From SNP Media: Ian Blackford MP has called for a public inquiry into the UK government’s ‘texts for contracts’ scandal following revelations the Prime Minister agreed in a text message to ‘fix’ a tax issue for billionaire Tory donor Sir James Dyson. Following questions from the SNP Westminster Leader, Boris Johnson agreed to publish all personal exchanges on ‘covid contracts’. The messages have come to light amid an ongoing row over lobbying in Westminster with widespread concern about informal contacts and lobbying between government and business after revelations the former Prime Minister David Cameron sent texts to the chancellor … Continue reading CALL FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO TORY ‘TEXTS FOR CONTRACTS’ SCANDAL 

There’s much more in the full BBC report, that you won’t hear: and: I can’t rule out deliberate anti-independence bias in the Pacific Quay staff. Continue reading ‘Care homes that received discharges might actually have seen slightly lower rates of outbreaks’ Robert Cuffe BBC Head of Statistics

Daily Record columnist, Annie Brown, provides Monica Lennon and Scottish Labour with yet another set of misinterpreted evidence which they can use to return to their long-disproved thesis that the Scottish Government is responsible for the care home deaths. It’s a new low in journalism, biased from the outset and ironically ‘cherry picking’ of evidence. First, she writes: In the first wave of the pandemic, more than 1,300 elderly people were discharged from hospitals to care homes in Scotland before a testing regime was in place. The government said a Public Health Scotland report “did not find statistical evidence that … Continue reading ‘A fag paper away from euthanasia’: Lennon and Daily Record side with the corporations responsible for mass care home deaths

Headline story five or six time before 9am, perhaps a further three times on Reporting Scotland full broadcasts and, I guess, given big licks on Good Morning Scotland, as we approach an election with the SNP apparently undented by anything the MSM can throw at them. The BBC Scotland website has resisted the temptation – younger staff and audience more savvy on tabloid propaganda? The Herald and the Scotsman so far sticking with political matters. This is the editorial decision-making typical of the Sun or the Daily Mail but controlling the output of a public service broadcaster – just muck. … Continue reading Reporting Scotland naming the not-guilty while they can

Following the old tradition of Labour leaders having to be reminded by a grinning First Minister that neither the SNP nor they can do something because they wanted that to be the case in1998, Jackie Baillie writes to her hoped-for voters to promise something she can’t: OTT, that’s a very egotistical signature suggesting someone who puts their own interests above and before any collectivist ideology. Continue reading Scottish Labour’s tradition of forgetting what’s reserved to Westminster

Moving on from his previous campaigns to open the economy early, against the tide of scientific advice but using instead the views of individuals with with a vested interest in doing so, his latest takes the opportunity to join the playground chants suggesting that the SNP has failed to narrow the gap on attainment before comparing state and private responses based on one teacher working in the state sector while sending her children to a private school. First, on attainment, Cook relies on one source: The SNP says progress has been made but a report last month from public spending … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s James Cook’s research methods fail us all again

From SNP Media today: Following reports that the Labour party went as far as looking at moving borders to undermine support for Scottish independence, the SNP has said this shows neither the Tories nor the Labour party has ever had Scotland’s best interests at heart – and they never will. The Times revealed today that the Callaghan government plotted to move maritime borders to bring North Sea oil into “English waters” as part of a “clandestine publicity and propaganda” unit to counter the SNP – amid growing concern over the likelihood of an independent Scotland. The shadowy attempts to undermine … Continue reading Labour plotted to take Scotland’s North Sea oil

Mark Drakeford told BBC Radio 4’s Today on 8 April 2021: “I’ve always believed that if a party won an election in Wales with a referendum on independence in its manifesto then it would’ve won the right to hold such a referendum.”  Meanwhile in Scotland: From SNP Media today: The SNP today challenges Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to explain why he refuses to respect Scottish democracy while his Welsh counterpart supports his country’s democratic right to choose independence. Welsh Labour leader and current First Minister Drakeford has said his party would support holding a referendum if pro-independence Plaid Cymru … Continue reading One rule for Wales, a different one for Scotland

Regulars here will have read more than once that Scotland has 50% more nurses per head of population than England. https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-19-00620/ The Scottish Tory leader would not or could not say where £600 million of ‘efficiencies’ would be made to enable his proposed pay rises. From SNP Media today: The SNP has challenged Douglas Ross to “come clean” on which NHS Scotland frontline services would face the chop under Tory plans for £600million of cuts. Yesterday, the Scottish Tory leader admitted his party would make £600million of “efficiencies” cuts from “other parts of the NHS” to fund his manifesto commitments, … Continue reading Tory efficiencies equivalent to 15 000 fewer nurses in Scotland

I watched Channel 4’s special report from India. It was misleading, because India is experiencing far lower levels of infection and death than the UK did in January or over the whole pandemic: Cases are climbing fast in India but per head of population, the level remains far lower than in the UK or England in January 2021. Over the space of the year, the accumulated level of infection is even more notably lower: Deaths, even more so, are currently, not significantly higher at 0.1 per 100K in India and 0.04 per 100K in the UK. Over the space of … Continue reading UK Covid death rate 8 times higher than India