On Day 4 of the Herald/Labour/Ferret hatchet job on the SNP Government’s record in protecting the environment, as we approach COP26: Scotland’s rivers, lochs, canals and burns are in the worst state on record, with more than 400 damaged by pollution and other problems, according to the latest official analysis. ...

Between the spring of 1788 and summer of 1790 fifty seven complaints were made to London Magistrates by women alleging that they had been molested and stabbed [on the buttocks] by an individual stranger in public. eprints.soton.ac.uk/...ersion.pdf Reports of ‘lady bottom cutters’ then spread like wildfire across the newly emerging...

BBC Scotland headed their September 16 report with ‘Sturgeon under fire over ‘in crisis’ ambulance service‘ and gave Douglas Ross the leading role. They had no photos and no data on ambulances waiting outside A&E but faux angry tirades from three opposition politicians. bbc.co.uk/...d-58574791 BBC Cornwall report today: The Royal Cornwall...

Today’s infection rate in England, 44 400 with ten times the population, is almost twice pro rata that in Scotland, 2 400. It’s more than twice, pro rata in Wales at 4 200 with only 3 fifths of the population. Against that background, making a connection with reduced mask wearing, BBC Health’s Daniel Kraemar tells us: The proportion of people wearing masks has steadily declined....

In August (the most recent monthly data), NHS Scotland’s A&E department’s saw 77.8% within 4 hours. In the same period, NHS England saw, on average, only 66.2% and NHS Wales saw only 60.1%. NHS Scotland is thus 17.5% faster (11.6% of 66.2) than England and 26.5% faster than Wales. Today, as NHS Forth apologised for only treating 41% in 4 hours, BBC Scotland tell us: Scottish Liberal...

Note first, the classic ‘Sturgeon’ disrespect. They’ve changed it on the website now to call him ‘Johnson’. I’m going to be lazy again, of maybe efficient (?) and just use my May 2021 rebuttal of Macwhirter’s ‘Sturgeon no better’ drivel. Here it is: Johnson and his SAGE chums delayed the lockdown. The power to do so, but still without the power...

The Herald’s one-sided ahistorical account, written for it by the Labour Party’s chums at the Ferret, reaches Day 3 with accounts of air pollution rising in some of our streets. You know, those places where combustion engines do cause a lot of pollution, do put lives at risk and, of course, where the decisions that matter if you’d like to change things, are reserved to...

In a piece largely driven by UK data, the Scotsman allow Scottish Labour’s Jackie Baillie a platform to scare the public with, of course, an ill-informed rant: Scottish Labour said it was time to “raise the alarm” over Scotland’s Covid situation. “It is clear now that case numbers remain at a worrying level across Scotland and that more lives are being lost,” said health...

Also the winning the Mince award for journalism, the Herald tell us: Critics have attacked a decision to continue making secondary pupils wear masks in classrooms, branding it an “assault on children’s rights”. Members of Stand By Me Scotland (SBMS), a parent-teacher campaign group, said they were “appalled and disgusted” after ministers announced current Covid-19 mitigations in...

Let me be clear from the outset that by the word ‘Scot’, I mean absolutely anyone who lives here, who regardless of ethnicity or birthplace or other largely physical identifier, has a level of fondness for the place and who wants it to be better than it currently is. I can’t rule out unionists from this group though I think they misjudge the situation. As for Tories, well OK, but...

By stewartb The news that Scotland had missed out on Westminster’s backing to develop its first carbon capture and storage facility was greeted with a range of reactions yesterday – shock, disbelief, anger and also something like ‘what did you expect anyway?’  Many well informed sources had hoped – indeed expected – that the Acorn Project at St Fergus would be...

At 6:08pm, Sarah Smith reported with the above graph, on the BBC News that ‘Covid cases have been falling in Scotland’ and there has been a ‘rapid decline’ but later, Reporting Scotland were having none of that whitaboutery. Things are bad here, it’s a crisis, don’t go think you’re any better, or heaven forbid, that SNP Government might be managing the...

…..are rising by at least 10% week-on-week. BBC News at 1 today Well, only if your researchers are not including Scotland or Northern Ireland because infection levels are pretty much flat there, after falling even faster than 10%, week-on-week to below that of England and Wales: As for hospital admissions, in Scotland they’re falling steadily and ICU admissions are disappearing, as the...

Apparently ‘parents and teachers’ are against the wearing of masks in classrooms. On reading the above and the Daily Record version, we see it’s only those wee Facebook parent groups, often run by former Tory activists and with far too few members to be representative of Scotland’s 1.5 million parents of schoolchildren. As for the teachers, TWO, anonymous. This is just more...

As of 19th October, Public Health Scotland reported delivery of 344 045 booster vaccines: public.tableau.com/...0/Overview On the same date, NHS England claimed to have delivered 3 846 287 booster doses. However, as they point out these data include a number of third primary doses for those who are severely immunosuppressed and...

Who will they get to inform us if it’s the right call? Scotland in Union members, former Tory candidates and assorted bams keen to attack the SNP. Will they mention the WHO guidelines and the recommendations of umpteen experts? Will they report this (already posted here)? Infection rates are climbing steadily in England and surging in Wales. They’re pretty much flat in Scotland and...

With the help of the Lib Dem (4 MSPs) leader and of course no comparative data, BBC Scotland platform the fake news that Scotland is lagging on booster delivery even if we are ahead on every other jag: Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton accused the Scottish government of “sneaking out” the changes. “We know that caseloads are still far too high so there can be no...

I’m not, under any circumstances, suggesting that our wildlife is not at risk or that more, much more, needs to be done. Even 1% is too many. My concern, as always, is on the politicising on such trends to attack and to distort the performance of Scotland and its government so as to make it seem no better than the UK in the approach to COP26. Scotland is home to over 90 000 species. I...

From BBC Wales today, opening a very long report: Some trainee doctors and consultants at one Welsh health board are “scared to come to work”, a report has found. A report by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) described “frightening experiences” staff faced at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. Chronic understaffing and excessive workloads at the Grange hospital in...

Infection rates are climbing steadily in England and surging in Wales. They’re pretty much flat in Scotland and Northern Ireland: The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has been monitoring behaviour changes in terms of facemask wearing and social mixing. Notably, for the week-ending 29 September 2021, with rates falling slightly or flat across the UK, they noted in their data:...