Tag: news

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Anti-immigration protest – Why is the Ferret ‘fact-checker’ so desperate to make Scotland look like the rest of the UK when it’s demonstrably not?

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Based on the above in June 2026 More in Common poll graphic, we can see that immigration matters less to voters across most of Scotland than in most of England. The purple areas in the South-west and in the North of Scotland may well be, at least in part, a result of English, middle-class, entitled, retiree internal migrants pushing house prices up and loudly dominating local organisations. The Ferret today with another vain attempt to talk Scotland down and and to drag us into the swamp with the rest of the UK. Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort … Continue reading Anti-immigration protest – Why is the Ferret ‘fact-checker’ so desperate to make Scotland look like the rest of the UK when it’s demonstrably not?

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As Maggie’s ‘broken children’, drug users from the teenage wasteland of the 1980s, fall off the graph, Scotland’s drug deaths will fall below those of England in ten years or less

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Channel 4 News tonight reminded me of something important, positive, about Scotland’s drug deaths – age. Look at this – Age-specific mortality rates of drug use deaths by broad age group, registered in 2000 to 2025: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland-2025/ There were 21.4 drug use deaths per 100,000 people in 2025, after adjusting for age. However, when you have a think about the rate in each of the 5 age groups, you should be able to see signs of a tipping point coming when overal drug deaths plummet. This drama all started more than 40 years ago, in the years after Margaret Thatcher … Continue reading As Maggie’s ‘broken children’, drug users from the teenage wasteland of the 1980s, fall off the graph, Scotland’s drug deaths will fall below those of England in ten years or less

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Much as he’d like to James Cook does NOT know that Scotland’s drug death figures ‘remain worst in Europe’ – Nobody with half a brain thinks they do

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 With the help of Aimee Stanton, data journalist, James Cook has produced an extended piece with the above headline but little evidence for it. It’s utterly untenable. More on that below. I suppose I’m disappointed more with Aimee who has even had the Royal Statistical Society’s Award for Statistical Excellence in Journalism 2020. James, ‘a British journalist and broadcaster’, unless he’s modestly hiding stuff, is described only as ‘Educated at Forfar Academy, Cook began his career at Radio Tay in Dundee where he first read the news at the age … Continue reading Much as he’d like to James Cook does NOT know that Scotland’s drug death figures ‘remain worst in Europe’ – Nobody with half a brain thinks they do

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Drug deaths – one-year increase does not change overall trend which is down 15%

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Last year, the NRS graph, after a one year fall, showed also the trend in a dotted line with a shaded bandwidth of confidence and a fall from the peak of 1 339 to 1 017, 24%. https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland-2024/ For some reason, time maybe, this year’s graph does not show the trend. Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Today, to a gleeful media feeding frenzy, we see they’ve gone up again, ‘by 11%’ to 1 133, so the fall from 2020 is now 15% but the trend, sorry MSM, is still down. They had a nice … Continue reading Drug deaths – one-year increase does not change overall trend which is down 15%

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To compare an English region to Scotland

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 By Liz S Here’s something the BBC website has added as an article onto their local news page for Yorkshire (region of England). “MP calls for Yorkshire to get its own parliament” “A Liberal Democrat MP has called on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to go further with his devolution plans and give Yorkshire its own parliament” Why ? Well according to this Harrogate and Knaresborough Lib Dem MP , Tom Gordon: “Yorkshire had a population larger than Scotland and an economy larger than Wales, and, as such, it should … Continue reading To compare an English region to Scotland

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How Scotland went from being the murder capital of Europe to one of the safest places in the world – On BBC Latin America but not BBC Scotland? – Por el amor de Dios, ¿por qué?

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From the BBC’s Latin America service and on the BBC Future site but kept away from the main BBC UK site, far less BBC Scotland, the above, and: Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 How Scotland went from being the murder capital of Europe to one of the safest places in the world – In the early 2000s, the likelihood of experiencing an assault in Scotland was more than three times higher than in the United States. However, when Scottish authorities began to address violent crime as a public health issue, the figures plummeted, and … Continue reading How Scotland went from being the murder capital of Europe to one of the safest places in the world – On BBC Latin America but not BBC Scotland? – Por el amor de Dios, ¿por qué?

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Scotland’s drug deaths are expected to rise to maintain the reputation BBC Scotland love to trot out but deaths in England being seriously under-counted

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official figures are published on Wednesday. BBC Scotland seem to know already that drug-related deaths will be up on Wednesday coming, and that their ‘Scotland is drug death capital of Europe’ line will be still available to them. Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 We won’t be hearing this from them to put things in context. Drug deaths in England being seriously under-counted Opioid deaths in England 50% higher than recorded In September 2025 (most recent data for this purpose) , BBC UK reported: More than 13,000 heroin and opioid deaths have been missed off … Continue reading Scotland’s drug deaths are expected to rise to maintain the reputation BBC Scotland love to trot out but deaths in England being seriously under-counted

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Deaths in England attributed to nitazenes have nearly quadrupled since 2023.

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By stewartb Once again, the way BBC Scotland reports on issues of importance and serious concern smacks of a preference to gaslight voters in Scotland – and in the process undermine the government in Edinburgh – rather than ‘educate’/inform by providing context, perspective and relevant comparative analysis. Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 In its response to the latest drug deaths in England and Wales based on ONS reporting, the Scottish Drugs Forum (October 2025) stated: ‘The latest report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed that drug-related deaths in England and Wales … Continue reading Deaths in England attributed to nitazenes have nearly quadrupled since 2023.

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Step We Gaily Over The Line?

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By Mark E. Saunders of “The Scottish Minuteman” https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=61575625542197 Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Reports in today’s Sunday newspapers are suggesting that Gordon Brown was taking a “very keen interest” in Operation Branchform. Apparently he raised the investigation into SNP finances with his friend, the then Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Sir Iain Livingstone, several times. And before anyone says — “so what? It’s just another resurrection of Auld Broon” — remember what Branchform became. It wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill police investigation. It became one of the biggest political stories in Scotland, engulfing the SNP leadership and doing … Continue reading Step We Gaily Over The Line?

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Labour’s Alan Milburn says more English Neets want to work but won’t learn from Scotland where more than one third fewer of them are unemployed

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep goingCrowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-goingOr by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 The Guardian today (Is that getting boring?): The ideas that Neets (young people not in education, employment or training) simply aren’t trying hard enough to find a job, or don’t want one, are “myths,” Alan Milburn wrote in his interim report on the subject earlier this year – “sometimes cruel ones”. Although 84% of Neets say they want to work, their prospects are unfairly limited by where they live.  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/18/the-guardian-view-on-youth-unemployment-too-few-jobs-in-too-many-places BBC Breakfast in May 2026, in an extended piece on the number not in work or in education – … Continue reading Labour’s Alan Milburn says more English Neets want to work but won’t learn from Scotland where more than one third fewer of them are unemployed