Tag: news

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Will this Labour MP praise her local hospitals as they treat 99% of drug and alcohol patients well within the target time?

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By Professor John Robertson OBA As we try to settle our stomachs after the recent Jackie Baillie/ Herald/ BBC Scotland attack on a Clydebank hospital, it occurred to me that my new local MP is very quiet. Her office is largely ignoring constituent enquiries so the above hope is no doubt in vain. In October 2024, Jackie Baillie, in the Scotsman, ‘accused [SNP] ministers of failing to get a grip on the crisis‘ on drug deaths. Would 99% of drug abuse patients being seen in the target time of 3 weeks do for a grip? Would the MP for Ayr, Carrick and … Continue reading Will this Labour MP praise her local hospitals as they treat 99% of drug and alcohol patients well within the target time?

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Leading European expert says Scotland is ‘at the very top pillar with regards to patient safety’ since 2007, but on Boxing Day, BBC Scotland tries to compare us unfavourably with England

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By By Professor John Robertson OBA From BBC Scotland, this morning, after their ignorant and tasteless Christmas Eve attack, with the Scottish Cons and Labour’s Jackie Baillie, on the reputation of the staff at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank, they’re back at it again today with more inaccurate reporting, this time on patient safety, with: A recruitment drive for Scotland’s first ever Patient Safety Commissioner has failed for a second time. MSPs passed a law creating the new independent public advocate for NHS patients in September last year. The first round of interviews for the £89,685-a-year role in April failed to produce … Continue reading Leading European expert says Scotland is ‘at the very top pillar with regards to patient safety’ since 2007, but on Boxing Day, BBC Scotland tries to compare us unfavourably with England

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A gift for Scotland only – Christmas Eve, A&E death lies, BBC Scotland and Sandesh Gulhane

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By Professor John Robertson OBA NOTE: I’m so sickeningly angry, I’ve put this rebuttal together very quickly so please forgive any errors. BBC Reporting Scotland and Good Mourning Scotland only, not on the BBC Scotland website or any oter BBC site, a disgusting piece of heartless propaganda repeating the trash media reports, today: The above claims are based on Conservative and Labour ‘modelling‘, saved up for the ‘Scottish’ media to release today, Christmas Eve, and underpinned by Royal College of Emergency Medicine (UK) analysis. BBC UK, England and Wales do not have this story. They tried this foul-smelling Xmas game, three years … Continue reading A gift for Scotland only – Christmas Eve, A&E death lies, BBC Scotland and Sandesh Gulhane

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Update to BBC Scotland and Alex Cole-Hamilton – Nearly two-thirds of delays are due to UK Network Rail which then compensates ScotRail to enable it to pay passengers less than 1p per on average from its own funds

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Cole-Hamilton off the rails From https://x.com/Caymanguy1234: Network Rail pays ScotRail if they are at fault. I wonder how much ScotRail received, compared to the payout to passengers? I haven’t been able to do that precisely but this is helpful. From Train Operating Company key statistics April 2022 to March 2023, Office of Rail and Road in August 2023: Network Rail was responsible for 410 942 minutes of delays due to infrastructure faults while ScotRail was only responsible for 241 688, in 2021-2022. In 2022-2023, it was 483 533 and 275 963. https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/2244/scotrail-key-statistics-2022-23.pdf Network Rail was thus responsible for 63% of … Continue reading Update to BBC Scotland and Alex Cole-Hamilton – Nearly two-thirds of delays are due to UK Network Rail which then compensates ScotRail to enable it to pay passengers less than 1p per on average from its own funds

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Fourth sub-poll, not distorted by sample weighting to match 2014 vote, reinforces notion that SNP is well ahead

