According to the Herald: BORIS Johnson launched a stinging attack on Nicola Sturgeon’s Government, saying if it was up to the SNP there would not have been a single Covid-19 vaccine in Scotland. The Prime Minister is believed to have told a private virtual meeting of the 1922 Tory backbench committee that the mass roll-out of the vaccine programme was a “UK effort “ and down to the strength of the Union. It is thought his criticism of the SNP is a reference to what might have happened if Scotland were independent. So by ‘UK effort‘, does he mean the … Continue reading Israel vaccinates 11 times as many as England despite no manufacturing capacity or advantages of ‘UK effort’

On BBC Reporting Scotland, a trade union leader is once more allowed to present his own narrow views as somehow representative of a profession he has not consulted and of other health professions who have not expressed any view at all. BBC regular Lewis Morrison, above, is always available to find fault with anything the Scottish Government does. The decision to delay the second dose to maximise the vaccination rate is supported by all leading professionals but a jumped-up shop steward is platformed, unchallenged, by BBC Scotland: Doctors raise concerns that delaying the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine could … Continue reading BBC Scotland shockingly Risk vaccine compliance and lives

Regular and friend of TuS, Bob Lamont, posted this and perceptively compared it to Nick Robinson’s editing out of Alex Salmond in 2014. The data is available from the ONS but largely ignored by BBC Scotland: The trend too is easily revealed thanks to the FT: Continue reading How BBC Scotland tries to hide the Scottish Government’s life-saving competence

From another Lib Dem campaign in the Herald: Ministers have been told to do more to prevent racist bullying and introduce compulsory recording of abuse after more than 2,200 incidents were reported in schools in the last three years. A freedom of information request by the Scottish Liberal Democrats has found at least 2,251 instances of racism in schools between the 2017-18 and 2019-20 academic years. Several things strike the average brain straight-off: 2 200 over 3 years means ‘hundreds of incidents’ not thousands. Adding up statistics over years to get a bigger number is dishonest and the outcomes are … Continue reading Herald writer imagines racism iceberg at among one in a THOUSAnd of pupils

Headlined in the Herald, formerly of Glasgow, Scotland, to help you ‘through this challenging time, quality journalism‘ to help you make sense of the world you’re living near, an ‘ooh big number!‘ story mostly about England: The (sic) Government has announced that, as of 9am on Tuesday, there had been a further 60,916 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK – the highest daily total reported so far. It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 2,774,479. Reading those big numbers, I just wouldn’t know what to do with myself. The Herald brings you quotes from Yvonne Doyle, of Public … Continue reading Staying in control

I know it’s clickbait but I feel like it. From the Herald’s ‘Writer at Large’: Am I the a*****e? Forgive the asterisks, but this is a family-friendly newspaper, and even mild cussing is verboten. I doubt, though, anyone is remotely confused about what hides behind those little stars of self-censorship, but, just in case, the best I can say is that the word has two syllables, the first rhymes with ‘pass’ and the second with ‘pole’. I had to read the whole rambling thing to find out there’s nothing actually about the First Minister beyond the headline and the closing … Continue reading A******e drops his r?

From Tom Gordon in the Herald today: So in a pandemic year, with construction shut down for months, the mighty Lib Dems would have kept everything on stream. Excuse our laughter. Anyhow, leaving aside Ms Nolan’s memory of flooding damage last year, almost entirely in England, here’s what I wrote in February 2020, to give readers a bit more context: ‘UK’ FLOOD DEFENCE PLANS FAR INFERIOR TO THOSE IN SCOTLAND I know some poor folk in one Scottish village were flooded out of their homes but we never heard just how many and, other than that, all the Scottish media … Continue reading Lib Dems accuse SNP of not curing Covid-19 as quickly as they would

There have been more heart transplants in Scotland in the last year (2019-20) than in the previous year (2018-19) and, according to the Herald, ‘experts are trying to find out why.‘ There is, of course, no evidence offered for the claim in the headline and evidence for other explanations is missed. More Scots donate in the first place By December 2018, 51.7% of Scots were signed up to the Organ Donor Register but only 38% of those in England were. There has been a big increase in donors in Scotland Since 2008 in Scotland there has been an 81% increase … Continue reading Missing the bleeding (heart) obvious?

The 7 day average infection rate in England is now almost exactly THREE times higher than in Scotland. In the midst of this scandalous display of fatal incompetence, the Prime Minister was interviewed by BBC’s Andrew Marr. Though he gave Johnson a difficult time at times, he neglected to mention these damning statistics, letting the PM off the hook. Readers will remember Marr’s earlier use of selective data in an attempt to deny the success of the Scottish Government in controlling the pandemic. Yesterday, the First Minister took action to control recent increases in the infection rate despite early signs … Continue reading Infection rate in England surges to THREE times that in Scotland: Johnson defends record

Any slip by the SNP leadership and we read gleeful predictions that support is under threat. Every successive opinion poll seems to suggest unaffected, even increased, support. So, today’s poll by Deltapoll based on fieldwork on 26th-30th December, the first since the the face mask slip on the 22nd, has SNP support at 49%. Not that impressive, you may say but Deltapoll consistently find relatively low levels of SNP support compared to other pollsters. On the 28th November they had the SNP at 39% and the Tories at 31%. On the 24th October, their sample, had the SNP at 34% … Continue reading SNP ratings surge after Sturgeon’s slip