Tag: history

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How the SNP’s £1 purchase of Prestwick Airport could be the end of Heathrow’s domination of Scotland’s export trade to the World

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Professor John Robertson OBA This is conjecture and I will admit to only having an SCE Higher in Economics, C pass, 1969, but I sniff something good here. From BBC Glasgow & West Scotland, today, making it to the business page but not to the main page: Prestwick Airport has reported an increase in its financial performance as well as its cargo operations in the last year. The Scottish government-owned airport recorded a £3.5m operating profit for the year to 31 March 2025 – an increase of £300,000 from the previous year. The report said it has already achieved its … Continue reading How the SNP’s £1 purchase of Prestwick Airport could be the end of Heathrow’s domination of Scotland’s export trade to the World

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Social housing in Scotland factcheck – 40% more availability, no damaging right to buy, bigger grants and greater fire safety

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Professor John Robertson OBA Amongst all the current media frenzy about a one-year down-turn in new social media building, even in the National, above, these important, positive, contextual facts, published in a review by the Wheatley Group in May 2024, are getting no attention: Social housing is more prevalent in Scotland than England, comprising 23% of all Scottish housing stock (11% RSLs / 12% Local Authorities), compared to 16.4% in England (10.1% RPs / 6.3% Local Authorities). Scotland has similar rate of owner-occupation than England, 63.7% compared to 64.1%. Statistics based on March 2022 returns One of the most important powers devolved to the Scottish Government … Continue reading Social housing in Scotland factcheck – 40% more availability, no damaging right to buy, bigger grants and greater fire safety

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Police suspected drug deaths trend continues steady fall but under-educated Daily Record Labour hack prefers to attack FM with statistically meaningless one-year change

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Professor John Robertson OBA Any fool can see from the above line graph what the trend is and despite the ups and downs, Scotland’s suspected drugs deaths are falling. From nearly 1 500 per year at the end of 2020 to just over 1 000 in the last 12 months, a 33% fall in only 5 years. The bar chart also show the usual seasonal fall from a winter peak. From Suspected drug deaths in Scotland: July to September 2025 published yesterday: There were 898 suspected drug deaths, 8% (65) greater than during the same period of 2024 (833). Note … Continue reading Police suspected drug deaths trend continues steady fall but under-educated Daily Record Labour hack prefers to attack FM with statistically meaningless one-year change

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How we have paid tens of millions for fourteen years to transform the lives and the economies of islanders only to have a small entitled business elite platformed by media to hide it

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Professor John Robertson OBA BBC Scotland, today, in their BBC Breakfast TV insert but not on their website so just another report feed to the Pacific Quay team of a no news-value story on supposed hardship for island businesses. What’s the problem with it? There’s a very significant background story never told of just how much this SNP Government has done to transform life on the islands, funded by the rest of us living often in less pleasant places and with never the suggestion of compensation because of limited public transport services. Here it is: The above chart from the Evaluation … Continue reading How we have paid tens of millions for fourteen years to transform the lives and the economies of islanders only to have a small entitled business elite platformed by media to hide it

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Will we win independence by our own hands or will events happen to us that matter more and ease our way?

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Important – I offer this as a starter for comment. I’m not, as you may know, an expert in this geopolitical field in any way. Professor John Robertson OBA Fifty years ago, I had to write an essay about the extent to which Karl Marx believed that individuals or powerful forces determined historical outcomes. The above quote, I thought, was a good starting point. I got a low B pass. He seems to be saying that we can influence events but within the limits imposed on our freedom of movement by forces such as climate change, geography, pandemics, wars or … Continue reading Will we win independence by our own hands or will events happen to us that matter more and ease our way?

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Britain [sic] slipping down global league table for youth employment, says accountancy firm yet UK youth unemployment is 40% higher than in Scotland which has one of the lowest rates in Western Europe

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Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian yesterday: Britain slipping down global league table for youth employment, says report – Britain is slipping down the global league table for youth employment amid a dramatic rise in worklessness that is putting a generation’s future at risk, research has warned. Sounding the alarm over a worsening youth jobs crisis, the report from the accountancy firm PwC said Britain’s economy was missing out on £26bn a year because of sharp regional divisions in youth joblessness. In its annual youth employment index, it said the UK was falling behind other advanced economies amid a deterioration … Continue reading Britain [sic] slipping down global league table for youth employment, says accountancy firm yet UK youth unemployment is 40% higher than in Scotland which has one of the lowest rates in Western Europe

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Scottish cereal harvest achieves a ten-year high! Enough to feed 7.5 million before we get to the salmon and whisky to wash it down

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Professor John Robertson OBA From Cereal and oilseed rape harvest: final estimates – 2025 published yesterday: Cereal production is up nearly 10% on the last days of Labour (Table 2 in Supporting Documents). How many people could survive for a year on a harvest of 3.14 million tonnes of cereal including 1 million tonnes of wheat, 363 thousand tonnes of winter barley, 1 556 tonnes of spring barley and 185 thousand tonnes of oats? This harvest (≈1.55 million tonnes of cereal, of which 1 million tonnes is wheat) could keep roughly 7.4 to 7.5 million people alive for one full … Continue reading Scottish cereal harvest achieves a ten-year high! Enough to feed 7.5 million before we get to the salmon and whisky to wash it down

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The Emma Caldwell Public Inquiry must ask if the Scottish Labour Government of 20 years ago took its eye of the ball

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From Emma Caldwell Public Inquiry begins work, published yesterday: The independent Public Inquiry into the investigation of Emma Caldwell’s murder in April 2005 has been formally set-up and begins its work today (9 Dec). Justice Secretary Angela Constance informed Parliament on the formal setting-up date and on the Inquiry’s terms of reference through a Government Initiated Question today. The statutory inquiry will examine what went wrong in the investigation carried out by Strathclyde Police into the murder of Emma Caldwell, including the direction given by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. It will examine what steps which could reasonably … Continue reading The Emma Caldwell Public Inquiry must ask if the Scottish Labour Government of 20 years ago took its eye of the ball

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Ingrained cultural bias in Scottish media that disadvantages the independence movement

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Professor John Robertson OBA In my previous post, Grok AI, correctly I feel, suggested that the above reporting was not a hit job and agreed that it was mostly cultural within Scotland’s media. So, I asekd: I agree it’s not a ‘hit job’ but could it be an example of a culture of bias against the case for Scottish independence where that bias has become normalised and where reporters habitually report in ways that will please their supervisors, get things published and enhance their career prospects without being told by supervisors how to report? The answer: Exploring Normalized Bias in … Continue reading Ingrained cultural bias in Scottish media that disadvantages the independence movement

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Our kids now hardly ever kill each other but BBC Scotland is killing our spirits with these distortions of reality

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BBC Scotland, careful to put the above as a quote but still hitting readers with the same message and one that does not inform us about the reality of our world. They know the scared and the anxious don’t vote for change. The family of a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed to death in Glasgow say police should be given more powers to search young people for knives. Kory McCrimmon’s family were speaking after BBC research showed that Police Scotland’s use of stop-and-search on under 18s increased by 38% last year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0x4k2xyw2o Before I go any further, isn’t that sequence … Continue reading Our kids now hardly ever kill each other but BBC Scotland is killing our spirits with these distortions of reality