More than 70% of Scots have now had their first jag and more than 50% have had the second one. Scotland also continues to close the gap with Wales and we can anticipate major media celebration when we have vaccinated more than the non-Scottish parts of the UK: BBC Scotland don’t like to brag. Continue reading More than 70% of Scots vaccinated

Desperate to concoct a crisis, the above headline has no basis. Here are the latest published data on the number of NHS staff reporting as absent due to Covid-19: So doubling? Doubling from when? Absences have doubled since week ending 11th May but remain at less than half the peak in January. What percentage are we looking at here? There are 167 000 in total, so we’re at about 1.4%. There are around 61 000 nursing and midwifery staff, so we’re at about 2% absent. Will we cope? Continue reading Scotsman’s double-think

I won’t take long on this one. Scotland’s national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch told the BBC the JCVI was trialling whether GPs could give boosters to older people attending flu vaccine appointments. However, Dr David Shackles, who jointly chairs RCGP Scotland, said general practice had been expressing serious concerns about the “already stretched workforce” for some time. He said: “General practice is already working beyond full capacity and GPs have had unprecedented demand for appointments due to backlog. General practice is already working beyond full capacity? OMG, there must be a crisis elsewhere in the UK because: Unless something … Continue reading Not stepping up

George Galloway takes 8 264 votes. Think about that. Another 324 votes and he would have handed the Batley and Spen seat to the Tories, Unionists like him. In what can only be an attempt to shield the rightist Starmer, whose more statist agenda suits the BBC better than the mad Tories who think they are leftist and who plan to weaken them, the BBC’s Nick Eardley says: There had been an expectation actually, that after the Hartlepool by-election, where Labour lost a massive majority to the Conservatives, that Labour were in trouble. Many people were predicting that the Conservatives … Continue reading Galloway comes within an inch of pushing Starmer under bus and BBC say this?

The SNP has criticised the UK government for its “arrogant” approach to securing new trade deals post-Brexit following a report from the U.S. International Trade Commission which found U.S. trade deals have only had a “small, positive effect” on America’s economic growth, which has put off any prospect of a U.K.-U.S. free trade agreement for several years.  The UK Tory government has often touted a U.S. trade deal as a way of offsetting the devastation caused to exporters by Brexit. The news comes following the UK government’s trade agreement with Australia which could leave thousands of Scottish farmers undercut on price and … Continue reading UK-US free trade agreement now unlikely

More bias by selection as BBC Scotland focus on a fall in the number contacted within 24 hours as numbers surge despite the World Health Organisation target referring to hitting 80% within 72 hours. Why? Because we are still completing 86% on time. As always with these reports, only those who read on, for 30 paragraphs this time, find this: While Covid patients are waiting longer to be interviewed and fewer cases are being dealt with swiftly, the system’s overall performance is still within the targets set for it by the government. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says the aim is … Continue reading Scotland’s contact tracing system still smashing WHO target

Just as he did in 2015 when, in the Guardian, Walker proudly told us that the National would feel able to criticise the SNP and put imaginary journalistic principles ahead of independence, before of course joining the party in pursuit of a late career, he misrepresents what the BBC in Scotland is and what it can never be. Within its walls in Pacific Quay, there is a strong live culture of opposition to anything that might aid the cause of independence and a willingness to employ the lowest of journalistic standards to do so. It cannot just be reformed and … Continue reading Non sense

From the BBC press office: The BBC announced, at a meeting with Silver Voices yesterday, that their enforcement amnesty for those over 75s who had previously received a free licence would end on 31 July. Letters will be sent out shortly to 260,000 households stating that their licences will be “cancelled” on 31 July. Further details of the meeting are included in our press release below, which was covered extensively in the press this morning and prompted a number of radio and TV interviews. Further advice will be sent out as developments occur, but there is absolutely no need to panic if … Continue reading ‘Smug’ BBC executives to threaten over-75s who have not paid £157 licence fee

BBC Reporting Scotland have headlined the above claim, taking time to push home the message before having to admit, for fear of later ridicule, that it’s ridiculous. 16 paragraphs down and only at the end of Lisa Summer’s TV report do we get the facts that demolish their own opening statements. On the website but also as the basis for Summer’s admission, we read in an analysis by Nick Triggle: There has been a lot of talk about the mixing prompted by watching football being a cause of spread of the virus in Scotland. It is an easy target given … Continue reading BBC statistician: ‘Hardly an explanation for Scotland’s big rise in cases’