Tag: scotland

5 Comments

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

johnrobertson834

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

2 Comments

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

johnrobertson834

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

1 Comment

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

johnrobertson834

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’

11 Comments

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

johnrobertson834

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

4 Comments

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?

johnrobertson834

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?

3 Comments

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

johnrobertson834

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

2 Comments

There are NO places in Scotland where anything close to this horrific claim of ‘almost 100% of children live in poverty’ but there are 73, SEVENTY-THREE, in England

johnrobertson834

Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to Dottie for alerting us to this. In the Guardian yesterday, the above and: Almost 100% of children in 73 neighbourhoods in England are living in income-deprived families, according to new measures that factor in the impact of soaring rents. Changes to official measures reveal the neighbourhoods where in effect all children live in low-income households. Of these, 31 are in inner London boroughs with high housing costs such as Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Haringey and Westminster. The new indices of multiple deprivation confirm that attempts at levelling up have failed to shift stubbornly high levels of deprivation in so-called … Continue reading There are NO places in Scotland where anything close to this horrific claim of ‘almost 100% of children live in poverty’ but there are 73, SEVENTY-THREE, in England

7 Comments

The case for or against approval of Western Link 2 from Ayrshire to Wales and the West Midlands

johnrobertson834

Professor John Robertson OBA In the map above you can see the full range of networks transferring electricity from wind farms in Scottish waters, across the border into England & Wales. It’s a dramatic illustration of the UK’s increasing dependency on Scotland’s electricity generation. Just how much? From Energy Statistics for Scotland – Q2 2025 published today: In the second quarter of 2025, 8.1 TWh of renewable electricity was generated in Scotland. This is the most renewable electricity generated in the second quarter of any year in Scotland Scotland’s capacity for electricity generation from renewable sources has continued to increase and currently stands … Continue reading The case for or against approval of Western Link 2 from Ayrshire to Wales and the West Midlands

1 Comment

There is no ‘care home crisis’ really as 14% of places are unfilled, just as in 2015, ten years ago

johnrobertson834

Professor John Robertson OBA The Scottish media is awash with reports of a care home crisis as ‘elderly people struggle to access care‘ based on feeds from opposition parties. Typical is this from the Scottish Lib Dems in The Democrat yesterday: The crisis in social care is spiralling under the SNP after new figures revealed almost one in five care homes for adults has closed over the past decade. Scottish Liberal Democrat MP Angus MacDonald has today revealed the new census figures for this section of the care sector. West Dunbartonshire Council refuse to reveal the local figures to readers … Continue reading There is no ‘care home crisis’ really as 14% of places are unfilled, just as in 2015, ten years ago

2 Comments

In only 4 minutes, four out of four BBC Scotland broadcast reports aim to worry viewers and three are explicitly associated with Scottish Government responsibility

johnrobertson834

Professor John Robertson OBA Following on from a tale of ‘serious’ concerns in a maternity unit, BBC Scotland’s four morning inserts were all equally concerning and three of them were explicitly linked to Scottish Government (SNP) responsibility as in the first, above, on prison overcrowding. I’ve discussed several times before how such a morning diet for viewers, especially the elderly and the vulnerable, predisposes them to conservative political preferences and against change such as Scottish independence. For research evidence of this see: Reporting Scotland Darkly – how research reveals only BBC Scotland’s editors select the nightmares to make you so … Continue reading In only 4 minutes, four out of four BBC Scotland broadcast reports aim to worry viewers and three are explicitly associated with Scottish Government responsibility