Talking-up Scotland

On a topic too ‘hard’ for this ‘soft’ social scientist, reader Wiiliam Henderson, offers this riposte to BBC Scotland on ‘noisy electricity’. The headline is either my fault or to my credit.

Up early this morning (Ed: I have the same problem) and having my usual browse around on the laptop my eye was caught by a headline on the BBC Scotland web site. It said:

“Turning down the volume: Tackling the problem of ‘noisy electricity’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-45645587

 Aha, thought I – That could be what’s keeping my wife awake some nights – Better take a closer look. So, I did. And guess what? The headline didn’t quite seem to match the rest of the article. It seems it wasn’t a loud noise or a soft noise or a real noise at all, but some spiky-looking things in electricity that you can only see on a computer screen. Anyway, it appeared that some folk in Edinburgh had a big grey box which could get rid of this strange phenomenon and that was that.

Being a curious old-time engineer (think triple expansion steam engines! Ed: I’ve tried but I can’t), I began to wonder what might be in this big grey box, which went by the name of a “Faraday Exchange”, so I did a web search on the name.

Oh, my!!! What did I uncover but news about a world-beating technology breakthrough led by young engineers in various Scottish universities for controlling the mind-blowing complete interactions of sources and demands on a 21^st Century electrical power grid.

Today we are all totally dependent on access to affordable and plentiful electricity. We heat our buildings, run our computers, phones, washers etc. on electricity and now we are even turning to electrically powered cars all of which can be plugged in and switched on at any time. The demand is liable to vary hugely at any time. Combine this with the recent emergence of a whole range of sources of electrical energy. We have power stations fired by coal, oil and gas, which can be turned on and off relatively quickly, nuclear, which dare not be turned off quickly, and the whole new family of renewable sources, wind, solar and tidal which come on and off according to the dictates of mother nature. It all adds up to a serious problem to ensure that everyone who needs power gets just the right amount the instant s/he throws the switch and at the same time males sure that the supply from all the sources is adjusted to provide just enough.

Enter, stage right, the   Exchange…. Lots of these ‘big grey boxes’ can be attached to the power grid at appropriate points and guess what? Since, among other things, there is a computer inside, and the grid is made of wires, they can ‘talk’ to each other and pass on information about local supply, demand and price of available electrical energy. This allows them to select and implement the most efficient and hopefully cheapest supplies to meet the constantly changing demands of consumers.

As I said, this is world leading technology and it hails from this little country of ours. For our state broadcaster to headline it solely on the grounds that it ‘cleans’ the power supply seems to me to be a missed opportunity for “Talking Up Scotland”.

Ed: it was.

I’ve already written today about BBC Scotland’s report on the death of a baby in the most awful circumstances. I cannot describe the actual nature of that death. I’ve condemned the report in terms of its inappropriateness for our public service broadcaster.

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2018/09/27/a-new-sickening-low-for-reporting-scotland/

However, there’s more to say about this. To tell the story of this single, very rare case, as they did, has consequences. It will have been seen by midwives, by expectant mothers and their relatives. Might this cause even one expectant mother to decide to dangerously give birth at home? The only demonstrable media effect is that of depression and anxiety. Researchers have already shown the strong correlation between high negative news consumption and levels of depression and anxiety.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/violent-media-anxiety_n_6671732?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=lRM0taCUAUnU8xNhUU8n9A

Not proven scientifically is the notion that personalised, extended reports of trauma such as stillbirth, with images of the baby scan and interviews with a teddy-clutching grief-stricken mother will demoralise midwives and create fear in the minds of expectant mothers and their relatives. I don’t think we need to do this research, do you, just in case? For purely political gain, BBC Scotland have exploited a broken woman and caused many of their viewers to illogically fear childbirth procedures in hospitals.

Scandalously, Reporting Scotland did not tell us in the report or at any other time:

‘In the Nordic countries – Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland – the rate of stillbirths and deaths of babies within 28 days is 4.3 per 1 000 live births. This is the lowest in the world. In the USA, it’s about 10. The Scottish figure has now fallen to just 4.72 with the rate for the UK at 5.61.’

This is from a BBC website!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40366637

 

That’s the real news about childbirth in Scotland. It’s safer than its ever been and safer here than elsewhere in the UK. Shouldn’t the BBC inform us rather than just scare us? Their royal charter makes no mention of scaring.

