Almost a year ago, the R number was the preferred tool for the likes of Nick Robinson when he used it to cast doubt on the Scottish Government’s pandemic measures. It seems to have been dropped these days but it’s still being published. I note, today So, the R number is much lower in Scotland than in all the other non-Scottish parts of the UK. Does it matter? Yes, an R number above 1 means the virus is still spreading. The Scottish Government’s strategy and our compliance with it are working. Sarah Smith: ‘Scotland is the best!!‘ Continue reading R number HIGHER in England than Scotland

The Gillian Bowditch piece in the Times yesterday has attracted the expected response that Scotland is indeed big enough and smart enough to cope without the interference of the moral and economic cripple next door. That is, of course, true on many counts but misses the real point, that it is the UK which is the wrong size for these times. More than 10 years ago, David Goodhart Founder and Editor of Prospect magazine hit it on the nail: The nation state is too big for the local things, too small for the international things and the root of most … Continue reading The UK: Both too big and too small

In a report on falling infections, by BBC UK at 6pm, we heard with excited drama that NEW INFECTIONS ARE DOWN FOR A FIFTH CONSECUTIVE DAY and: The state broadcaster enthuses on behalf of ‘the nation’ and by implication, it’s government, after only 5 days of falling infections. Then, blow me down, the reporter tells us: Three weeks ago? Did BBC Scotland give us that good news after 5 days? No, nothing to see there, it seemed. Even as late as the 16th of July after two whole weeks of falling levels, they used instead ONS estimates based on older … Continue reading For the facts on Scotland watch BBC UK

When a friend of TuS shared the above with me, I must admit to being unaware of Mrs Bowditch. Bowditch? A less appealing version of Bo Derek? As always, I went a-googling and up popped this marvellous demolition of Bowditch, in Wings Over Scotland, August 2016: Lying right to your face It opens with: Dismayingly often, the thing that irritates us the most about the Unionist press lying to its readers isn’t the fact that they’re doing it, but the fact that they do it so insultingly badly. As an illustrative case in point, here’s the Sunday Times’ reliably dull-witted … Continue reading ‘Reliably dull AND brainless’

Two weeks now since Scotland pulled ahead of the much-praised, by BBC Wales, vaccination roll-out programme, BBC Scotland have yet to comment. Scottish Conservative Branch Manager, Douglas Ross has not yet decided what to tell Reporting Scotland’s editor, his line of attack will be but it will be either: ‘Scotland lagging behind on second vaccine rollout!’ or ‘SNP failing to take advantage of vaccine rollout to open businesses!’ Continue reading Vaccine rollout: Scotland pulls into clear lead

Just as Scotland’s little-reported plummet in Covid case levels looked like falling below that of Wales, they too have started to fall and remain, by a tiny margin, ahead of us. Ever since their catastrophic early exit from lockdown measures in November 2020, when they soared tom the top of the dirty league, Labour Wales has learned how to manage the pandemic so much better than their big neighbours. I know Labour politicians able to learn something. Who’d have thought? It also looks as if England is at last over the worst but Northern Ireland is still in trouble. What … Continue reading Covid cases: Scotland closes in on super-Wales!

The voices of hospitality workers at last? BBC Scotland in early June 2021. Before that in April we often saw this regular media guy: Stephen Montgomery, who owns the Townhead Hotel in Lockerbie and is a spokesman for the Scottish Hospitality Group, said he would “love to be opening up at the same time as our colleagues down south”. “We’re going to be seeing people jump the border… for that long awaited pint of cold beer while we still remain closed,” he told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland. “Scotland’s always been behind in the way we’ve been operating for the last year. … Continue reading Hospitality’s real victims

LATEST: Nicky Tams contract for 200 million bits of string to go Boris Chum at BAE! According to the often flatulent Torygraph yesterday: Covid could be spread through flatulence, say ministers: Source says officials have read ‘credible-looking stuff’ [stuff? data?] on the theory from other countries including Australia The widespread and often irresponsible, regardless of leg quality, wearing of short shorts in Oz triggered the first outbreak of the Farted Variant two weeks ago. The recent hot spell in the UK has enabled it to spread like wildfart, reaching a party on Ben Nevis only yesterday. Fortunately, Dr Roman Cum … Continue reading ‘Farted Covid variant can be stopped’ say researchers

The Telegraph’s sister paper, based in Auchtermuchty, has just published their own survey results in response to this yesterday: Funded by local farmer Jock McGlashan, the survey was condemned in the Auchtermuchty Gentleman, by Major rtd Jeremy ‘Jock’ Abernerthy-Wellington, originally from Husbands Bosworth, as ‘Demned impertinence!’ Local B&B owner Jinty Equus sprayed us liberally with ‘On my property, anything goes!’ We’re shocked here. Continue reading Douglas Chapman, the thinking man and woman’s Douglas

Consider why Douglas Chapman felt the need for his tweet above which, oh dear, has made some English folk feel ‘uncomfortable’, according to the Telegraph, that home of the superior form of Englishness which typically has no concept of uncomfortable. Might this example of how some English managers clearly need to be made a wee bit uncomfortable, running through his constituency, be an answer? Might this type need the reminder: Rhoda Miller@RhodaMiller14Can someone please tell Stephen Kerr (who blocked me) of the English couple in Scotland yesterday who refused to wear their masks as, and I quote “We are English. … Continue reading ‘Uncomfortable?’