I love it when the Jocks complain. The BBC fortnightly report from their complaints service has three big ones and Andrew Marr’s disgraceful interview, with the First Minister, using inaccurate statistics to badger her, came top: On the day, I made two complaints (below) and encouraged readers to also do so. I wrote: I haven’t complained for a while. It’s usually demoralising. Please use this to make you own: So far, I’ve had two apologies for delay in their response. I’ll post mine here when they do get round to it. Continue reading Andrew Marr: BBC’s most disliked?

Rant from Brenda Steele: Gordon Dewar got a spread in the Press and Journal today from Tom Peterkin yesterday: Gordon Dewar says Scottish Government’s coronavirus vaccine plan will cost lives and jobs The coronavirus vaccine may not be widely rolled out until the end of next year as a result of the Scottish Government’s “woefully inadequate” plans, Gordon Dewar warned MSPs. Appearing at Holyrood, Mr Dewar, Edinburgh Airport chief executive, delivered a damning verdict on Nicola Sturgeon’s handling of the pandemic and even accused the first minister of campaigning against his industry.https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/2725075/gordon-dewar-coronavirus-vaccine/embed/#?secret=0bFnIldDCl He got repeat exposure at the ScotGov Coronavirus … Continue reading Oh, do give over!

The Sun’s Chris Musson, renowned investigative reporter and statistician was not available to check our figures but we think we may have stumbled on some very bad new for Boris which those Nats will probably try to exploit to make a case for Indy! The Guardian reports today: The National Audit Office (NAO) has found that the centralised programme is contacting two out of every three people who have been close to someone who has tested positive. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/11/uks-test-and-trace-repeatedly-failed-to-hit-goals-despite-22bn-cost We don’t need to tell Musson that 2 out of 3 is only 66.6666666% and well below the SAGE target of 80% … Continue reading SHOCK: Nic’s virus defence system excels!

The Herald, the EIS leader Larry Flanagan and his old Uni/union pal Richard Leonard have been running this scare for months now. Call a vote on strike action then. Let’s see how strong support for this is. With yet another of their useless self-selecting response surveys that, ironically, Flanagan would have been obliged to grade one of his own Modern Studies pupil’s projects at F, we hear: Teachers are demanding the urgent introduction of blended learning as measures aimed at containing coronavirus in schools are routinely breached and not enough to keep teachers and pupils fully safe. A new survey by the Educational … Continue reading Teacher union struggles to find right level

When was the last time a Scottish football team topped any group in any European football competition? 40 years ago? See how BBC Scotland celebrated? Bottom left, put your specs on. Glasgow Rangers have just done it against pretty reasonable competition: Only 4 points dropped!? Surely that’s big news in this country? I know, quite a lot of Rangers fans wouldn’t like the Tusker. Some think like Murdo Fraser, they’re the ‘Queen’s Eleven‘ and a few ran through George Square recently shouting abuse at anti-racists but many, most (?) are just football supporters. According to a Daily Record poll in … Continue reading A SCOTTISH TEAM TOPS EUROPEAN LEAGUE GROUP FOR FIRST TIME IN DECADES BUT BBC Scotland LOOKs AWAY

Another report from SBS (Selfish Bar Stewards): A COVID-19 restrictions “wrecking ball” has cost Scotland’s self-catering holiday providers £265m since September. The alarming findings have sent what was described as a “shockwave of dismay” through the sector which is supporting the staycation boom and raised serious questions about the impact on the wider tourism sector vital to Scotland’s economy. It beggars belief, to use ‘shockwave of dismay‘ to describe lost income for caravan and chalet owners. Here’s a shockwave, a ‘tsunami of death‘ even, as our media love to describe it: There had been around 2 500 deaths due to Covid … Continue reading ‘Shockwave of death’ more like

Analysis by the Telegraph has revealed these shocking figures suggesting that the risk of catching Covid was much higher than in the community and much higher than in Scottish hospitals: In Scotland, only 2% of Covid cases were definitely caught in hospital with 0.7% ‘probable’ and 0.7% ‘indeterminate.’ There was some variation across Scotland but the highest was Borders health board at 3.4% definite and 0.8% probable. https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/hospital-onset-covid-19-cases-in-scotland/ These events were in some ways predictable. NHS Scotland has had for some time a better record on hospital-acquired blood-poisoning (SEPSIS) and Norovirus outbreaks. See: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/02/20/massive-fall-in-sepsis-cases-and-deaths-in-cleaner-scottish-hospitals-less-than-half-that-in-england/ https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/01/30/snp-accused-of-making-scotlands-hospitals-too-clean-for-norovirus-to-survive-deliberately-as-600-beds-are-closed-every-day-in-england/ Continue reading Hospital-acquired Covid FIFTEEN TIMES more likely in some English hospitals!

Many thanks to Tusker reader, William Henderson, for feeding me this story. There has been much in the news of the likely chaos in the Kent ports and the looming no-deal Brexit makes it seem inevitable. There has even been talk of a trade border between Kent and the rest of the UK with lorries only allowed into the county and its massive lorry parks. Ireland has been busy building super-ferries in an attempt to bypass England altogether and now we see an attempt by the Port of Grangemouth to make a similar move. This report in the Insider is … Continue reading NEW KENT BYPASS TO START IN GRANGEMOUTH

For the third time today, BBC Scotland have reported in a manner which would lead the reader to think that responsibility for infections and for deaths lay at the door of an NHS health board, a local authority or even the Health Secretary when all three homes are privately owned and being helped at the taxpayer’s expense. Once more, read the report and see this cover-up: Sixteen deaths of care home residents are being investigated following two major coronavirus outbreaks. The Crown Office has confirmed the probe into deaths at Inchmarlo House near Banchory in Aberdeenshire and at Deeside Care … Continue reading Three care home reports hiding those responsible

By Brenda Steele: At the ScotGov Coronavirus press conference yesterday,  https://mobile.twitter.com/scotgov/status/1336645619771985922 Nicola Sturgeon talked briefly about the Report on Genomics Research at 13m10s in.  Jason Leitch spoke rather more extensively about how the virus had been re-introduced into Scotland from England and other countries, causing the second wave. This is the report: https://www.cogconsortium.uk/news_item/two-new-reports-to-sage-on-the-genomic-analysis-of-epidemic-waves-of-covid-19-in-scotland-and-wales/ Read the whole or listen for the short version from the press conference. Not the first piece of research on the subject. Remember this? Research from scientists in Switzerland, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, has revealed that a new variant of coronavirus, known as 20A.EU1, appears … Continue reading Quarantine all who enter here!