Extract from press release by Scottish Government today: Scotland generated enough electricity from renewable sources last year to meet the equivalent of 90.1% of the country’s total electricity consumption. In 2019, the electricity generated from renewable sources was enough to charge almost 6.7 billion mobile phones for a year and the amount of renewable heat generated was equivalent to the gas use of every building in Glasgow. Overall, the amount of electricity, transport and heat energy produced in Scotland from renewable resources increased between 2017 and 2018 to 21.1%. What it could mean: Full report at: Continue reading 90% of Scotland’s electricity demand possible from renewables

Though we have known since the MHA survey on 3rd of June that care home agency staff were the likely cause of outbreaks, neither government has until this month even hinted at that possibility. On the 2nd December, Boris Johnson published this: In the first wave, the movement between care homes of staff who were unwitting carriers was one cause of the virus being introduced to these settings. The government is therefore introducing legislation, by the end of the year, that requires care home providers to restrict all but essential movement of staff between settings in order to reduce transmission. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-winter-plan/covid-19-winter-plan … Continue reading Scottish Government has NEVER blamed care home staff

My first complaint about the selective bias in Marr’s use of Stirling University research showing care home deaths to be significantly higher in English homes: They sent me the same general response they’d sent to everyone who had complained about the wider deaths and not the care homes – lazy, stupid, contemptuous? I complained again. Two days later, this quick email response today: Dear Prof Robertson Thank you for contacting us regarding BBC One’s ‘The Andrew Marr Show’ which was broadcast on 29 November. We were sorry to read of your disappointment with the response you received to your complaint … Continue reading Third Andrew Marr complaint on care home deaths lies

The International Council of Education Advisers (ICEA) was established in 2016 to provide advice regarding education policies and practices to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to advance equity and excellence in the Scottish education system. This is the second formal report of the ICEA relating to our second two-year term (2018-2020) of work. The link to the full report is below but these opening paragraphs might be of interest to opposition politicians and to Professor of Education Policy at Edinburgh University, Lindsay Paterson, as he prepares his next anti-SNP tirade on the BBC or in the Herald: Scottish … Continue reading International advisers praise Scotland’s education policies

When I was still in the classroom, we had a rhyme – ‘Old John Pollock had a strike, Eeee, Aye, Eee, Aye, ESSS!’ John Pollock, EIS boss back in the eighties, was the man credited with the transformation of the teacher union into Scotland’s equivalent of the NUM and getting us a decent pay deal from the Thatcher regime and their Labour ‘lodgers in power’ in Edinburgh. The kids in his school, Mainholm Academy in Ayr, like him now gone, used to chant that rhyme, a friend tells me. My friend was also belted by Pollock. He could ‘draw the … Continue reading Dirty supply teachers! They’ve tried everything now…or have they?

While one or two polls with a handsome lead for YES is good news, nothing beats a longer-term trend. 19 in a row with a lead for YES. 21 leads for YES, two ties and two 1% leads for NO, in almost a year, since the beginning of 2020. And, perhaps most encouraging of all, an average lead of 8.5% in the last 10 up from 4.5% in the previous 10. The trends are good and we’ve haven’t started campaigning yet. I know, they’ll play dirty, again, but the electorate is so much more WOKE this time. Best of all, … Continue reading Average YES lead in last 10 polls is 8.5%, up from 4.5%, in previous 10

Today we hear that the Care Inspectorate wants to shut a care home because of their concerns about the safety of the residents. This is a rare and very serious incident yet the owners, the Evans family of Loanhead in Midlothian, are not mentioned. In five earlier reports on Covid deaths, in The Tusker, BBC and Herald reports have failed to mention the owners but have made repeated references to Fife and Grampian health boards and to councils, leaving the reader to think these must be state or council-owned homes. Now in this dramatic case, neither report identifies the owner. … Continue reading Is there a policy to not name care home owners?

When infection levels have been falling steadily for two months, with a very small increase in the last week, it’s hard to see any surge: The 7-day average for new cases has now fallen from a peak of 1 225 to 885. Can you have a downward surge? As for the death rate, it peaked on the 13th of November at 35 and is now 23. No tsunami of death either? If you’d like to see a surge or even a tsunami of new cases try England or Wales? Continue reading I see no surge

From BBC Scotland’s Tabloid Trash Section today: Police Scotland’s latest data on Covid breaches reveals that officers are repeatedly visiting the same properties to break up parties. The call logs, which have been obtained by BBC Scotland, also show that a number of people have been handed multiple fines. On 28 August the police were given the power to break up house parties contravening social gathering rules. Since that date, officers have been called out nearly 5,000 times. So, 5 000 call-outs with an unspecified (why?) number of them repeat call outs and an unspecified average number (why?) present. Given the headline, … Continue reading BREAKING NEWS: Only ONE in 19 355 Scots arrested for Covid house party breaches

Don’t call me a conspiracy theorist! Nobody is saying this is a conspiracy. Chomsky applies here too. These are members of the professional, political and media elites acting in what they feel are their own interests (attacking the SNP administration) and in so doing acting in the same interests of those elite groups. OK? Geddit? Many of them were at uni in the 70s and 80s where they ran around with the RCG (Revolutionary Communist Group) because the SWP (Socialist Workers Party) was too soft, pretending they ‘d handled a Kalashnikov, calling the police ‘pigs’ and, behind their backs of … Continue reading EIS/Labour/Media Chums CAMPAIGN AGAINST SNP IS CERTAINLY DETERMINED IF UNREPRESENTATIVE