It’s all about choices. The editor and the senior reporters at Pacific Quay know what to do, what to choose. Sensing the scavenger breath of the Scottish Tories on their necks and knowing how best to get on, in this state broadcaster, they don’t even consider these two key facts which the public has a right to know: Yesterday, NHS England did 20% fewer vaccinations than Scotland. NHS Scotland is behind England because it has now vaccinated 98% of care home residents. We still don’t have reliable data from NHS England. Already, deaths in English care homes are surging to … Continue reading Reporting Scotland in full propaganda mode on vaccine roll-out

From Wallace Lockhart, setting us up for the FM Briefing at 2.15 pm today: When we look at comparisons with UK neighbours, it does appear there is a slight gap growing between Scotland and other nations. He then went on to use the overall figures, for all over-16s, to reveal us to be behind. Clearly he didn’t know or didn’t want to know about the last 24 hours. From the UK Government website, the number of vaccinations done in the last 24 hours: For the umpteenth time, England has ten times the population so, if they were going as fast … Continue reading LATEST: NHS England does 20% fewer jags than Scotland in last 24 hours!

I don’t, I’m sure, need to remind you of the current SNP media pile-on using supposed failures to roll-out vaccinations as quickly as the supplies become available. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve read of thousands of doses unused after being allocated. Sometimes, from alternative media sources, we discover that ‘allocated’ supplies might still be in a warehouse in England or still on the road somewhere. Going by the headlines, you’d think all was going smoothly elsewhere in the UK, so this New Statesman report, four days ago, is intriguing: Data released inadvertently suggests millions of vials of vaccine … Continue reading UK Vaccine Shambles as 10 MILLION doses languish in warehouses

The headline is a clear lie. This was a survey of pupils’ feelings, not of the actual results of their time in school, in terms progression to further educational or career opportunities. I appreciate that the researchers did not write the headline but they were no doubt keen for the publicity and approached the Herald with the bad news they knew they’d like. There’s no account of the research methods in the Herald report but it’s in the University of Dundee press release minus, of course, the wording of the questions they put to 16/17 year-olds. In total, 1044 senior … Continue reading Untrue! FAIL

Here’s the thing. On the rollout to those not living in care homes, Scotland is behind England. Why? As readers know, we followed the JCVI advice and spent much of our energy getting the difficult task of vaccinating the most vulnerable done. It’s 98% done. It will never be 100% done. Some residents cannot be done for health reasons. NHS England has sent another letter offering to get it done by the 15th February. They’re not done. Based on their record so far, they won’t be done then either. When Scotland was putting in the effort to save lives in … Continue reading BREAKING: Scotland IS falling behind England

Care homes in England got a letter yesterday offering to vaccinate their residents and staff. The Telegraph seemed a bit confused as to what a vaccine rollout might look like, but they were just helping the UK Government out with that wording. The timing of the letter was no accident. On the 26th of January, NHS England had just failed to vaccinate all care home residents and staff by the 24th, as per their lettered promise on the 13th: On the 26th, HSJ reported that they’d missed the target, presumably had to put Hancock off bragging about it and set … Continue reading Their Offer is as good as their word ie a worthless afterthought

By stewartb Wee yes but not too wee! Certainly not poor! And clearly not stupid – but more importantly, having the agency to use its good sense. It’s the story of Norway. It’s the long term legacy of North Sea oil. This is prompted by an e-mail alert from the data synthesiser, Statista. It has just published (29 January) an account of the world’s major sovereign wealth funds. It tells us about Norway’s. We learn that the Norwegian Government Pension Fund (NGPF) is (still) the largest of any sovereign wealth fund in the world. According to data from the SWF … Continue reading Hard to forget? But harder to be reminded of! Norway and North Sea oil.

After watching the First Minister quietly pointing out that an offer of a vaccine by 15th February is not the same as a needle in your arm last week, Wallace Lockhart returned looking a bit sheepish. Remember he had said earlier and twice that England had done care homes and a higher proportion of the over 80s. Crunching his reverse gear badly he tried this line: This all gets quite technical… Comparing getting a letter offering you a jag at some time in the future and actually having felt a wee prick in the arms last week seems quite an … Continue reading Just embarrassing twaddle on care home vaccinations

Alex Thomson of Channel 4 News today: The facts are that in many areas, Scotland does lag behind other areas in the UK in terms of vaccine rollout. Just tell us candidly and frankly, what mistakes and short-comings have you noted thus far with this. On every other issue, Channel 4 News tends to be better than the others but on Scotland they have a problem it seems. Did Thomson not hear the previous explanations? Does he still think English care homes have been done and not just lettered? In a perverse way, I suppose, he is correct. Scotland does … Continue reading Channel 4 no more?

Today we hear from David Wallace Lockhart: It’s good news when it comes to care homes both in Scotland and England. It appears that everyone, more or less in a care, has been given or at least offered their first jag. What, it could be slightly problematic and Nicola Sturgeon could face questions on today is the fact that England seem to have done that AND a higher proportion of over-80s as well in the community. and then prompted by suggestions of opposition party concerns: It appeared that on some measures, the English system was moving proportionally quite faster (sic). … Continue reading England has not DONE the care homes: The clearest of lies to undermine your ain folk