Tag: politics

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17 newspapers sense a damp squib tonight but BBC Scotland positively lust for ‘Bonfire Night Disorder

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Professor John Robertson OBA BBC Scotland‘s newspaper review – Scotland’s papers: Plea to probe killer Beggs and tax hike ‘fears’ – has 17 of them and not so much as one wee banger on their front pages, yet they have the above. Once a week, for a month, from 9 September raising fears based on the actual disorder two years ago but using the figures from the year before because in real last year offences had plummeted unhelpfully. How it started: It’s kind of predictable that they would operate in this way, trying to scare the vulnerable and elderly into … Continue reading 17 newspapers sense a damp squib tonight but BBC Scotland positively lust for ‘Bonfire Night Disorder

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BBC Scotland amplified her unsubstantiated charge, so it’s a political ‘win’ in advance of the Holyrood election

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By stewartb Lots of BBC coverage online of NHS Scotland today (November 4), but no space for positive news! Lots of quotes from opposition politicians amplified (without challenge of course) by BBC Scotland, by the media organisation that supposedly performs a public service. For example, the British Labour Party’s deputy leader and health spokesperson in Scotland is working to undermine public trust through her (unsubstantiated and unchallenged) claims of ‘fiddling’ data. On October 28, Public Health Scotland published this statement from its Director of Data and Digital Innovation and Head of Profession for Statistics: ‘Updating the frequency of our waiting … Continue reading BBC Scotland amplified her unsubstantiated charge, so it’s a political ‘win’ in advance of the Holyrood election

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‘The Home Office and policing do not have a shared understanding of the resource implications of changing demands’

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By stewartb The National Audit Office (NAO, November 3, 2025) published this report: ‘Police productivity – Home Office. Report HC 1380’. (https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/police-productivity.pdf) It is concerned with policing in England and Wales. The NAO notes that the Home Office allocates the majority of police funding for England and Wales. Why relevant to TuS and to Scotland? In common with other devolved public services, what the UK government decides on resources for policing in England and Wales impacts financial resources made available to the Scottish Government via the so-called Block Grant. And it is not only the size of the Block Grant that is impacted but … Continue reading ‘The Home Office and policing do not have a shared understanding of the resource implications of changing demands’

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Wealth Extraction – Another supposed supporter of independence works against it by denying colonialism and blaming the SNP

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Professor John Robertson OBA Like Wings and Craig Murray and Kevin McKenna, Robin McAlpine of Common Weal cannot get over the SNP leadership’s failure to recognise his supreme intelligence and usefulness to their policy development back in 2014. Still in the huff, he’s in the National today with the above and: If you support independence then I urge you to take a moment’s break from strategising about how to get a referendum (or whatever alternative plan you’re hatching) and take a look at a graph. It should be a rocket up our arse. It is time we took independence an … Continue reading Wealth Extraction – Another supposed supporter of independence works against it by denying colonialism and blaming the SNP

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Why Scots have a ‘critically low’ democratic well-being score – the 50 years theft of their energy supplies for one thing?

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Professor John Robertson OBA Carnegie UK today have reported (previous TuS post) that Scots have a ‘critically low‘ democratic well-being score of only 40%. Who is surprised? I’m surprised it’s not zero, same as mine. If you are at all aware of Scotland’s 300 year plus and current predicament in the Union, how could you get anywhere near 40%. Given their many problems with crap governance but at least their own crap government, 40% would be a fair guess for Ireland. I asked the document’s built in AI why this might be. It just listed all the wee parts leading … Continue reading Why Scots have a ‘critically low’ democratic well-being score – the 50 years theft of their energy supplies for one thing?

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Scots have ‘critically low’ democratic well-being staying in UK but are ‘twice as likely to have high trust’ in SNP Government even after 18 years – How did BBC Scotland cope with this?

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Professor John Robertson OBA From a large survey by Paris-based Ipsos for Carnegie UK, into wellbeing index for Scotland in 2025, highlighting collective wellbeing scores across various domains and demographic factors, BBC Scotland in their BBC Breakfast insert this morning, ignored the document’s built-in ‘Generative Summary‘, from the AI Assistant in order to extract their own agenda-driven headline points: Wellbeing has improved slightly in spite of the cost of living crisis. The Scottish Government continues to be trusted more than UK Government although trust in Westminster did improve while it stayed the same for Holyrood. Democratic well-being has not improved … Continue reading Scots have ‘critically low’ democratic well-being staying in UK but are ‘twice as likely to have high trust’ in SNP Government even after 18 years – How did BBC Scotland cope with this?

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If NHS Scotland was performing worse than NHS England, the British Labour Party in Scotland’s condemnation of the SNP in government might be justified but it’s not so it’s not

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stewartb On the face of it, these extreme waits referenced by the British Labour Party deputy leader in Scotland are wholly unacceptable. Why did they occur? Unless we know why, we can’t determine whether they are indicative of a whole system failure; local failure or indeed local incompetence; or due to particular clinical situations. We are very far from knowing where responsibility lies – local clinical management, health board management/oversight, Scottish Government officials, Minsters? The British Labour Party in Scotland gets away with its ‘NHS “won’t survive” another SNP term’ nonsense only because the mainstream media in Scotland is unwilling … Continue reading If NHS Scotland was performing worse than NHS England, the British Labour Party in Scotland’s condemnation of the SNP in government might be justified but it’s not so it’s not

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UKIP, The Brexit Party and now Reform UK are all cheeks that have stemmed from the same Arse….and that Arse’s name is Nigel Farage

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By Liz S Talking of migrants…….sorry long comment , but most of it consists of a transcript of a TV report by SKY News. Connor Gillies, SKY News Scottish correspondent , did a TV report on SKY News on the 30 October where he had been allowed into a Reform UK meeting in Glasgow, he advised us the viewers that he had apparently been trying to access one within Scotland for 10 months. Why ? He met and interviewed various people at the meeting including an existing Reform UK Councillor, Audrey Dempsey, who had previously been a Labour Councillor but she was suspended by the … Continue reading UKIP, The Brexit Party and now Reform UK are all cheeks that have stemmed from the same Arse….and that Arse’s name is Nigel Farage

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UK Labour deny England’s under-22’s the ‘transformative benefit’ of Scotland’s free bus scheme as it hits more than 200 million journeys

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Thanks to Dottie for alerting me to this: From BBC Business two days ago: A proposed plan to trial free bus passes for under-22s in England will not go ahead as it is “unaffordable” at the moment, the government has said. The trial was one of a number of recommendations put forward by the Transport Committee, a cross-party group of backbench MPs,in a report this August – with the suggestion it would boost access to jobs and education. In its response, published on Friday, the government said no money was available for such a scheme during the current spending review period, which … Continue reading UK Labour deny England’s under-22’s the ‘transformative benefit’ of Scotland’s free bus scheme as it hits more than 200 million journeys

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Scotland IS different as it protects unaccompanied children seeking asylum

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Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian, today, the above and: More than 50 lone child asylum seekers who disappeared soon after arriving in the UK [sic] and while in the care of the authorities are still missing, according to data obtained by the Guardian. Many of the missing children arrived in small boats or hidden in the backs of lorries and are thought to have been taken by traffickers. Kent is often the place where they arrive. Freedom of information data from Kent county council (KCC), which is controlled by Reform UK, has documented 345 children going missing from their area, … Continue reading Scotland IS different as it protects unaccompanied children seeking asylum