This morning on BBC Scotland’s wee insert into BBC Breakfast we heard that ‘Business confidence in Scotland has taken a BATTERING (heavy emphasis)’ based on a Bank of Scotland Business Barometer survey. We also heard that ‘there was a 17-point fall during the first half of July’ (a two-week trend?) and that confidence was the lowest in Scotland. The Scotsman and the National went for falling and sliding rather than battering in their headlines.
Somewhat confusingly the same Bank of Scotland Business Barometer at the end of June had report confidence 17% higher in Scotland and higher here than elsewhere in the UK! See this from Insider on June 29:
Business confidence up 17% and higher in Scotland
‘Plans for hiring staff in Scotland are at a year-long high, according to a new report. The Bank of Scotland’s Business Barometer for June shows a 17% rise in overall business confidence across Scotland in the past month to 17%. Hiring intentions north of the border have reached their highest level since May 2018 as a net balance of a fifth of businesses (20%) plan to create new jobs in the next year – up 23% on last month. Economic optimism has risen 19 points to 2% in the past month, while firms’ confidence in their own business prospects was 32%, up from 17% in May. Brexit fears for businesses have dropped in Scotland, the barometer found, but a net balance of around a third of firms still believe the UK’s exit from the EU is having a negative impact on their expectations for business activity. This has dropped 18% from last month. The monthly survey of 1,200 businesses found business confidence in Scotland is four percentage points higher than that across the UK as a whole.’
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/business-confidence-boost-hiring-hits-17266823
As far as I can remember, BBC Scotland had ignored the above good news at the time and did not use it to contextualise or to make today’s report more reliably informative. They did not, of course, report much if any, of these many other good news stories on the Scottish economy:
Scottish business confidence up ‘despite Brexit’ or because of SNP/Indy surge?
Scottish Government support for small businesses superior to that in non-Scottish parts of UK
Almost two thirds* of Scottish manufacturers believe business will grow despite global turmoil
Highlights of positive business reaction to Scottish Budget
Business confidence in Scotland up 4% after Scottish Government rate changes
Economic contribution of Scottish women-owned businesses grows by nearly twice the rate of UK
Talking-up Scotland 
I’m Glad someone is bringing a bit of balance to the BBC nonsense, will they ever give it up, its getting really tedious now. And you wonder why people are are not paying the TV license ? They produce this nonsense and pass it off as news. Good piece prof.
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And, of course, the SNP came NOWHERE in the Brecon and Radnor by-election. Not even enough votes to be last!
I’m astonished this was not their headline—–but the day is young, and wee notions of Brit Nat “Glorious Past and Precious, Precious Union” will be jumping into the otherwise, empty heids of BEEB North Brit execs like popping candy.
No doubt one of them will remark, one dunderheid to another …”I say Cedric, these pesky Scotch nats came NOWHERE in the by-election”. “Jolly fine of Boris to put them in their place, what”?
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Yah, isn’t that gal Hair the MP for for Brechin?
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Hair today, gone tomorrow.
Snow on a dike—like Boris– the shortest premiership in history, I hope.
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This piece has been one of the main reasons for the establishment of this site. BBC Scotland and much of the other media have mined statistics to find individual data which showed Scotland doing poorly. This article, with my total approval, is doggedly persisting in the self-appointed task of highlighting as instances of this ‘monstering’ as soon as they occur.
Incidentally, on Common Space this morning Mr Robin McAlpine discusses the degradation of language by the use of exaggeration – ‘BATTERING’, for example – so that people lose confidence in the political/media class, and also because it can desensitise people to real disasters when these occur. For example, had the dam in England collapsed yesterday and if there had been significant loss of lives and home in Whaley Bridge, how would they have found words to describe the ‘horror’ given that they have exhausted the vocabulary on Jeremy Corbyn saying that the treatment of Palestinians by the government of Israel is ‘bad’.
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Indeed, being self-appointed is one of the upsides of being retired. As for Whaley Bridge, the language will come in a torrent.
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Early July would be Boris Johnson’s effect.
Timing is everything
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The BBC undoubtably show a bias against independence for political reasons but most people overlook the fact that if Scotland become independent the BBC will lose the licence fees Scotland currently pay…roughly speaking they take in around £350million anually and spent £150million on Scottish programing a loss of £200million clear profit…there isn’t a corporation on the planet that would take that loss without trying to avoid it which they do every time they carry scare stories and half truths…
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£200 million clear profit? So do Scottish people only watch Scottish programming? Does your figure include the cost of running Pacific Quay? Is it up to date to include BBC Scotland and BBC Alba? Thanks to the BBC Scotland and Wales have there been TV channels, significant TV centres and regional centres and a lot of programming for the UK is made in Scotland and Wales.
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