Tag: news

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Sewage dumping – Scotland’s water regulator is clean

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By Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian today, the above and this shocking statement: The government, its water regulator and the Environment Agency could all be taken to court over their failure to tackle sewage dumping in England after a watchdog found failures to comply with the law. An investigation by the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) found Ofwat, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency (EA) all failed to stop water companies from discharging sewage into rivers and seas in England when it was not raining heavily. The OEP was set up in 2020 to replace the role … Continue reading Sewage dumping – Scotland’s water regulator is clean

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As BBC Scotland report today on a Motherwell to Murcia drug ‘baron’ last active 4 years ago, here is the real and present threat in your town they dare not mention

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For the full story, click on: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=county For the full story, click on: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=county Above, 9 reports in November 2024. Below the story going back for 5 years: BBC Scotland and ‘County Lines’ drug gangs – now 5 years of silence to protect the Union I have an alert for ‘County Lines’ and every day I see reports from BBC UK, BBC England and from BBC regions across the country – BBC Devon (today), BBC Cumbria (last week). I never, ever, see anything from BBC Scotland despite regular reports in the ‘Scottish’ tabloids and on regional news media websites. In … Continue reading As BBC Scotland report today on a Motherwell to Murcia drug ‘baron’ last active 4 years ago, here is the real and present threat in your town they dare not mention

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Scottish Labour’s police officers leaving ‘surge’ is both suspicious and actually a ‘dribble’ of less than 1%

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By Professor John Robertson OBA As of March 31, 2024, there were 16,356 full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers in Scotland.1 According to the Herald, In 2023, 257 left to take up a new job, education or for personal reasons. That is according to data published in freedom of information requests obtained by Scottish Labour. However, that figure is compared to 173 in 2019 – an increase of 49% in five years.2 Notice, they’re not telling us if there a constant trend upward from 2019? Is that because, annoyingly for Scottish Labour, it was lower in 2023 than it 2022? If there was a … Continue reading Scottish Labour’s police officers leaving ‘surge’ is both suspicious and actually a ‘dribble’ of less than 1%

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Murder rate in Glasgow only a quarter of that under Labour, is the news but BBC Scotland prefer you live in the past

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By Professor John Robertson OBA One of the top stories on the BBC Scotland website today is: Murder and mayhem: The story of Glasgow’s deadly gang feud Has there been a surge in gangland killings? No, they’re just advertising a podcast about murders in 2006, nearly 20 years ago. What is the news that their royal charter obliges them to inform the folk of Glasgow about? That graph above but, specifically for Glasgow: Glasgow City has witnessed a relatively larger fall in homicides than Scotland as a whole in the last 20 years. Over the latest five year period from 2019-20 to … Continue reading Murder rate in Glasgow only a quarter of that under Labour, is the news but BBC Scotland prefer you live in the past

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Labour voters’ support for the two-child benefit cap is wrong

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Feed all my children? On my wife’s income from my mother’s poverty pay business, I can afford to pay school fees as well. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) Thanks to JR for alerting me to this. From the Spectator, yesterday: A Norstat poll for The Sunday Times revealed that 34 per cent of Labour voters in Scotland oppose John Swinney’s move to abolish the two-child cap, while only 31 per cent support its reversal. Despite the Scottish Greens blasting the Conservative policy as ‘morally bankrupt’, the party’s voters were the biggest proponents of the policy with only a quarter of the … Continue reading Labour voters’ support for the two-child benefit cap is wrong

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NHS England’s ‘alarming decline’ in 12 key metrics being averted by SNP Government – Stillbirth, ‘The Canary in the Coalmine’

