The whole idea of a public service broadcaster only works in a theoretical world where you can trust professionals to act on your behalf, unafraid and not chummy with politicians. BBC Scotland’s naked bias against the independence movement is the most recent and sharpest of justifications for binning the whole venture but they have a long history of ideological distortions, going back to...

From Douglas Fraser, BBC Scotland’s Business/economy editor, today: Prices are already up. Household bills have been capped, and that cap is likely to rise by about 50% from April. There’s no way out of the rising bills. Ofgem, the regulator, is obliged by law to pass on the costs of sourcing energy. bbc.co.uk/...s-60016038 Not, of course,...

Assuming, he wrote the headline, I have to disagree with Neal Ascherson for the first time in my life. In 1967, instructed by my Higher History teacher to start reading a serious newspaper, I bought the Observer and an article by Neal opened my eyes. More recently, I nominated him for an honorary degree at UWS. But, this notion that Scotland is a small c, conservative nation is very out-of-date....

You won’t find the data for Wales, Scotland or NI in this extended report with analysis by Nick Triggle, because: Yes, the stricter pandemic measure in the three non-English parts, seem to be working better and, sssh, Scotland is doing best. The above won’t be reported because they prefer this kind of thing from July 2021:

We’ve been here before, no bleedin’ percentages, just some zeros to get you worried and then Jackie ‘Trident’ Baillie’s face to send you into deepest despair. To be fair, it’s not just the SM, hardly any journalist will ever use a percentage because they are death to the dramatic headline. You need zeros, lots of them! So, 150 care workers, every day? Yes, but...

Infection rates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have fallen fast as the pandemic seems to be moving toward an endemic phase. A failure to, in particular, maintain face-covering and non-party compliance during the surge, seems likely to have caused the more stubborn infections rate in England. A price will have been paid for this in deaths and in long-Covid among younger people.

every day last week – the highest since the start of the pandemic. bbc.co.uk/...s-14012022 In the morning of the 15th January 2022, Reporting Scotland told us that ‘about’ 52 200 staff were off in the week-ending 11 January. They had stupidly added up the absences from each day to get that nice big figure, ignoring the...

Like some kind of death cult, BBC Scotland celebrate only death and infection milestones. BBC Wales is, of course, still celebrating their steep fall in infection rates; the same as in Scotland but not mentioned here. BBC England did report the UK’s 150 000 deaths last week but England’s grave milestones, such as 100 000 deaths, months ago, are not mentioned. Most important of all,...

every day last week – the highest since the start of the pandemic. bbc.co.uk/...s-14012022 A few hours or so after I pointed out their kiddy arithmetic error in just adding up the daily figures and getting more than 50 000 off, one third of all staff and five sevenths of nursing staff, Reporting Scotland was presenting the...

every day last week – the highest since the start of the pandemic. bbc.co.uk/...ive/bbcone Well they sorted out their arithmetical errors from the this morning: but they still haven’t, in a long report, informed us how close to the highest we now are or what percentage of the highest, today’s figure is. I’d like to know that. Wouldn’t you? It’s...

BBC Wales today, above. BBC Scotland today, below: The evidence: Does Scotland deserve no praise because we did have such a high rate to fall from? The pattern:

BBC Complaints – Case number CAS-7061170-W8T5K4 NHS Scotland staff absences  In the Reporting Scotland insert we were told that ‘about 50,200 NHS staff were off work in the week to 11 January.’ There are only just over 70 000 nursing staff altogether. The official figure for that week was actually 7...

to the 11th January. bbc.co.uk/...ive/bbcone When I saw that ‘about 50 200’ this morning, I thought two things. First, there were 71 822 nursing staff in Scotland in September 2021 and more than 50 000 of them were off in one week? The average 12 year-old pupil has been taught to recognise the implausible and go back to the numbers again. Second, why...

Four years after the Times first released to story of Labour’s Barry Gardiner and just as Johnson and the Queen need a little distraction, MI5 re-release the story of the Chinese spy funding a Labour minister. What next? In 2015, David Leask, thought by some to be MI5’s man at the Herald gave us the above. No doubt have something tenuous on an SNP figure stashed away for another rainy...

By stewartb NHS A&E waiting times performance is a recurring topic here on TuS.  We know that the weekly releases of data for meeting the 4-hour standard in Scotland is also common feature of BBC Scotland’s news coverage – well at least it is when the latest release records a decrease in performance, however small.  Improvements in overall performance or exemplary performance...

Raw sewage, microplastics and slurry are coursing through all of England’s rivers, putting health and nature at risk, a parliamentary report concludes. Agriculture and water companies are the biggest contributors to this “chemical cocktail”, the Environmental Audit Committee warns. Car tyre particles, oils and wet wipes are also clogging waterways. People across the country using...

John’s recent publication of an SNP Media piece (https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2022/01/11/electricity-transmission-charges-england-subsidised-scotland-to-pay-465m/) focuses rightly on the charging regime imposed by National Grid on generating plants to carry their electricity. The SNP claim that Scotland is paying £465 million a year to put electricity on the grid, but England and Wales get...

This morning Tom Gordon in the Herald performs his one trick pony trick of talking about the First Minister. I think he might be a bit annoyed, for he suggests that she is in danger of “making a fool of herself”, and that after all is Tom’s job. I might have written a letter about it, but I have had far too many letters critical of Uncle Tom hit the spike to be bothered, so I wrote this...

‘Case rates lowest in unvaccinated?’ We know that many do not read beyond headlines, so that line matters. The article does go on to explain with the help of Prof Kao at Edinburgh University: So, this does not mean vaccines don’t work but the headline implies that. Irresponsible.

All of the MSM coverage has sided with the academics given the task of making recommendations to the Scottish Government on how to reduce drug deaths. Yet, the same media, fed by opposition parties, have accused the ‘the SNP Government’ regularly of failure to act, of betraying drug-users. The taskforce was set up in July (not September as BBC Scotland say) 2019. Millions have been...