Tag: writing

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England’s Pisa scores are based only on a tiny selective sample of higher achieving schools making Paul O’Kane’s sad desperate attempt to claim they are better than Scotland just another under-educated failure from Scottish Labour

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON Paul O’Kane Labour MSP and former head boy, seems delighted to be suggesting that Scotland’s schools education system is worse than England’s, with the above, from those other head boys at the IFS. Paul and the lads at the IFS are clearly out of their depth here. There’s something important in the actual figures from the OECD, in this table: See the wee asterisk there? What does it mean? Notes: Values that are statistically significant are marked in … Continue reading England’s Pisa scores are based only on a tiny selective sample of higher achieving schools making Paul O’Kane’s sad desperate attempt to claim they are better than Scotland just another under-educated failure from Scottish Labour

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Disappointment in BBC News as Scotland not even half way to being ‘rape capital’ of the UK

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON BBC Reporting Scotland flying solo again to hit you with a dose of early morning anxiety, headlining with a story mysteriously and entirely absent, from their website: Why would they pull this one out for the early morning short reports where they feel they have an excuse having no context, as below? See this: Would a bit of context have been useful for readers? This kind of thing? On 25 June 2025, I wrote: The media in Scotland are … Continue reading Disappointment in BBC News as Scotland not even half way to being ‘rape capital’ of the UK

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Daily Record’s ‘Horror street drug ‘pyro’ sweeping Scotland as addicts found dead in the street’ is being produced by a county lines gang from a city in England setting up labs here but you don’t need to hear that UK-bad story it seems

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON That’s the Record‘s headline yesterday and: Scotland’s homeless community has told of the horror of contaminated street drugs – after 81 people died in three months after taking synthetic opioid “pyro”. Nitazenes, produced in illegal labs and used as cutting agents in heroin and benzos, are now implicated in an eighth of all suspected drug deaths, data shows. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/horror-deadly-synthetic-drugs-scots-36797256 Where are these illegal labs? In the Independent last September: Police have uncovered the first drug lab for nitazenes in the UK, … Continue reading Daily Record’s ‘Horror street drug ‘pyro’ sweeping Scotland as addicts found dead in the street’ is being produced by a county lines gang from a city in England setting up labs here but you don’t need to hear that UK-bad story it seems

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As it falls in NHS Scotland, BBC England evidence for corridor care surges in North of England is based correctly on our method and not that used by the Herald and repeated lazily by BBC Scotland

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON From BBC England today, the above and: More than 52,000 patients waited longer than 24 hours to be admitted to hospitals across north-west England last year, a BBC investigation has revealed. Known as “corridor care”, patients are lining up on trolleys or sitting on chairs, stuck in A&E because there are no beds for them in the wards. The Royal College of Nursing has described the situation as a “national emergency” and called on the government to end … Continue reading As it falls in NHS Scotland, BBC England evidence for corridor care surges in North of England is based correctly on our method and not that used by the Herald and repeated lazily by BBC Scotland

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Scotland IS different as it protects unaccompanied children seeking asylum

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON Prompted by today’s news of a planned child cruelty register for England, this: In the Guardian, November 2nd 2025, 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 … Continue reading Scotland IS different as it protects unaccompanied children seeking asylum

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Property and violent crime in Scotland has fallen by 37% since 2008-09 based on statistics that go beyond just police reporting including responses from the public

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON From the Safer Communities and Justice Statistics Monthly Data Report: February 2026, published today: Property and violent crime has fallen by 37% since 2008-09. Results from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) show that one-in-five (19.9%) adults were estimated to have experienced at least one crime in 2023-24. This included property crime (10.3% of adults), violent crime (2.9%) and for the first time fraud and computer misuse (9.5%). The latest findings show that the overall level of property … Continue reading Property and violent crime in Scotland has fallen by 37% since 2008-09 based on statistics that go beyond just police reporting including responses from the public

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As opposition parties claim ‘mismanagement’ of prisons in Scotland how Lammy released 4 times as many prisoners by error, per head, than in Scotland and at least 12 times as many in November

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON Alerted by the above from MSM Monitor, I thought I’d find out the answer to those in Scotland who will insist – “Aye it’s just as f*****g bad here, pal!” It’s not, by no means. First, England, with sources: MoJ Partial Data (April 1–October 31, 2025): 91 releases in error, equivalent to ~3 per week. Disclosed by Justice Secretary David Lammy in parliamentary statements and published via MoJ. Recent Updates (November 1–December 2, 2025): 12 additional releases, with 2 still at … Continue reading As opposition parties claim ‘mismanagement’ of prisons in Scotland how Lammy released 4 times as many prisoners by error, per head, than in Scotland and at least 12 times as many in November

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NHS England has second-worst month for 12-hour waits in Emergency Departments on record!

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON By stewartb In NHS Scotland – ‘A&E performance around Christmas peak pressure suggests major improvements’ – not in NHS England it seems when it comes to the important ‘over 12 hour waits’ metric! The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) had this headline for a press release on February 12: ‘The wheels have come off’: predictably busy January exposes ‘fragile’ NHS system as A&Es swamped with patients needing beds’. That was its view following the publication of NHS England’s Emergency … Continue reading NHS England has second-worst month for 12-hour waits in Emergency Departments on record!

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NHS England’s troubled maternity units already paying to settle negligence lawsuits at twice the level in Scotland will have to pay even more

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above. Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON In the Guardian today, the above and: The NHS will have to spend more money settling lawsuits involving negligence during childbirth after a supreme court ruling that lawyers said puts right a “historic injustice”. The court ruled on Wednesday that children in England who suffer catastrophic injuries while they are being born can claim damages for future earnings they would otherwise have had. The ruling on “lost years damages” means that children whose life expectancy is shortened can recover compensation for … Continue reading NHS England’s troubled maternity units already paying to settle negligence lawsuits at twice the level in Scotland will have to pay even more

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Supporting the Guardian if you are for Scottish Independence – an open letter to the editor

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Katherine Viner, Editor, the Guardian, katharine.viner@guardian.co.uk Dear Katharine I’d really like to contribute to the Guardian but cannot because of the 12th September 2014 editorial, telling Scots to vote No in the referendum on independence, a few days later:  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/12/guardian-view-scottish-independence In 1967, aged 16, starting Higher History classes in an industrial Scottish town, our teacher suggested we needed to start reading a serious newspaper, and on the following Sunday, I walked into town, had a look around and bought the Observer. I was stunned by its content. My parents took a tabloid, and I had no idea such rich, fascinating material … Continue reading Supporting the Guardian if you are for Scottish Independence – an open letter to the editor