I heard the above on BBC Scotland’s 2 minute news insert at 06:26 am! They’ve been mostly positive about Scotland and the Scottish Government for the last 5 or six days. What’s going on? Are they trying to queer my pitch? Can I still say that? I’ll try to see if they repeat it in Reporting Scotland at 1pm or 6.30pm.
I’ve searched for other mention of it in the Scottish media but could only find it in an excellent piece in the Orkney News:
‘We have always been clear we will support carers and our guarantee to increase Carer’s Allowance by 13% to bring it into line with UK Jobseeker’s Allowance will be introduced this summer and backdated to April. This is an investment of more than £30 million to support carers, in addition to the new rights introduced under the 2016 Carers (Scotland) Act, and the new Young Carer Grant announced by the First Minister last year.’
Scotland’s Social Security System Takes Shape
It’s well worth reading the whole piece. It’s complete, informative and utterly free of nippy grudging comment by local Lib-Dems.
For the other three interventions, disabled Scots will not face the unnecessary and often humiliating medical checks before claiming benefits, improved terms for the terminally ill and the funding of frontline work with the hardcore of street homeless, see:
Talking-up Scotland 
I have to commend you for listening to and watching the Beeb news for us!
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Thanks. Can’t manage Bird tho.
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I don’t blame you!
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Reblogged this on scottishactivist0.
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“They’ve been mostly positive about Scotland and the Scottish Government for the last 5 or six days. ”
Did you not hear the subsequent parts of the programme, where they had Labour and the Tories rubbishing this proposal? The interview with Jeanne Freeman was handled pretty fairly, unlike the aggressive and accusative tone adopted by Hayley Miller with Michael Russell about the continuing problem between Holyrood and Westminster about powers returning from Brussels. This was preceded by an unchallenged interview with Adam Tomkins in which he was critical of the SG. She interrupted several times, including trying to talk over Mr Russell. She then raised the issue of Cambridge Analytica and the SNP, again in a hectoring tone.
So, I do not think there has been much change in the mindset.
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Just in the inserts in the BBC Salford morning show, 6-9am.
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Oh aye on the radio this morning, I only caught snippets, but Alasdair is right, some reasonable bits, then some weirdo frothing at the mouth bits – I was really caught out by the really bizarre out-of-context Cambridge Analytica stuff – I mean, seriously allowing a Tory to question this, on some moral high ground on the subject of transparency when they are anything but, and morally suspect, themselves. It was so out of context with any of the subjects covered, and I’d have thought would have given an interviewer the opportunity to ask any of a zillion questions regarding Tory questionable behaviour, particularly on transparency on their various dodgy funding shenanigans.
Trying to claim the ‘Scottish Tories’ had nothing to do with the dodgy company, when they are NOT a separate party from the English Tories, and they seem to actually have a hand in actually running the company,,, but they (so-called Scottish Tories) think that’s okay & they can try and smear SNP reputation because,,, they rejected the dodgy company. I don’t get it, it makes no sense, no logic at all, so why is it given air time? Is it just the way the media presents them, or is the only thing that spews from a tory polititian’s mouth bile?
There must be different broadcasting rules between radio and tv? Or just such low numbers of radio listeners they can get away with a few added extra tweaks to the main news items? The BBC main news items DO seem to have been fairly positive the past few days – I guess they want us to forget about Syria, and the Skripals, and they are starting to have a field day with the Brexit bill stuff now (how unreasonable of Nicola Sturgeon – not the Scottish government, not the SNP, note, but her personally – to not capitulate on the crappiest deal of the century).
That was a wee bit of a rant, sorry.
I went to see the RSNO play Shostakovich 7th symphony at the weekend, ‘Leningrad’. Interesting history to the piece. Shostakovich had started writing it before Hitler laid siege to the city, seeing the war as a way of getting away with writing a piece protesting the destruction of the city by Stalin (‘it was just finished by Hitler’), and a protest against totalitarian regimes. This was in 1941-42. Shostakovich was eventually persuaded to leave the city, now under siege, to finish writing the piece & it was sent far and wide to the Allies who all used it as a propaganda piece in the war effort – widely played in the US to rally the troops etc. A huge success. Starving musicians in Leningrad were gathered to add to the few in the Leningrad radio orchestra that were left there (a full orchestra is required) and the scores were smuggled in and copied so they could play the piece & broadcast to the Russian troops to bolster morale. US – Russia – allies – changed days eh. Anyway, the symphony is amazing, and is indeed quite uplifting, and reflected for me that freedom is something that always needs to be fought for & is always positive. Totalitarian regimes that suppress even freedom of thought should not be allowed to flourish. Nice bit of Russian propaganda I thought,,, or am I allowed to think that?
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Be careful, you’ll be accused of being an apologist for them.
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Good strong thread above so I feel able to go briefly Off Topic onto an international story that probably will get no proper coverage. It involves the Spanish ruling PP suffering embarrassment – so – given the actions of the PP (Franco’s heirs – and the britnats best pals) in Catalonia I hope you don’t mind my giving it some space here? From beeb Europe page (edited):
The head of Spain’s Madrid region has stepped down.
Ms Cifuentes, 53, gave up her master’s last week when it emerged that two signatures on the document (her ‘Masters’ degree) were forged.
A prominent figure in Spain’s ruling centre-right PP (Partido Popular), Ms Cifuentes had already come under pressure from political opponents to resign because of the degree affair.
She told a press conference on Wednesday that she had planned to announce her resignation next week but had brought it forward in response to the latest allegations.(A curious shoplifting incident – not being denied – but arguing incident has been misinterpreted)
Her resignation is a blow to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose party has faced a succession of corruption scandals. By stepping down she averted a motion of no confidence which she said would have brought Madrid under the control of the left-wing socialist and Podemos parties.
The erupting scandal surrounding Ms Cifuentes has also hit King Juan Carlos University, from which she received the fake master’s degree. The head of its law institute has been suspended after initially supporting the Madrid region’s president. The institute’s deputy director earlier had resigned in protest at her signature being forged.
PS: Only the beeb could – with a straight face – describe Franco’s heirs as ‘..centre-right’.
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It’s really great news, carers allownace is only awarded if you actively ‘care’ for 35 hours a week at least. The problem is, carers allowance is removed by the UK’s DWP £ for £ from any other benefit like income support. I know, my income support is £40 a week. If in receipt of carers allowance a person can earn about £100 a week, say if you work or are self employed. Not so with In Support, the UKgov keeps carers in poverty like everyone else dependant on state funding to survive.
So I don’t expect any extra £s to pay for essentials unfortunately, unless I can work in between caring for two autistic sons. Not ScotGov’s fault at all, but it’s why we need all welfare powers to come to Scotland, but also why we know that the UKgov will never allow that to happen. Indendence it is then.
Once again though the Scotgov areforced into mitigating UK austerity on our poorest and most vulnerable.
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Thanks for this. Useful inside info.
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Hmm, I may have been off-topic slightly, I must admit.
As compensation I give you a link to the obscure RE-news item regarding BiFab and good news that the scottish government (that’s the SNP one whether you like it or not) went to great lengths to broker a buy-out deal and even invest in it themselves, to save some of the industries that are barely left in Scotland after the … well, we wont mention Thatcher, this is good news after all (that we all know about, I know…)
http://renews.biz/110823/canadians-buy-bifab/
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