By stewartb The latest statistics (for November) on A&E waiting times in England have now been published. A summary is provided at the end of this post alongside NHS Scotland’s latest figures for comparison. However the prime purpose of writing is not just to reproduce statistics but to share some more insights into how NHS England designs its performance metrics differently from the NHS in other parts of the UK. A&E waiting time measures – England style Misleading reporting by the BBC of A&E waiting times performance across the UK has been raised numerous times here on TuS. I’d like … Continue reading A&E waiting times across the UK – will the BBC ever properly inform?

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is up out of his seat again shouting and pointing at the FM on an issue, carers pay, where the SNP Government is already doing better than Labour would. Readers may remember Sarwar on low pay in 2017: MILLIONAIRE Scottish Labour leadership contender Anas Sarwar is under pressure over jobs which were advertised at his family’s firm for less than the “real” living wage. Recruits were offered £7.50 an hour last month for a 45-hour week at the hugely-profitable United Wholesale (Scotland) Ltd, in which Sarwar has a multi-million pound stake. The low wage is less than … Continue reading Carers pay: Millionaire shareholder in poverty wages firm blinds MSPs with his brass neck

They’re all over this. On the one hand the SNP is punishing you with tax increases and on the other, offering care workers a measly 48% pay rise. No thinking joined up there, ever. There is no actual figure to justify the ‘biggest rise in a generation claim.’ What local party will try that knowing they’re out on their necks if they do? ‘Freedom to raise bills as much as they want?’ They want to stay in power. After 14 years of freezing and limiting council tax increases, to control the free-for-all that Labour permitted for their pals in the … Continue reading SNP leaves Labour in the dust as it fights poverty with progressive taxation

‘overwhelmingly negative across all areas of the UK economy’    By stewartb The think-tank ‘UK in a Changing Europe’ jointly with Ipsos MORI recently (2 December) published a report entitled: ‘What do MPs think? – expectations, issues and identities’. It presents the findings of a ‘representative survey’ of the views of MPs conducted by telephone interview between June and August 2021. Its intended purpose is to set out ‘where the House of Commons stands on key public policy issues for the country and its expectations for the future’. We learn in the introduction to the report that: ‘Our analysis is focused … Continue reading Labour MPs’ thinking on the Brexit deal:

Mostly well-paid state employees headline the demands for state support by groups largely peopled with folk who pride themselves on their entrepreneurial spirit until the going gets tough and, like the banks, in 2008 feel entitled to benefits. I don’t doubt times are hard, relatively, and some will have to ‘take jobs’ but things are far harder, as Forbes knows, for the poor, who face soaring heating and food costs on frozen benefits. The figures suggest, also, that some entrepreneurs can be a bit entrepreneurial with the facts. To repeat a response to the corporate Herald, three days ago: Insolvencies … Continue reading Capitalists call for socialism

From the Stand-in Sources in the Westminster members bar have been overheard by covert TuS bar staff there suggesting that former MP for Aberdeen South, Ross Thomson, is to be forgiven for his bromance with that handsome young Labour MP’s south, and brought to Holyrood to lead the group there properly, ie never doubting the PM, ever, unlike that cheeky wee farmboy. Thomson is of course Johnson’s former leadership campaign member and known to be very, too close to him: Continue reading Johnson to act on leadership of Scottish Cons?

From The Stand-in No surprise, Kaye ‘not particularly Covid-anxious‘ Adams, first gets two angry callers to criticise the Tory Xmas parties. She responds only with hums. Then a third one admits he broke the rules a bit, leading her to wonder, on that basis alone, if maybe this all just a ‘a charade.’ Something done just for show? By the opposition parties? Hum. He goes on to suggest faux rage in all those who make a fuss here. He and his circle seem to have broken the rules here and there and so, he presumes that is somehow typical. He … Continue reading How many Boris supporters would you expect on a radio call-in show for party animals today?

From the Stand-in: In another of his deeply cringy reports on life in Scotland, Macwhirter goes full gammon on progressive developments by that SNP Government he so hates despite being an independence supporter, allegedly. In an astonishingly outdated, unresearched, grumpy old guy rant, we read: This is in the Herald. Remember the Herald? Look at the language – bores prattle on, blah blah, your average Renton, Begbie or Sick Boy? Bores prattle on? That last bit in the above extract? Material for Frankie Boyle? It’s not even a new idea. Did Macwhirter get it here, in the Scottish Sunday Express? … Continue reading Why do you stay here Iain?

You know those Christmas parties everyone is talking about? BBC Scotland does have a lot on the idea, down the bottom there, but not a word on the ones everyone is talking about. I guess the folk at Pacific Quay haven’t seen Johnson adviser, Allegra Stratton, laughing about the No 10 party or Rees Mogg and party goers haw-hawing about the rules we were all expected to follow, predicting confidently that the Met would not be bursting into the Institute of Economic Affairs party as they were at weddings around the same time: BBC UK now has two reports on these … Continue reading BBC Scotland shielding even uninvited colleagues of Tory Xmas party-goers