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‘The SNP have been useful advocates of pragmatic drug reform…often stymied by legal constraints imposed from Westminster’

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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 stewartb “Reform UK MSPs are scapegoating and supporting calls for the abolition of the Scottish Parliament” – and so place drugs policy solely under the responsibility of the Westminster government and specifically the Home Office? That’s their plan? Nobody would deny Scotland has a serious drugs problem but if this is the proposition then it seems reasonable to ask Reform this: when will the UK government act to replicate in England and Wales the downward trend in drug deaths being seen in Scotland? The last release of statistics … Continue reading ‘The SNP have been useful advocates of pragmatic drug reform…often stymied by legal constraints imposed from Westminster’

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Violent crime in England & Wales is 8 times more common than in Scotland…per square mile

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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 When rtpscott replied in https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2026/09/25/drug-deaths-simple-language-not-simplistic-solutions/: The population of England in 2026 is estimated to be approximately 58.8 million people, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. Scotland’s population was estimated at 5,545,500 as of mid-2025 by the National Records of Scotland (NRS), marking a slow growth of less than 0.1% from the previous year Maybe I am being stupid but using these two figures how is it that Scotland has more recorded drug deaths than England I doubt that MSM will look into that,anything to do down … Continue reading Violent crime in England & Wales is 8 times more common than in Scotland…per square mile

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Decades ago Scottish Labour planted the seeds of Glasgow’s ongoing equal pay troubles

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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 Michael Marra posted this on ‘X’ “It beggars belief that the SNP council is threatening to railroad through fire and rehire before it is made illegal in this country by the UK Labour government. It may not break the letter of the law but it certainly breaks the spirit of it. It’s a despicable way to treat working people. It’s straight out the Tory playbook. All parties need to get round the table and hammer out a deal,and working people should never be threatened like this … Continue reading Decades ago Scottish Labour planted the seeds of Glasgow’s ongoing equal pay troubles

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DRUG DEATHS – SIMPLE LANGUAGE. NOT SIMPLISTIC SOLUTIONS.

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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 Mark E. Saunders of “The Scottish Minuteman” https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=61575625542197 Scotland is regularly described as having the highest drug-death rate in Europe. Although there is an argument to be made that this comparison is based on a false equivalence, today has been no different. And as a quick-fix, Reform UK MSPs are scapegoating and supporting calls for the abolition of the Scottish Parliament. But what exactly would abolishing Holyrood achieve? Scotland’s drug problem did not begin with devolution. It began decades before it. During the 1980s and 1990s, Scotland developed a particularly large population … Continue reading DRUG DEATHS – SIMPLE LANGUAGE. NOT SIMPLISTIC SOLUTIONS.

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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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How long do ‘Vietnamese’ trafficking gangs have to live and work in England until they become ‘English’ before 16 years later they spread into Scotland?

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BBC Scotland today reporting ‘Vietnamese’ people trafficking gangs operating in Scotland, leaving viewers to think they came directly from and are managed from, say, Hanoi. 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 Readers will know that County Lines gangs terrorising Scotland from Dumfries to Wick, arriving here as ‘heavies’ from Liverpool, Birmingham, Bradford or London are never referred to in Scottish media, as Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Somali, Irish, Jamaican or, heaven forfend, ‘English’ though the communities they come from are described as such in England. So, why is BBC Scotland so comfortable with ‘Vietnamese’ when refugees from … Continue reading How long do ‘Vietnamese’ trafficking gangs have to live and work in England until they become ‘English’ before 16 years later they spread into Scotland?

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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

johnrobertson834

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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How Scottish Labour’s betrayal of Glasgow in the 1980s created a place of excess child death that even 20 years of Scottish Government success in reducing child poverty cannot remove

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rate of any UK nation. 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 It’s true, 10.1 deaths among 1 to 15s in 2024, compared to 8.5 in England, 6.4 in Wales and 10.0 in Northern Ireland. It’s been like this for decades. Why? These guys knew 10 years ago: The RCPCH report itself states that social and economic disadvantage in early childhood is closely linked to higher child mortality. What follows is based on the research published by the above researchers, comparing Glasgow with Liverpool and Manchester. The long-standing “Scottish effect.” Even after researchers adjust for current … Continue reading How Scottish Labour’s betrayal of Glasgow in the 1980s created a place of excess child death that even 20 years of Scottish Government success in reducing child poverty cannot remove

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Agricultural support payments – 81% paid in Scotland and ‘extreme cashflow difficulties’ in England

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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 From the Scottish Government today at 10.30am but getting no coverage even on the BBC Business site. More than £296 million in agricultural support has been paid out to Scottish farmers and crofters since the start of September. As of 11 September, Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) and Greening funding has been paid to 81% of anticipated eligible businesses, with the payment window closing in July next year. The Scottish Government’s BPS supplements agriculture income, while Greening payments encourage agricultural practices that benefit the environment and climate. and notably this … Continue reading Agricultural support payments – 81% paid in Scotland and ‘extreme cashflow difficulties’ in England