Yesterday’s piece in Insider reported visitor numbers at Edinburgh Castle and the National Museum of Scotland exceeding 2 million in 2017 while the Scottish National Gallery, Loch Lomond Shores, Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and St. Giles’ Cathedral passed 1 million visitors.
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/two-edinburgh-cultural-attractions-surpass-11981003
Industry experts at Glasgow Caledonian University attributed some of the increase to the lower value of the Pound against the Euro and the Dollar and while this is no doubt true, the report failed to mention other factors such as the Outlander Effect and the perceived safety of Scotland by comparison with London and European cities which have suffered terrorist attacks in recent times. That there is a uniquely Scottish dimension to this can be seen in the different levels of increase in Scotland and the rest of the UK.
Tourism spending in Scotland surges ahead of UK figure
The weak pound has been attributed with responsibility for an 18% growth in UK tourism spending while in Scotland foreign spending surged by 27% on last year. We must assume the difference is due to other factors some of which I may have identified in:
North Americans lead surge in Scottish tourism because they feel safer here
Talking-up Scotland 
apologies for unlinked note but just seen an article about teacher losses in England in the past 2 years – 15,000…
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/feb/07/cash-crisis-forces-secondary-schools-in-england-to-cut-15000-staff
Are there similar stats about Scottish education? and if so what do they show? Possibly another area where Scotland and England are diverging with regard to spending priorities.
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Thanks BigJon. See:
There are 51 500 teachers in Scottish schools and the pupil/teacher ratio is now 13.6 pupils per teacher, down from (better than) 13.7 in 2016. This ratio is an important indicator of the time teachers have to engage with pupils and is likely to have played a major part in narrowing attainment gaps.
Click to access 00528868.pdf
In England, there were 457 300 teachers in 2016, up by 400 from 2015. The pupil/teacher ratio in 2016 was 17.6 pupils per teacher. England’s population is almost exactly ten times that of Scotland, so you might have expected there to be around 515 000 teachers there. The increase of 400 teachers, in England, from 2015 to 2016, is small when compared with the Scottish Government’s increase of 543 between 2016 and 2017 in a country with a tenth of the population.
Click to access SFR25_2017_MainText.pdf
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Every year the Scottish Governments’ Education section undertakes the census of schools. This has taken place for many years and the data is usually entered by the end of September. It is always published. You can google to find it, but I am sure Professor Robertson will get there quickly. You can play the game of identifying which datum the ConLab and msm coterie will emphasise and decontextualise.
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Maybe part of the success is linked also to the TripAdvisor and VisitScotland deal that Nicola Sturgeon helped last year.
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Thanks for this. I’d forgotten those.
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Don’t recognise tge building in the photo. . . .
Ch4 7pm news Michael Crick went through a list of regions of the UK with the percentage damage done to their economy by Brexit . . . He omitted Scotland!
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Yes, Sky missed Scotland out to. Photo is the new bit of the National museum in Embra
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Was the Same on ITV yesterday . . . But this morning , radio Shortbread have Scotland worst affected in UK . . . Don’t see what they’re up to . . . Whatever it is it must be sleekit.
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Clydebuilt, I noticed that, too. But, of course, Scotland is the worst bit of Scotland since there is only one Scotland. England is reported by region (with Wales and Northern Ireland also reported as though they were regions of England – as Jeremy Corbyn seems to think). Of course BBC Scotland knows that Scotland does not have the worst figures of any part of the UK. But, it does have the worst figures for Scotland, ergo, SNPBaaaaaad.
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Sorry about this John but you might have missed this as it was only reported under NE Scotland,Orkney&Shetland not the main stream news.
Man fined over ‘Jo Cox’ death threat to Aberdeenshire MSP
I believe if this was someone did it to a Tory GM Scotland and the Bird would be all over it
I suppose to be fair the P&J have reported it.
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