Not for the first time BBC Wales shows itself to be a very different kind of organisation. Today, they posted this: Of course, had Scotland performed as badly as Wales has in failing to control the Covid outbreak, BBC Scotland might have been more keen to let us have the above comparison. Scotland has, thanks to our collective efforts and the actions of our devolved government, done much better than the other parts of the UK, so you won’t be seeing that graph on Reporting Scotland or hearing those data discussed on Good Morning Scotland or by John Beattie. Instead … Continue reading BBC Wales shows BBC Scotland how to do it

Once more BBC Scotland report on care home deaths in privately owned care homes but fail to mention the owners. NHS Grampian get a mention just as NHS Fife featured heavily in other reports in the last few days. As in the Skye care home outbreak, the health boards and the local councils have stepped in, after the outbreak has spiralled out of control, to support profit-making enterprises, by deploying their employees, in places where minimal staffing, full occupancy, inadequate training and the dangerous use of agency staff during a pandemic has resulted in unacceptable levels of risk to vulnerable … Continue reading Crown Office will get to the root cause of care home deaths no matter the bluff

Hearing today a local business-owner moaning and having to be reminded of two sizable grants they’d had and the fact that their staff were furloughed at the taxpayer’s expense, I had a dig around for news which I feel sure Reporting Scotland have neglected to keep us informed of. On 9th December, Finance Secretary Kate Forbes announced additional funding for the ‘newly self-employed hardship fund.’ This had been first announced in August as an attempt to help those who were ineligible for UK support. I can find no sign of BBC Scotland broadcasting this. Also, in June, the SNP Government … Continue reading Support for the self-employed only in Scotland

From one of the Tuskerati ‘Fergie goes to Holyrood’: With Scottish Labour’s dwindling poll numbers, maybe they’re looking for a new angle to capture the attention of the public… so they’re asking serious questions as to why more people haven’t succumbed to COVID-19, and thus stretched NHS Scotland beyond its capacity so it had to use its overspill capacity in the Louisa Jordan field hospital. Based on Richard Leonard’s woeful performance at FMQs on Thursday, pleading for Edinburgh’s restrictions to be lowered to let the virus spread maybe that age old proverb of Lord Foulkes’ is still reverberating around Scottish … Continue reading Scottish Labour accuses SNP… why haven’t MORE people got the virus?

In August 2019, Tam Waterson of Unison, above, warned in the Sun: HOSPITAL FEAR Union chief warns £150m Edinburgh Sick Kids hospital may have to be “ripped down” due to fatal safety flaws The hospital opened last July. Yesterday, he was in the Record with this: Tam Waterson, chair of Unison’s health committee, said NHS boards only found out about the plan to take Pfizer doses into homes when Freeman told the media on December 3. He said: “The plan was to use the Pfizer vaccine for health staff and arrangements were put in place for booking people in. Then … Continue reading First sighting of vaccine chaos spinner

Things look bad in Germany. They’re going into lock down over Christmas. Makes you glad you don’t live over there? BBC UK make a feature of checking out the Covid situation elsewhere, preferably where it seems bad, like the USA or Brazil with their crazy leaders, unlike ours. On the TV broadcasts last night and on the website, we hear: Germany is to go into a hard lockdown over the Christmas period as the number of deaths and infections from the coronavirus reaches record levels. Non-essential shops will close across the country from Wednesday, as will schools, with children to … Continue reading BRITISH SCHADENFREUDE OVER COVID IS UNJUSTIFIED

Writing this in 2022, as Prime Minister Patel of England returns crestfallen from Versailles, having signed the surrender document at the end of the 100 Days War with France, I reflect on the The Bay of Tongue Incident on December 13th 2021, which was used to justify the Royal Navy attack on Calais and which led, in turn to the French Navy attack on Dover. I see an obvious parallel with the incident, which started the largely naval conflict, and the Bay of Tonkin Incident in 1964 which drew the USA into the Vietnam conflict. The Bay of Tongue Incident … Continue reading Looking Back: The Bay of Tongue Incident in 2021: when the Royal Navy sank French ‘torpedo’ boats!

Two days ago, BBC Scotland reported on three privately-owned care homes with Covid outbreaks and managed to avoid mentioning the owners. They did manage to mention the local health boards and the local authorities repeatedly. Any reader would think they were council-owned. That the health boards and the councils were fire-fighting the outbreaks by providing staff and resources at the tax-payers’ expenses got no mention nor, in one case, did a poor inspection report come to light. Lomond Court Care Home in Glenrothes, is owned by HC-One. You remember them. The Skye care home where 10 died due to the … Continue reading HC-One care home deaths presented as due to NHS Fife or Fife Council by both BBC and Herald

Anon: Peter Geoghegan’s excellent “Democracy for Sale” lifts the lid on the £435,000 “dark money” that was funnelled via the DUP to circumnavigate the Brexit referendum spending limits by former Scottish Tory Vice Chair Richard Cook’s Constitutional Research Council. Cook has also boasted of huge sums being available to make a “new and positive campaign for the Union” during any indyref2 and the leading anti self-government campaigning group Scotland in Union is building up a war chest for campaigning in the run up to May’s Holyrood elections. In 2017, William Ramsay, then deputy chair of Scotland in Union, boasted to … Continue reading Scottish Democracy for Sale

The opening lines are fine, in the Herald report yesterday: THE SNP has called for an additional £1.16bn from the Treasury to help with Brexit after Northern Ireland was granted £400m yesterday.  The demand from the SNP comes after MPs repeatedly asked UK Government ministers this week why Northern Ireland appeared to be getting “the best of both worlds” when it came to Brexit, with access to the EU single Market as well as the UK, while Scotland did not.  So, who is accusing the SNP? It’s not even Douglas Ross nor is it Alister Jack nor even Colonel Davidson, it’s just a ‘spokesman.’ They … Continue reading SHOCK: SNP aCCUSED of standing up for Scotland again!