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By Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks once more to Dottie for alerting me to this. In the Guardian today: Darzi [Prof Lord Ara Darzi, the surgeon and former health minister ] said there had been “alarming declines” in 12 key metrics of patient safety in England since 2022. They include maternity care, in which there are growing rates of stillbirth, babies dying during or soon after they are born and also women dying while giving birth. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/12/nhs-spends-147bn-a-year-treating-patients-in-england-hurt-by-care-mistakes-says-report The stillbirth rate in Scotland in 2023 was 3.7 per 1 000 births, the same as in 2022 and having fallen steadily from 4.2 in 2020 (during … Continue reading NHS England’s ‘alarming decline’ in 12 key metrics being averted by SNP Government – Stillbirth, ‘The Canary in the Coalmine’

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The Times and Top Poser Doctor on NHS Scotland ‘crisis’- shorter waits on every life-saving measure except the non-life-saving one that cost NHS England £3.5bn to clear on behalf of Tory election campaign

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By Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks once more to AR for alerting me to this. The Times today has: Revealed: true extent of Scotland hospital waiting times scandal – Number of patients waiting more than 104 weeks for treatment in Scottish hospitals is almost 100 times higher than in England. As NHS bosses in England have focused on reducing long waits, numbers in Scotland have only grown. It’s true, for those waiting more than 2 years for, obviously, non-life-threatening procedures, the list in England has been slashed but has not in NHS Scotland. Dr Iain Kennedy, chairman of the British Medical … Continue reading The Times and Top Poser Doctor on NHS Scotland ‘crisis’- shorter waits on every life-saving measure except the non-life-saving one that cost NHS England £3.5bn to clear on behalf of Tory election campaign

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British Transport Police report on 65 arrests on County Lines drug gang rail network using railways from London, to the end of the line in Thurso, for child drug couriers is not that interesting to BBC Scotland it seems

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Only the Daily Record picked up on this from British Transport Police on 6 December 2024: British Transport Police (BTP) disrupted six County lines, arrested 65 people, and seized in excess of £80,000 in cash during a national County Lines week of action tackling drug supply across England, Scotland and Wales.  The week was coordinated by BTP’s dedicated County Lines Taskforce (CLTF) and the operations featured uniformed and plain clothes officers, dogs trained in passive drug detection and metal detection arches.  As part of the enhanced activity from Monday 25th November – Sunday 1st December during the national County Lines … Continue reading British Transport Police report on 65 arrests on County Lines drug gang rail network using railways from London, to the end of the line in Thurso, for child drug couriers is not that interesting to BBC Scotland it seems

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Researchers prove that Scotland’s drug death surge was the simple and tragic consequence of the UK Conservative Government’s brutal austerity strategy from 2012 to 2019

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Professor John Robertson OBA Drug deaths have always been more prevalent in poorer communities. In Scotland, half of all drug deaths are from among the 20% most deprived neighbourhoods.1 According to research recently published by David Walsh and Gerry McCartney2, of Glasgow University, drug deaths amongst the most deprived communities in Scotland had begun to climb from around 2003 to 2009, under New Labour and then again, but far more dramatically, from around 2012 to 2019 under the Conservative Government. Amongst the least deprived, drug deaths were largely unaffected by austerity policies such as, of course, reduced or withdrawn benefits but among … Continue reading Researchers prove that Scotland’s drug death surge was the simple and tragic consequence of the UK Conservative Government’s brutal austerity strategy from 2012 to 2019

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Did the Sunday Times hide around 60% support for independence by dramatically reducing the number of 2014 Yes voters in their poll sample from 387 down to only 278

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The Norstat poll for the Sunday Times on 6 December 2024, on a future second referendum on Scottish independence had: Yes 54% No 46% A healthy 8% lead, well up on a tie five days earlier and a 3% lead for No on 22 August. However, as in most polls on this question, the pollsters had adjusted, ‘weighted’, their sample to reflect several factors such as gender, age, socio-economic class, country of birth and voting patterns in the 2024 general election, the 2021 Scottish election, the 2016 EU referendum and the 2014 independence referendum. This weighting is designed entirely legitimately, … Continue reading Did the Sunday Times hide around 60% support for independence by dramatically reducing the number of 2014 Yes voters in their poll sample from 387 down to only 278