Tag: politics

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Christmas Factcheck – Jackie Baillie’s local hospital cancels fewer operations than most yet she betrays the staff for cheap ill-informed point-scoring

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By Professor John Robertson OBA I know, get a life, but I’ve had a drink and rest of the family are watching Gavin an Stacey. I can’t concentrate, still furious and nauseated by the Jackie Baillie / Herald, Christmas Eve attack on the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank. Using their own data, ‘modelled’ in some way, they suggest that this hospital is doing less operations and that SNP failures lie behind that. So, at 01.10am, I access the actual, raw not ‘modelled’, data and, lo and behold, the Golden Jubilee, month after month for the last six (ringed in purple below) has … Continue reading Christmas Factcheck – Jackie Baillie’s local hospital cancels fewer operations than most yet she betrays the staff for cheap ill-informed point-scoring

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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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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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If you are a Labour councillor in Scotland and do not vote with the Tories against the SNP then you will  be suspended but if there are allegations of “sexual harassment” then no worries your job is safe

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Anonymous Apparently “Labour in Scotland received Cammy Day complaint ‘almost two years’ before suspension”. The complaint being a “sexual harassment complaint” against the Edinburgh Labour council leader Cammy Day, that is the same Edinburgh Labour council that suspended two of it’s Labour councillors for not voting with the Tories. So if you are a Labour councillor in Scotland and you do not vote with the Tories against the SNP then you will get suspended, however if there are allegations against you of “sexual harassment” as a Labour councillor and leader, then no worries your job and place in Labour is safe, well that is until someone exposes that scandalous news. This is the same Labour party whose so called leader in Scotland … Continue reading If you are a Labour councillor in Scotland and do not vote with the Tories against the SNP then you will  be suspended but if there are allegations of “sexual harassment” then no worries your job is safe

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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

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3 years after SNP end all hospital parking charges, hospital staff in England pay more that £50 per week

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Frankly, I’m shocked to hear today, the BBC report that one English hospital has just announced free Christmas parking, only days after a Brighton hospital essential worker reported paying more than £50 per week. Yesterday, I parked free at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank, never thinking for a minute than anyone paid to park for a hospital visit, these days. The SNP scrapped the charges in 2008. Surely Gordon Brown while PM then would have scrapped them in England too, as he ‘led’ the UK into the 2010 General Election, if he had any gumption, never mind compassion. He … Continue reading 3 years after SNP end all hospital parking charges, hospital staff in England pay more that £50 per week

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Hospital admissions – why are flu intensive care cases not ‘notably increased’ in Scotland but ‘risk overwhelming hospitals’ in England?

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Professor John Robertson OBA To set the scene for this report, do listen to John Grady MP for Glasgow East, corporate lawyer and holder of a typical Edinburgh University accent, above. If you can, then read on. From the Guardian yesterday: Surge in flu cases risks overwhelming hospitals in England, says NHS chief – Health service concerned that early ‘flood’ of infections will be made worse by family gatherings at Christmas…Last week 125 people were so seriously ill with flu they were being treated in critical care, almost double the 66 who were receiving life-or-death care because of the virus the week … Continue reading Hospital admissions – why are flu intensive care cases not ‘notably increased’ in Scotland but ‘risk overwhelming hospitals’ in England?