The Herald says: CORONAVIRUS infections could surge to more than 100,000 per week by mid-July according to a worst-case scenario modelled by scientists for the Scottish Government. The pessimistic forecast – which was drawn up by epidemiologists before daily infections hit an all-time high of more than 3000 – also predicts that over a 1000 hospital beds could be occupied by Covid patients by the middle of next month. But, put your glasses on and read the small print under the photo. What’s that about a wide gulf? Well, truth be told, the ‘epidemiologists’ are nerds who include the full range … Continue reading That’ll be a scare story then? Taking the readers for dimwits too?

Reporting Scotland’s health correspondent, Lisa Summers, has been troubled recently but is now back with a big smile as Scotland’s infection rate climbs above that in other parts of the UK. I haven’t seen her so happy since hospital-onset infections climbed at the end of 2020: She neglected of course, then, to compare with rUK as hospital-onset infections in England were running at nearly 10 times higher. When they started to fall in February 2021, I had to take over reporting the story. She was reportedly distraught: The BBC Scotland website is currently reporting the high infection levels but not … Continue reading Reporting Scotland delighting in our cares

From SNP Media: The SNP has said “independence is the only way to unlock Scotland’s full economic potential” – as new analysis reveals the UK has been the least wealthy country per person than all of our European neighbours for every year of the 21st century. New analysis from the House of Commons Library [See Notes] shows the UK has had the lowest wealth per head of every country in north west Europe for every year of the 21st century. It means the UK is behind all thirteen neighbouring countries, including Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Iceland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria, France and … Continue reading The question is not how could we survive outside of the UK, it’s how it keeps us poor now

Not a single patient treated for virus? £7 million down the drain? More anti-SNP drivel-fodder for the opposition parties and their pet media rodents. Why did the Louisa Jordan not need to treat a single covid patient? Because the Scottish (SNP) Government moved quickly with the medics they have long respected, worked collaboratively with and can trust, to massively increase capacity in existing hospitals. Because the FM, unlike the PM, turned up every day to treat us like adults and, in so doing, got our compliance, resulting in far lower infections levels in Scotland. Because they freed-up space in hospitals … Continue reading SNP: Damned because they did

More than once, on Ayr beach, I’ve spotted disturbing cylindrical, metallic objects washed up after a storm. The local media often warn us of the dangers of what are described as chemical weapons dumped in Beaufort’s Dyke in the Irish Channel between South-West Scotland and Northern Ireland, where Boris would have us sink piles for his Union Bridge. Based on their own Freedom of Information request, they tell us: This dumping went on for decades after World War I, including periods of Labour government. What could more clearly demonstrate London’s contempt for us? Oh, well, Trident, the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing … Continue reading Great work by the Herald on our Toxic Union

They say if you ever visit a sausage-making factory, you’ll never eat one again. Is it the same with visiting a Macwhirter piece in the Herald? Should be, but sometimes the dark self-destructive side in all of us just wants some of that stodgy, greasy, fatty thinking. He will not leave that young woman alone. Now he’s waving his Weiner at her claiming, like his hero Boris, ‘Scottish nationalists find themselves on the same side as Northern Ireland Unionists.’ Notice the lower case ‘n’ and the capital ‘U’. Clever, wot? Supposedly, the Scottish nationalists (sic, he is) need to reassure … Continue reading Macwhirter’s links to Sturgeon

In Labour-run Wales, BBC Wales gets with the project. Encouraging citizens with tales of success. Back in Scotland, BBC Scotland always has a different take. In February as Scotland followed JCVI guidelines to vaccinate all of the most vulnerable and saved many lives in care homes, BBC Scotland found these stories to NOT boost the viewer: That same month, 9th February, BBC Reporting Scotland grudgingly suggested some recovery for Scotland and that we were doing roughly the same as England: Roughly? The data on the same day: They missed these opportunities to encourage that BBC Wales might have loved: In … Continue reading Come on Wales!

Once more, BBC Scotland presses the Scottish Government on minor errors by a health board but only yesterday it emerges that 600 million lateral flow tests have been issued but not used as England’s test and trace system stumbles from one crisis to another. Headline news on BBC England/UK? Nope, nowhere, as the Hancock kiss dominates and distracts from real news. Only the Guardian makes much of it: The shadow health minister Justin Madders said the report was damning. “If lateral flow tests are going to play their part in helping society reopen, ministers need to make sure results are … Continue reading BBC England ignores 600 million lost tests but BBC Scotland…..

In the National on the 23rd: TWO BBC Scotland chiefs admitted to worried staff that a plan to transfer two of its studios to the control of the corporation in England was not the “best deal” for the Scottish-based arm of the broadcaster and that they oppose it, The National can reveal. Mark Taylor and Jennifer Allan, who are both leading executives at the BBC in Glasgow, told employees they didn’t want the proposal to go ahead when asked about it at a meeting with employees. Pardon me if I don’t empathise. This is a group of media folk acting daily on … Continue reading Don’t waste that lifebelt!

For several years now, I’ve been comparing the coverage of health matters in Scotland and in other parts of the UK. From changes in cancer treatment in Tayside, to the death of a single child, ‘after’ a hospital infection in Glasgow to delays in the completion of an Edinburgh hospital, only in Scotland do we see the opposition parties exploit pain and suffering to score points over the Scottish Government. Only in BBC Scotland, unlike BBC Wales or across the BBC in England, do we see these attacks foregrounded and maintained over long periods in headlines. So yesterday, we see … Continue reading Only in Scotland: The politicising of health