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Today from Opinium based on data collected from 1 537, on 18-12 December 2024, we see: The Scottish subset of 110 has: A sub poll of only 110 has clear limitations in terms of reliability but this is the latest of 4 [c600 subjects in total] all telling the same story, of Cons, Lab and Reform all doing less well in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK and way behind the SNP. Source: https://www.opinium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/VI-2024-12-18-Observer-Data-Tables-211224.xlsx In the December 12th Find Out Now, Westminster poll of 2 659, we saw: The Scottish subset of 223, has: Source: https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/voting-intention-11th-dec-2024/ Only December 8th,  I noted: From Find Out Now on … Continue reading Fourth sub-poll, not distorted by sample weighting to match 2014 vote, reinforces notion that SNP is well ahead

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Homicide reduced by a third and robbery more than halved in first years of SNP rule

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Professor John Robertson OBA From the UK Government’s Serious Violence Strategy report in 2018, the above table revealing the uniquely dramatic fall in homicide in Scotland, following the election of the SNP minority government in Scotland in 2007. Many will, correctly, point out that such change will be due to more than one factor [see below] but had this happened under a Conservative and/or Labour Government in Scotland, they’d claim credit, or had homicide surged under the SNP, they’d be blamed for it. Even more dramatic, see below, robbery halved. Other factors? There is some evidence that improving health services can help … Continue reading Homicide reduced by a third and robbery more than halved in first years of SNP rule

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Lothian Labour – ‘people who put their own vanity, self-interest and ambitions [first], to be seen as king-makers, in positions of too much power’

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By stewartb In what is hardly a newspaper unsympathetic to the Labour Party in the Lothians, the coverage by the Edinburgh Evening News of the goings on amongst Labour councillors in the City of Edinburgh is noteworthy. From the Edinburgh Evening News, December 19, 2024, under the headline ‘Edinburgh council elects Labour’s Jane Meagher ….’ we find this (with my emphasis): (Labour) ‘Cllr Faccenda also abstained rather than vote for Cllr Meagher as council leader. She said there were principles which councillors were supposed to observe, the first of which was selflessness, defined as not allowing political interests to stand in … Continue reading Lothian Labour – ‘people who put their own vanity, self-interest and ambitions [first], to be seen as king-makers, in positions of too much power’

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Now there is another one – Labour Midlothian councillor stripped of the whip

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Anonymous Now there is another one , Labour Midlothian councillor Bryan Pottinger has been stripped of the Labour whip, on the 11 December , after what is now a second complaint that has been made about his behaviour. This is the second time an allegation has been made about him for two separate incidents and from two separate females. The Standards Commission for Scotland released their findings/conclusion on the first incident in 2023 relating to him. In 2023 a female councillor had alleged Pottinger had “behaved disrespectfully” and “had harassed her” in “making an “inappropriate comment about her underwear during a verbal exchange between them at a local event” It was determined by the Standards Commission for Scotland that “he … Continue reading Now there is another one – Labour Midlothian councillor stripped of the whip

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Why Scotland’s headline drug death figures are currently not based on a reliable measure

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Professor John Robertson OBA Media and opposition parties are morbidly determined to hang onto Scotland’s drug death status as a rare apparently objective stick to beat the SNP Government into submission with. Earlier this year, they were all irrepressibly delighted to hear that there was a 12% increase from 2022 to 2023, following disturbing, for them, reductions in each of the two previous years after nearly three decades of satisfyingly climbing figures.1 These National Records of Scotland data are based on post mortem blood tests and commonly presented as more reliable than the Suspected drug deaths in Scotland. The latter are collected … Continue reading Why Scotland’s headline drug death figures are currently not based on a reliable measure

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Safe drug consumption – handing the fruits of the SNP’s long efforts to Labour and hiding Glasgow and Scotland’s achievements

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Professor John Robertson OBA The Guardian above, painting a very Scottish initiative as belonging to the UK. UK Conservative governments have long refused, since at least 2019, requests from the SNP Government in Scotland, for permission to even pilot a safe drug consumption room. In 2021, long after the first calls were made, the Scottish Government published an evidence paper1 which made the strongest of cases for such facilities but still permission was refused. Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer in 2023, made it clear he agreed and that he did not wish to see any changes in drug laws, if elected in … Continue reading Safe drug consumption – handing the fruits of the SNP’s long efforts to Labour and hiding Glasgow and Scotland’s achievements