By Alasdair Galloway, the thinking man’s Galloway on Iain Macwhirter, the thinking man’s…..em, er….Glenn Campbell: How easy it is to earn a nice wedge for doing not very much. This https://www.heraldscotland.com/…/19119385.scottish…/ will take you to Iain McWhirter tells us what will happen in the event Johnson says No. he works through the usual stuff – not “a generation”, not the right time etc, though he does have the decency to accept that this argument is thin. Perhaps more importantly, he makes the observation that Johnson doesn’t want to go down in history as the 21st century version of Lord North … Continue reading Short changing journalists

Well, wrong and wrong again? First the pollster, Survation always go low. When Ipsos MORI, Savanta and Panelbase were getting over 50% against 40 to 43% for No, they always had Yes 44% to 47% and the lead was 2% to 7% at best. Their sampling will be different, skewing their results toward NO. Second that sinking feeling, remember this? Support for independence had been climbing steadily since mid-2017 before climbing more steeply since the beginning of 2020. The reasons are uncertain and no doubt complex beyond the wit of the Express but initially demographic change with young Yes supporters … Continue reading That floating feeling as Survation go low again

Professor John Robertson, forced out of his job, after the Referendum, by sleep apnoea which he blames on the stress resulting from BBC Scotland’s attempts to have him punished by his employer the University of the West of Scotland (his wife blames his becoming a fat bastard) has been shocked by the latest findings from Ipsos MORI and has revised his opinion of the importance of BBC bias against independence to ‘diddly squat.’ 1 031 Scots were asked: Looking ahead to the Scottish Parliamentary election, which, if any, issues do you think will be very important to you in helping … Continue reading BBC bias is now ineffective says shocked Prof

Brains Taylor, on a free transfer to the Herald, writes as he spoke, with affected ostentatious flatulence. He opens with: SOME conversations stand out. It may be a significant disclosure – or a remark which subsequently acquires importance. It may be a single, startling phrase, recollected in tranquillity. To be frank, most chats are not of that nature. Rather, they are ephemeral, transient. All week, however, one past conversation has come, unbidden, to my mind. This dialogue took place after Alex Salmond was charged with a range of sexual offences, but before he was cleared in court. Before, indeed, his trial … Continue reading Vicious, visceral? Yes, but is it visible?

The headline is accurate. I did it more than 5 000 times for my lovely paralysed retriever, who lived 5 years in wheels. Now when I see the word ‘express’ I think of that. When I see the above, I think buckets of it. Here’s what Salmond actually said: Some people say that the failure of these institutions, the blurring of the boundaries between party, government and prosecution service mean that Scotland is in danger of becoming a failed state. I disagree. The Scottish civil servant hasn’t failed. It’s leadership has failed. The Crown Office hasn’t failed. It’s leadership has failed. … Continue reading When you take the piss out of a paralysed dog it’s called expressing the bladder

I’m grateful to https://twitter.com/PWMartin_Leith for some of these these reminders. In November 2020, she told BBC 1: Also in November 2020 she platformed one barber to tell us that the Scottish Government’s pandemic strategy was ‘Rubbish!’ and undermine compliance: In June 2020, she clearly enjoyed this one: In February 2020, she lied: In July 2019, on drug treatment and the blanket refusal to allow safe injection spaces, she told us that, ‘of course it’s VERY convenient for the Scottish Government to argue that they’re being hampered by Westminster.’ In January 2018 she knew fine what she was doing: There’s more … Continue reading Surely Sarah Smith has broken some code of conduct and should resign too

In Ipsos MORI’s poll for 15th to 21st February 2021, 1 031 respondents were asked: Looking ahead to the Scottish Parliamentary election, which, if any, issues do you think will be very important to you in helping you decide which party to vote for? Two issues fascinating the media and activists on social media, ‘LGBT rights / equality / GRA (LGR)’ and ‘Alex Salmond enquiry (ASE)’, appear to be of very little interest to potential voters. Only 7 out of 1 031 or less than 0.7% selected LGR and only 5, or less than half of 1%, selected ASE. The … Continue reading Poll suggests gender recognition and Salmond enquiry having little impact but constitution matters most

I’ve just watched open-mouthed as BBC Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall said: An argument that was effectively being made by the former First Minister, Alex Salmond, the architect of the modern day SNP, someone who’d done more than anybody else to make Scottish Nationalism mainstream over the last two decades, effectively saying that as a result of this scandal, as a result of the political leadership that Scotland currently has, in his view, seemed to be intimating that Scotland wasn’t really ready for independence. Here’s what Salmond said: Some people say that the failure of these institutions, the blurring of the boundaries … Continue reading Salmond did not imply ‘Scotland wasn’t really ready for independence’

NHS England have been keeping ever so quiet on the level of hospital-acquired Covid infections but the Guardian today revealed them to have been typically around 25% of the total admitted. That’s a shocking rate. Why? Well, for one thing the rate in NHS Scotland in the same period has been dramatically lower. In December 2020, for example, the rate in Scotland was 1.9% definite cases and 0.9% probable cases, at worst 2.8% and thus only just above one-tenth of the rate in England. https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/hospital-onset-covid-19-cases-in-scotland/30-december-2020/ Continue reading In December you were 10 TIMES more likely to catch Covid in an English hospital

I’m standing in for BBC Scotland’s Lisa Summers to report another fall in the level of hospital-onset cases of Covid infection to only 2.6% definite and 1.3% probable. Lisa has promised to be right there for me if the number goes up again. The two researchers in England who have promised to update their figures for 2020, when the rate was up to 25% in English hospitals, have not replied to my recent emails. Readers who point out that the falling number of cases simply reflects falling numbers in wards, may have something there but if that didn’t explain Lisa’s … Continue reading Hospital-acquired Covid falls for second week