I’ve admitted already that I cannot prove that the broadcast made people more anxious and fearful of childbirth in Scottish hospitals but there is some evidence that such reporting, especially in the early hours of the day is strongly associated with fearful responses. I wrote this last year:

‘The ‘baleful habitual practices of the miserable mind’ are strongest in the early morning’

Dr R Fletcher, ‘Surgeon to the Lunatic Asylum near Gloucester’ 1833 (p.206) wrote this in 1883. I know it’s not a recent and reliable source, as we used to say in Higher Education, but I think it shows that we’ve known about this effect for some time. It was no accident that medieval monks and more recently, private school boarders, got started with their religious indoctrination before dawn so as to catch them anxious, fearful and absorbent of the required sense of superiority and deep racial prejudices necessary for the conquest of lesser peoples.

Making these early hours particularly effective for indoctrination, they often follow on from nightmares:

‘Nightmares tend to occur during the early morning, as opposed to late evening with night terrors, and patients usually have good recall of the events of the dream.’ (Science-based Medicine, 2014)

Does the above matter? Well perhaps it does:

‘I would like to re-emphasise the importance of “bad news” in the genesis of psychopathology, as this does not seem to be generally recognised. Bad news, of deaths and other disasters, is not available to our primate cousins who are not equipped to exchange gossip but has been available to our ancestors over the last few million years since language evolved. Since these ancestors lived in groups of about 150 individuals, the amount of bad news they could generate was limited, even if we add in bad news from neighbouring groups. Now, we have available the bad news of many billions of people.’

Sources:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BZSGPCrP3I0C&pg=PA206&lpg=PA206&dq=early+morning+influence+on+mind&source=bl&ots=QfO_qa5dQz&sig=HgzaKh-QngrVirRpXFR4M-ds3WQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqgI-kkqLPAhVoBMAKHTPfBB0Q6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q=early%20morning%20influence%20on%20mind&f=false

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/nightmares-night-terrors-and-potential-implications-for-pediatric-mental-health/

http://www.intechopen.com/books/new-insights-into-anxiety-disorders/an-evolutionary-perspective-on-anxiety-and-anxiety-disorders

 

Reporting Scotland’s regular ‘ambulance-chasing’ disclosures of single or rare cases of failure in NHS Scotland remains their favourite proxy strategy to side-swipe the SNP by association with that case. Last night they fell further into the foul-smelling mire than even the Sun or the Daily Mail might go, with the story of the decapitation of a baby in childbirth.

I found it hard to consider just typing that phrase but to want to dwell on it, to savour it and to exploit the grief-stricken mother, in the pretense that this is all about the rights of that mother, is nauseating.

Of course, the case should be pursued with the authorities and, if necessary, with the support of politicians but to dramatise it in this way for public titillation, is beyond belief. I note that even Ruth Davidson has not sought to use the story.

The report itself, with images of the baby scan and extended focus on the face of the teddy-bear-hugging mother was, for me, unwatchable.

Remember, if you can, that this is our public service broadcaster with a royal charter to educate, to inform and to entertain us. Which of those three purposes did this serve?

Previous ambulance-chasing:

New Scottish ambulance call-out system doubles survival rates for heart attack patients but is deliberately misreported by ‘ambulance chasers’

Top professor suggests top psychiatrist was taken advantage of by BBC Scotland’s ambulance chasers

‘Ambulance-chasers’* BBC Scotland digs up fake news as Scotland’s ambulance services disappoint them by coping well with the winter surge in demand

 

From Insider, yesterday:

‘Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Enterprise Ireland, the government export agency and the third largest seed investor in Europe, is undertaking trade mission to Scotland this week to highlight the business prospects for collaboration across the Irish Sea.  The mission – the largest in recent years – is being led by the Irish Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys TD and Deirdre McPartlin, Enterprise Ireland UK Manager. It comes amid concerns over Brexit, particularly the prospect of a ‘hard border’ between the UK and Ireland. With 56 Irish companies participating on the trade mission to Scotland, it aims to promote Scottish-Irish collaboration and raise awareness for the scope and scale of the opportunities in Scotland.’

