From Insider yesterday:
‘The number of decrees issued against Scottish businesses for unpaid debts fell to a record low in 2017, according to figures released today by Registry Trust. A total of 2,192 decrees were issued against businesses in Scotland last year, a decline of 38 per cent on 2016. The average value of these claims also fell by more than half, down 58 per cent. As a result, the total value of business judgements plunged by 76 per cent to £12m, the lowest on record.’
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/bad-debt-decrees-against-scottish-12013598
This is, as headlined, only one of many recent indicators that the Scottish economy is much better health than the unreliable estimates of the GDP and GERS figures so loved by many media commentators desperate to do their own country down. It’s also quite a dramatic, newsworthy fall. You’ll get a longer list of these positive measures and a reminder of why GDP and GERS are meaningless propaganda, at:
More real evidence of economic strength: number of Scots getting permanent jobs has ‘risen sharply.’
Let me know if you see any sign of this on BBC Scotland or STV.
Talking-up Scotland 
On GMS this morning there were a couple of examples of making stories bad for the sake of the negativity.
A couple of months ago, we had the new GP contract in Scotland, which was agreed with the BMA, recommended by them and approved by a ballot of the membership. Now, about two months later, we have a report of a GP in a rural practice who claims the contract will affect rural practices adversely and might leave some areas without a GP. If this is the case, why did it not emerge during the negotiations? Why was it not highlighted at the time of the ballot? Why has it emerged now? And, of course, there is the sting in the tail, the project fear twist : it could leave some areas without a GP.
Then we have the claim by ASLEF that there is a problem with the windscreen of the new Hitachi Scotrail trains, which are currently being tested. They are undergoing technical testing, the purpose of which is to identify and resolve problems before they go into service. When this reasonable pointb was made, it was claimed that the windscreens were not ‘technical’ matters. The distinction eludes me. The Minister, Humza Yusaf, came a long interview which expanded beyond the ‘technical’ issue to wider innuendo about alleged failings, such as the possibility of gantries for the electrification of the Glasgow/Edinburgh line being a factor in a landslip. Hitachi makes trains for rail services all over the world, so, it is possible that this windscreen is in service elsewhere, or, if the situation in Scotland is the introduction of a new design, it is in Hitachi’s interest to solve it.
Criticism is, of course essential in holding authority to account, but when that is almost the entire menu, when it is out of context and when it is relatively minor, then we see we are not getting good investigative journalism and good reportage, but propaganda.
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You’re a braver man than me…Gunga Din. Where did that come from in recesses of my mind?
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Heard both the GMS articles, the medical negativity backed up by a Canadian doctor/health official and the train article I thought Humza Yusaf was remarkably calm, being subjected to such nonsense.
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Same place your Boney M lyrics come from. An eclectic memory bank!
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Kipling I think.
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Kipling is right. (Mr. Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes – Celebrity Great British Bake Off anyone? – how about you Col. Davidson?)
“Tho’ I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”
Was Kipling’s poem an ode to Imperialism? – or was there a wee bit of the hidden anarchist at work? – showing how the man with the brown skin was kinder and braver than the Imperialist troopers who mistreated him so callously?
Interestingly Kipling was a 1st cousin of Stanley Baldwin. Even more interestingly (well – to a geek like me anyway) is the Scottish connection to these 2 figures claimed (perhaps erroneously) as towering pillars of the Britnat imperialist establishment. Kipling’s mother Alice and Baldwin’s mother Louisa were 2 of the 4 famous MacDonald Sisters. (The other 2 were: Georgina – who married the Pre-Raphealite artist Edward Burne-Jones, and Agnes – who married the brilliant English painter Edward Poynter – quite some lassies those MacDonald Sisters!)
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Kipling was for a spell, the poet of the empire. However, he had a far more nuanced view of things than the jibe of ‘jingoist’ implies. Ganga Din showed a sympathy for ‘natives’, Tommy Atkins indicated an understanding of class exploitation, and his references to Rosie O’Grady and the Colonel’s lady being sisters under the skin suggested we’re a’ Jean Tamson’s lassies. The death of his son in WW1 had a salutary effect on him, not just as a bereaved parent but as an ‘imperialist’.
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Hi Alasdair – yes – Kipling is a much more interesting artist than his ‘reputation’ would allow. He and his cousin Stanley Baldwin were apparently close throughout their lives. Baldwin is also worthy of closer study. He made a free gift to the exchequer of 20% of his considerable family fortune (as a voluntary form of Wealth Tax) to be put towards reducing the National Debt (which had massively increased as a consequence of WW1). He devoted time trying to persuade other members of the hugely wealthy elite to do likewise. I believe he was sadly disappointed by the paucity of response.
A wealth tax of 20% (on the super wealthy) to fund useful National Projects to reduce inequality. That sounds like something worth considering in an Indy Scotland. I’m sure Queenie-Pooh and the Duke of Buccleuch (having been appointed as Queenie-Pooh’s representative to the General Assembly this year) would be in agreement with this plan. Don’t I seem to recall something about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle or some such parable?
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