Tag: news

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News you won’t hear – Support for struggling households from SNP Government

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Professor John Robertson OBA From Scottish Government News today with only the Daily Record covering it: A record £99 million will be invested in Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) this financial year to help thousands of households struggling to afford housing costs in Scotland. During Challenge Poverty Week, Housing Secretary Màiri McAllan highlighted the payments as a ‘lifeline’ for thousands of families and individuals. Funded by the Scottish Government and paid out by local authorities, the DHP scheme is designed to provide financial support to low-income households, delivering vital action to reduce poverty, safeguard tenancies and prevent homelessness. The Scottish Government has budgeted … Continue reading News you won’t hear – Support for struggling households from SNP Government

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63 years of regular and repeated nuclear incidents at Dounreay safely 509 miles downwind of London

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By stewartb The public record of incidents at Dounreay from CHATGPT: ‘Here is a chronological timeline of known official / media‑reported pollution, health & safety, and regulatory incidents or concerns at the Dounreay nuclear site, from commissioning to the present, based on the sources I located. Some entries are major events; others are smaller leaks or findings. This is not guaranteed exhaustive, but covers all incidents I could verify. I include dates, description, and sources.’ (Sources have been omitted here for brevity. They could be found readily by asking CHATGPT again – for free. Otherwise what follows is as provided by CHATGPT.) 1963‑1975: … Continue reading 63 years of regular and repeated nuclear incidents at Dounreay safely 509 miles downwind of London

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Homeless deaths in Scotland fall as they climb in other parts due to lack of national leadership

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Professor John Robertson OBA Once again, I’m grateful to Brenda Robb for finding this and researching it for us. From BBC UK today but ignored by BBC Scotland, the above and: The figures show that 1,142 deaths were in England, an increase of 16% on the year before. London had the highest total number of deaths, but the largest increases were in Nottingham, where the number of deaths doubled to 22, and in Exeter, where they more than doubled from eight to 21. In Northern Ireland, deaths increased by more than a third between 2023 and 2024, to 211. Wales saw a … Continue reading Homeless deaths in Scotland fall as they climb in other parts due to lack of national leadership

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NHS England has to pay out more than twice as much as NHS Scotland for ‘maternity failings’

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Professor John Robertson OBA Many thanks to Brian McGowan for alerting us to this. How are things in Scotland you ask? £1.3 billion was paid out in 2024/205: https://www.cwj.co.uk/site/newsandevents/legalnews/costs_of_NHS_maternity_care_claims_revealed.html Per head, that £1.3 billion becomes £13 billion, less than half the NHS England pay-outs of £27 billion. Why might this difference exist? See this from Stirling University researchers in the BMJ in 2019: We found few differences in maternity care experience for women based on their physical or socioeconomic characteristics. Our findings indicate that maternity care in Scotland is generally equitable. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/2/e023282 Further measures in Scotland: In January 2024, the Daily Mail reporting a drop … Continue reading NHS England has to pay out more than twice as much as NHS Scotland for ‘maternity failings’

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More funding to tackle child poverty but that doesn’t fit the media narrative does it?

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Professor John Robertson OBA The small-circulation Scottish Housing News has the report but it’s nowhere in the MSM despite their gleeful responses to the flawed Joseph Rowntree Foundation claim that nothing has changed. That claim is based on the level of child poverty being static and ignoring the achievement of keeping it so against the background of new Labour austerity policies which have caused it to surge across the rest of the UK. Every professional journalist in Scotland got this by email yesterday and has chosen, chosen, to ignore it: Projects aimed at tackling child poverty across the country will receive increased, … Continue reading More funding to tackle child poverty but that doesn’t fit the media narrative does it?

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SNP Cop numbers more than under Labour, crime halved and murder less than in Denmark, as Express puts mental health of hundreds at risk

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Professor John Robertson OBA The Express today with Cop cuts putting public at risk? Rubbish. Cop cuts? From Safer Communities and Justice Statistics Monthly Data Report: August 2025, published today: There were 16,427 full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers in Scotland on 30 June 2025. This was 193 (+1.2%) more officers compared to the position on 31 March 2007, and 220 (+1.4%) more than on 30 June 2024. https://www.gov.scot/publications/safer-communities-and-justice-statistics-monthly-data-report-august-2025/pages/statistics-on-community-safely/ Police officer staffing has been maintained despite the crime level in Scotland falling from 385 509 in 2007/2008 when the SNP took over, to 299 111 last year, a 22% fall. Public at risk? Rubbish, crime … Continue reading SNP Cop numbers more than under Labour, crime halved and murder less than in Denmark, as Express puts mental health of hundreds at risk

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As threat of resident (junior) doctor strikes in NHS England loom again, how the SNP settlement last year was praised by the BMA and means NHS Scotland is set to avoid thousands of excess deaths again

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on strike over what they say is a lack of future training places. Professor John Robertson OBA BBC Breakfast is headlining the above report with the following detail on their website: Newly-qualified doctors in their first year of practice in England have voted in favour of strike action in a row over a shortage of jobs. The British Medical Association (BMA) union says thousands of resident doctors are ending up without speciality training places when they finish year two of training. This year there were 10,000 jobs available for 30,000 candidates, although some of those will be doctors from abroad. … Continue reading As threat of resident (junior) doctor strikes in NHS England loom again, how the SNP settlement last year was praised by the BMA and means NHS Scotland is set to avoid thousands of excess deaths again

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A full year of steady decline means Scottish Labour are not coming back any time soon and certainly not by next May

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Professor John Robertson OBA Lucy Dunn in the Spectator yesterday has: Scottish Labour may be down but they’re not out. The polls have not been moving in their favour over the last few months and on the eve of Labour’s conference in Liverpool a Norstat survey for the Sunday Times brought more bad news: never mind losing out on first place at the 2026 Holyrood election, Scottish Labour could crash into third next year thanks to a surge in support for Nigel Farage’s leaderless tartan outfit. It would be a pretty humiliating state of affairs.  Yet despite all this, the mood in … Continue reading A full year of steady decline means Scottish Labour are not coming back any time soon and certainly not by next May

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Infected blood scandal – The mob who supposedly ‘report’ political news within Scotland are not exactly the same calibre of the Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein or Bob Woodward

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By Liz S People in Scotland need to realise that these UK political parties, whenever they achieve any power, they then have a tendency to hold the ‘purse strings very very tightly’ ……….to such an extent that they rarely want to open that public purse to provide , not just any compensation, but appropriate compensation to those negatively impacted …… As in impacted not through their own actions but through either a negligence of the UK State, or via an action taken by a part of the establishment that represents the UK State or a bad decision directly taken by the UK State. Newsnight on BBC2 once had , as guests, the “victims and campaigners seeking … Continue reading Infected blood scandal – The mob who supposedly ‘report’ political news within Scotland are not exactly the same calibre of the Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein or Bob Woodward

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It’s been a while since Andrew Bowie last sickened us. Then, it was the risk of radiation sickness

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Professor John Robertson OBA The National today has the above headline and: Andrew Bowie, the MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, embarked on an all expenses paid trip to Israel between August 25 and 29 this year. The trip was described as a “fact-finding political delegation” in Bowie’s MP register of interests, and was paid for by the Conservative Friends of Israel. Bowie registered air travel, accommodation and hospitality for the visit to Israel as costing £4200. He told The National that he met with senior members of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) during the trip. The shadow Scottish secretary was not … Continue reading It’s been a while since Andrew Bowie last sickened us. Then, it was the risk of radiation sickness