Previous reports of links being forged:

Scottish Government pushes on past 200 initiatives to counter Tory Brexit damage

Scottish Government makes 200 European links in effort to counter damage from Tory hard Brexit. BBC Scotland says: ‘eh, what, when?’

Special Brexit deals for others but only betrayal for Scotland must surely boost the independence movement

Scottish Government launches 50 new starter farms as Brexit threatens major food price rises

Scottish Government pushes ahead to strengthen trade links as a bad Brexit looms.

SNP Government making new links to North and East in preparation for Brexit failures by UK Government

 

© http://buildabetterburb.org/grodians-affordable-housing/

From Scottish Housing News yesterday:

‘The Scottish Government is on track to meet its target of delivering 50,000 affordable homes over the duration of this Parliament, according to statistics in two newly published reports. Figures in the Housing Statistics Annual Key Trends report show an increase of 745 homes (4%) across all sectors, from 18,683 in 2016-17 to 19,428 in 2017-18. This is the fifth consecutive increase and the highest annual figure since 2008-09. Housing association new builds increased by 382 homes (14%), local authority new builds increased by 381 homes (34%), and private-led new builds decreased by 325 homes (2%), whilst rehabilitations increased by 359 homes (60%) and net conversions decreased by 52 homes (7%).’

78,000 affordable homes have been delivered since 2007.

https://www.scottishhousingnews.com/23676/affordable-housing-programme-on-target-at-halfway-point/

Comparative reports suggest that performance in Scotland outstrips that in non-Scottish parts of the UK:

SNP Government builds affordable/social housing at almost twice the rate of Tories in England

Scotland increasingly ‘streets ahead’ of England on affordable housing delivery

Independent report says Scottish Government’s 50 000 target for affordable homes is ‘within reach’ and predicts England will lose 120 000 as Tories retain right-to-buy

 

I may have cherry-picked the report’s findings, but then cherries are good for you.

There are, of course, several worrying health indicators reported in the survey, especially with regard to general health, long-term conditions and cardio-vascular diseases. Reading that section against the background of yesterday’s news that life expectancy in Scotland has fallen for the first time after decades of improvement, is disturbing. While our Nomedia have hesitated to lay blame for this at the door of Tory policies aimed at increasing poverty and inequality, those of us who read a bit, eg ‘Spirit Level’, know fine that it belongs there.

However, looking to the future, there are several pieces of good news in the report which I will, given the title of this blog, focus on and credit SNP policies for.

1. Labour/Lib-Dem Coalitions more likely to drive you to drink

More non-drinkers, roughly the same number of moderate drinkers and around 33% less hazardous/harmful drinkers.

2. Labour/Lib-Dem Coalitions made you smoke more to calm your nerves

10% fewer Scots smoking in only 10 years.

3. Labour/Lib-Dem Coalitions made your Ma and Da smoke more

Get them both out dealing Avon products and extend your lifespan.

4. Labour/Lib-Dem Coalitions stopped you eating fruit

From 2016, Nicola Sturgeon tells you to eat fruit and you do it?

5. SNP Government policies stem tide of obesity in children

In sharp contrast, obesity rates expected to soar in England and Wales. See:

BBC Scotland once more hide SNP Government’s policy success to create scare on obesity in women

https://www.gov.scot/Resource/0054/00540654.pdf

Previous reports showing SNP Government is good for you:

Once more BBC Scotland reports selectively (lies) to damage Scotland’s reputation by missing the obvious headline already written for them: ‘There is much that the Scottish Government is doing to reduce the impact of poverty and inequality and there is much in Scotland that can be celebrated and learned from.’ 

Would Nicola Sturgeon’s fairer and more equal Scotland be a more productive one too?

Is Tory-rule making England more barbaric while SNP-rule is making Scotland more civilised?

 

(c) Kirstin Innes

By Ludo Thierry (real name)

Please note – There are various good numbers which I’m not quoting because they represent year-on-year change. I have only picked out numbers which show some continuing change over a reasonable time frame. Making changes in Public Health is a very long-term project. There is often some low-hanging fruit to be picked – but making sustained change over longer time-frames is indicative of a focussed and energetic approach by the lead Dept. and good feedback processes within the teams involved in National and Local delivery. My contention is that the figures reiterate that a focussed and energetic SNP Scottish Govt is beginning to deliver some real and major impacts in this area:

SMOKING: The proportion of adults smoking has fallen to 18 per cent, down from 21 per cent in 2016 and 28 per cent in 2003. The proportion of adults that have never smoked increased to 56 per cent (from 50 per cent in 2003).

