Modern Studies pupil has fit of giggles at Herald report on police absences

From stewartb [In response to the evidence that 70 days over 8 years is around 0.003% of all time spent by ambulance staff] Is that big, small, something else?’ It seems that Scotland’s opposition parties and their media allies simply will not give an answer to such a question. Their reason for omitting context and perspective? It harder and harder not to conclude that the motivation is partisan politics – anti- SG/anti-SNP/anti-independence – rather than a genuine attempt to highlight problems within public services in order to find feasible solutions. Providing context – as done in the above TuS blog … Continue reading Scots far, far, less likely to make hoax ambulance calls?

No rest for the wicked eh? I’m guessing ACH fed the Herald this one months ago and Scotland’s best known ambulance chaser, the man who heroically saved his own child with a Heimlich Maneuver just in time for the evening news, pops up, out-creepying even Uncle Anas, to tell the SNP to tell folk not to call an ambulance for a prank. Yes, I suppose if you think there’s mileage in blaming Nicola for every damn thing that happens in Scotland, this story is no worse than many other fed to us by Anas, Dougie or Alex. Today we read: … Continue reading Ambulance Chasing Hamilton never sleeps as shocking 0.003% is wasted on hoax calls!

BBC UK and England have nothing to say about their record infection rate today. Only BBC Scotland headlines the figure. Here are today’s data: Divide today’s cases by the population of each nation and you get: Wales 218 cases per 100K England 188 per 100K N Ireland 175 per 100K Scotland 129 per 100K Continue reading Scotland surges to lowest rate in UK today

From BBC Tees yesterday: A care watchdog has begun a review into hospital deaths involving two children on Teesside. The North Tees and Hartlepool Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust reported the deaths as serious incidents and carried out its own investigation, the Local Democracy Reporting Service has learnt. A review is now being carried out by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). No details of the circumstances surrounding the deaths, or whether they are connected have been released. The most recent CQC report on the trust – which operates hospitals in Stockton and Hartlepool, rated it as being “good” overall. It is now conducting … Continue reading An English Labour MP does not politicise child deaths in hospital

Has David Bols had a sleepover at Sarwar Mansions? He’s on a roll with stories based on limited and laughable feeds from Scottish Labour today. Yes, they’re going to go on schools! Really: SNP ministers have been accused of putting planning schools upgrade projects in jeopardy after it was revealed the next wave of funding may not be available for another 12 months. Labour have claimed the hold-ups show “our do-nothing Education Secretary doing nothing”. https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19806324.snp-ministers-putting-school-building-projects-jeopardy-funding-delays/ This is like shooting fish in a barrel: From the Scottish Government statistics section in September 2021: The proportion of schools reported as being in good … Continue reading Anas, patron saint of private schools, attacks SNP Government on building schools

NICOLA Sturgeon will consider opening public buildings this winter to help rough sleepers receive support amid concern over many people being forced onto the streets this Christmas. The First Minister was pressed by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar over the number of rough sleepers in Scotland and thousands of families staying in temporary accommodation for an average of a year. https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19805852.nicola-sturgeon-pressure-bring-forward-real-action-end-homelessness/ Sarwar, as you know, is a millionaire and shareholder in a food-production company, run by his mum, which does not pay the living wage, forcing employees to rely on top-up benefits and, ironically, food banks. The Herald report by David Balls … Continue reading Anas, patron saint of shareholders, attacks SNP on homelessness