I should be able to relax but I still get mad when the men above, and others, lie about the performance of the Scottish Government. My anger derives from a fear that some listeners or readers might believe them and be put off support for independence. I should know better. For years, I taught undergraduates about media effects. There are virtually none. Politicians, parent groups, teachers and social workers, the police and lawyers have, throughout history, campaigned against the supposedly corrupting effects, on especially our children, of comics, heavy metal music, video nasties, punk music, TV wrestling and computer games. … Continue reading The Men without Qualities and the Media without Effect

It’s still a bit sad when one of the former quality newspapers plays along with the same attempt to dupe the people. In the Guardian today: England and Wales have said they have met the government’s target of offering a coronavirus vaccine to the top four priority groups by 15 February amid growing warnings that the supply of vaccines would be cut for the next fortnight. Achieving the milestone means that vaccinators have been told they can now invite people aged 65 to 69 in both nations to come forward, with Scotland expected shortly to follow suit. What sort of fools … Continue reading More FAKE NEWS on offering to hit targets based on posting letters

Posted by the BBC on Friday 12th of February, the authors answer their own question with this graph: So, for readers on the 12th of February, the data up to the 7th February are used. It shows, of course, England and its regions ahead of the three devolved nations. Readers are no doubt well aware by now that these are the data for the period during which these three nations followed the JCVI advice fully and concentrated on the care homes while NHS England did only some of those, in parallel with mass vaccination of the walking over 70s and … Continue reading Talking us down to shield the UK Government’s failures

By stewartb The House of Commons Library (HoCL) has just published a briefing paper entitled ‘Police Service Strength’ (Briefing Paper SN-00634). It provides a comparison of police numbers in the four nations of the UK, including the change in numbers that have occurred over time. Below are highlights from the report. The first graph (above) is the police officer strength (in thousands of Full Time Equivalents) between 2006 and 2020 in England & Wales. It reveals a period of relative stability in the total up to c. 2009 followed by a very marked fall during Tory dominance in Westminster. The … Continue reading Don’t let Tories anywhere near power in Holyrood – a lesson from police service staffing in England & Wales

Today Jeanne Freeman rejected claims Scottish Government officials spent days plotting how to spin a report into hospital patients being discharged to care homes. She said the comments from the Scottish Conservatives were “absolute nonsense”.  The comments came from Donald Cameron, above, and included these astonishingly tribal and stupid claims: Cameron seems unaware of his leader’s thoughts on this. In his Covid-19 Winter Plan updated on 2nd December, Conservative PM Boris Johnson made it clear that hospital patients who have tested positive can be discharged into English care homes and that staff moving between sites were the carriers of the … Continue reading Scottish Conservatives contradict the PM and accuse ‘all’ researchers of spinning care home deaths

According to the Herald today: The UK Government has contradicted Health Secretary Jeane Freeman’s prediction that vaccine supplies will “dip” in the coming weeks, forcing a slowdown of the vaccination programme. Ms Freeman said yesterday that the rollout would have to be scaled back in the next two weeks because of problems affecting supplies to the UK.  Then we read this: Backing up Freeman, BBC Wales had this to say: The number of vaccines supplied to Wales is expected to fall in the next few weeks, affecting some of the country’s vaccination centres. Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board says it is pausing vaccinations … Continue reading Why is only England NOT facing vaccine shortages?

Yeh, yeh, but read on: Wales will be the first UK nation to have offered the top four priority groups a Covid jab, the Welsh Government has said. Within hours, officials say, all over 70s including care home residents, will have been offered a first dose. Where have we seen this before? Their offer is no better than their word. Continue reading Welsh Labour sneak into a fake lead with an offer, just an offer of a jag

Has Mark Drakeford, Labour First Minister of Wales, forgotten what happened when they tried to to come out too quickly from their ‘firebreak’ in November? They were quickly condemned then: http://www.deeside.com/wales-came-out-of-firebreak-too-quickly-and-is-now-slamming-the-brakes-on-says-michael-gove/ Gove said: It looks, with the benefit of hindsight, as though immediately after their two-week lockdown they lifted restrictions too expansively. As a result of doing that, the virus once more got out of control, they’ve had to slam the brakes on again.” That’s one of the reasons why we’re exiting the lockdown cautiously across the country (England). We are taking a cautious approach (in England) because the example … Continue reading Welsh Labour takes risks again for votes

Vaccination slowdown is BBC Scotland’s preferred take as Scotland passes 1 million dose given, a record 63 178 today, 99.9% of care home residents and 97% of over 80s. BBC UK mentions only the Scottish slowdown. BBC England and Northern Ireland have nothing to say on the issue. Only BBC Wales reports the same problem there. In the BBC Scotland report we read: Scotland’s health secretary, Jeane Freeman, told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme earlier on Thursday that the issue was “about the supply into the UK, it is not about distribution around the UK” and would therefore affect … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s slowdown

By stewartb Dated 10 February, the BBC News website has an article entitled: “Covid: Care staff vaccinations ‘lagging behind target’ ”. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56012869 This is the first sentence of the BBC article: “There is a worrying shortfall in the number of care staff to have had Covid vaccinations, a survey of almost 1,500 services in the UK suggests.” These findings come, according to the BBC journalist, from the National Care Forum (NCF). The NCF is described by the BBC as an organisation which “represents not-for-profit care providers across the UK but mainly in England”. The Executive Director of the NCF … Continue reading Staff vaccinations ‘shortfall’: Can we take anything at face value in BBC News reports?