Tag: politics

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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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As BBC Scotland revisit the scandal the still untold story of how Labour failed to protect Scots from infected blood!

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Professor John Robertson OBA BBC Scotland is broadcasting tragic stories today of those infected by blood transfusions: Between 1970 and the early 1990s, more than 30,000 NHS patients were given blood transfusions, or treatments made using blood products, which were contaminated with hep C or HIV. Some of the blood was from abroad, but in Scotland, the majority came from Scottish donors which included prisoners and drug users. Nowhere in the extended reporting is it made clear which political parties were in Government, thus responsible for the tragedy. Here is the necessary clarification: On May 17th, the head of the Scottish … Continue reading As BBC Scotland revisit the scandal the still untold story of how Labour failed to protect Scots from infected blood!

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Child poverty in ‘UK’ soars to almost 50% higher than in Scotland with gap only likely to widen and a resulting increase of dying young

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Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to Dottie for alerting me to this: Published in Nursing Practice of 29 September 2025, One-third of UK children grow up in poverty with higher risk of dying young: In 2023/24, nearly a third [31%] of children in the UK (4.5 million) were living in relative poverty after housing costs, with one million of these children based in the North of England. In some constituencies, such as Birmingham Ladywood, the figures are higher, with 62 per cent of children living in poverty [32%in Glasgow] . This report highlights how the situation is worsening, with researchers … Continue reading Child poverty in ‘UK’ soars to almost 50% higher than in Scotland with gap only likely to widen and a resulting increase of dying young

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How Jim Murphy has made millions in Starmer era from his ‘lobbying behemoth’

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By Liz S Long comment but really crucial as something that really exposes the sheer hypocrisy and blatant double standards applied by the Labour party…and also those individuals still connected to them. You know most people in Scotland, and elsewhere, may not realise that one of the biggest political losers in Scottish politics and also a very unpopular Labour leader in Scotland , Jim Murphy , has apparently now been ‘winning’ since ‘losing’ Labour a majority of their Labour MP’s in the 2015 UK GE………where he lost Labour 40 MP’s in Scotland out of total of 41….which included him losing in his own constituency. Yesterday , The Times newspaper did a piece on him … Continue reading How Jim Murphy has made millions in Starmer era from his ‘lobbying behemoth’

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Ferret factchecker’s toxic dialogue suggests dramatically ebbing tide of racially-aggravated hate crime in Scotland threatening to just about disappear here, along with their far-right groups

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Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to Bob Lamont for alerting us to this. The Ferret is in the National today with the above and: At least 20 incidents linked to anti-migrant protests, racism and the far right in the last two months have exposed rising political tensions across Scotland. They included attacks on mosques and asylum hotels, alleged assaults – and the jailing of a neo-Nazi for slashing a student in the face with a knife. The Ferret found there were at least 17 arrests linked to anti-migrant protests, and police are investigating a number of alleged hate crimes. Anti-racism … Continue reading Ferret factchecker’s toxic dialogue suggests dramatically ebbing tide of racially-aggravated hate crime in Scotland threatening to just about disappear here, along with their far-right groups

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‘Gangs of sinister, feral young men’ from England fuelling Scotland’s drug deaths, targeting vulnerable women and causing small town violence surges

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Professor John Robertson OBA The Scotsman last week had: Gangs of sinister, feral young men show why Police Scotland needs extra £140 million – Police Scotland’s Chief Constable Jo Farrell has sounded an alarm that politicians must heed Just who these young men are where they come from is left out so that readers might think they’re Scots but they’re not. As far back as 2018, the Liverpool Echo began a run of reports telling exactly where they’re from, with: How Liverpool’s drug criminals are fuelling Scotland’s gang wars In 2022: Liverpool drug gangs target Scots towns and cities as … Continue reading ‘Gangs of sinister, feral young men’ from England fuelling Scotland’s drug deaths, targeting vulnerable women and causing small town violence surges

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PM Starmer still confuses references to the place over which he governs

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stewartb Labour List published the transcript of Keir Starmer’s speech at the recent British Labour Party conference. (see https://labourlist.org/2025/09/labour-conference-2025-keir-starmer-speech-in-full/ ) Despite the best efforts (?) of his speech writers, PM Starmer still confuses references to the place over which he governs. Here are some extracts from the speech, with my comments. ‘It is a great country… It will always be a great country… ………… That’s the Britain I’m fighting for, conference… A nation of resolve… A land of respect… A Britain built for all.’ – we start here with ‘Britain’ being a single country AND a single nation. ‘That’s the most important aspect of … Continue reading PM Starmer still confuses references to the place over which he governs

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‘Proud’ Englishman’s attempt to patronise Scots is embarrassing afterthought

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By Liz S On the BBC website Scottish Politics page. Starmer expresses pride in saltire as he vows UK ‘renewal’ Well actually the content of this article specifies that he , in his conference speech, stated “”I’m not just proud of the union jack and the cross of St George, I’m also proud of the saltire, proud of the red dragon, proud of our union.” So not just noting “pride” in the Saltire then….and also what Union is it that he is referring to ? Also if he is so “proud” of the Saltire then why is it that he only produces a video every year on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) on St George’s day and declares what he thinks it means … Continue reading ‘Proud’ Englishman’s attempt to patronise Scots is embarrassing afterthought

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A tale of BBC Scotland’s response to Scottish Government press releases – how widespread, how blatant is bias by omission becoming?

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By stewartb Each and every working day at 1600 hours, the Scottish Government sends out an e-mail headed ‘Daily news update’. This collates all press releases issued that day, presumably in part as an aid to journalists. You will often find one or more of the day’s topics referred to here on TuS. But by BBC Scotland or the wider mainstream media in Scotland? Not so much!  Is amplifying positive news from the present Scottish Government too much of a threat to Unionist politicians? Whilst the nature of BBC journalism in Scotland is well known to readers of this blog, … Continue reading A tale of BBC Scotland’s response to Scottish Government press releases – how widespread, how blatant is bias by omission becoming?