The proportion of non-smoking adults exposed to second-hand smoke (based on detectable salivary cotinine) also declined significantly from 85 per cent in 2003 to 24 per cent in 2016/2017. The proportion of children exposed to second-hand smoke in the home (6 per cent) remained at a similar level to 2015 and 2016 (6 per cent and 7 per cent respectively) following a drop from 11 per cent in 2014.

OBESITY: Prevalence of children at risk of obesity in 2017 was 13 per cent, with levels showing a steady decline since 2014 (levels were 16-17 per cent between 2003 and 2014).

ALCOHOL: Twenty four per cent of adults drank at hazardous or harmful levels in 2017, down from 34 per cent in 2003. The proportion of adults saying they did not drink alcohol increased to 17 per cent (from 11 per cent in 2003).

DENTITION: The proportion of adults with 20 or more natural teeth increased (by 5-7 percentage points) in each deprivation quintile between 2008 and 2017. However there is still a gap between the most deprived (65%) and least deprived areas (86%).

GAMBLING: Adult gambling activity participation decreased from 70 per cent in 2012 to 63 per cent in 2017; largely driven by a decrease in National Lottery participation from 58 per cent in 2012 to 46 per cent in 2017.

https://news.gov.scot/news/scottish-health-survey-2017

 

https://beta.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2016-17/pages/4/

In the Scotsman today, after several paragraphs bemoaning the statistically non-significant 1% increase in 2017/18 and giving a generous platform to Unionist ‘justice spokesmen’, they got round to these, fine for my purposes here, if at times, grammatically incorrect, paragraphs:

Meanwhile, separate research published yesterday by the Scottish Government showed the number of muggings have [sic] more than halved over the past decade, and that teenagers and people in their 20s are much less likely to commit a robbery or be a victim of one.

Robbery in public settings by strangers has fallen from 2,080 in 2008-9 to 860 in 2017-18. The use of a bladed weapon in robbery has also dropped from an estimated 1,270 to 550 over the same period.

Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said: “Scotland’s streets are now safer and less violent than they were a decade ago. While any small rise in crime is disappointing, we remain focused with the police and other partners on keeping crime at historically low levels.”

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/crime-levels-rise-for-first-time-in-more-than-a-decade-1-4805343

For evidence explaining, at least in part, Scotland’s falling crime, see:

As knife and gun crime rockets across England and Wales and falls in Scotland, Scotland has far more police officers per head of population

As major global cities like London struggle with pollution, levels in Scotland have dropped by more than 66% since 1990. Has this contributed to falling crime levels too?

On Tuesday 24^th September 2018 at 06:26am and repeated five times by 09.00am, BBC Scotland headlined:

‘A report commissioned by three charities suggests that over a third of children with autism have been unlawfully excluded from school in the past two years.’

https://www.notengaged.com/download/SA-Out-Of-School-Report.pdf

This is an incorrect reading of the report suggesting 37% of all children with autism, with the effect of seriously exaggerating their evidence. On page 19, the report says:

‘We described unlawful exclusions to respondents as when a child has been sent home from school or asked not to attend, without being formally excluded (e.g. school asking parents to pick up their child early). 37% (n=478) of parents who responded to this question told us that their child had been excluded in this way.’ 

Note that 37% of the 478 parents who responded (176) indicated ‘unlawful’ exclusion. The full sample was 1 434 and that was thought to be around 10% of the total population of autistic pupils in Scotland (page 14).

So, more accurately and thus more informatively for the TV audience, the headline should have said:

‘A report commissioned by three charities suggests that over a third of the 478 children with autism whose parents responded have been unlawfully excluded from school in the past two years.’

More helpfully, the percentage should have been changed to 12% of those who took part in the research and the size of the sample, 10% of the total population, should have featured in the report.

More helpfully still, the deeply flawed research should not have been reported. See this for a full assessment of it: https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2018/09/25/report-used-uncritically-by-bbc-scotland-on-unlawful-school-exclusions-is-fatally-flawed-and-hopelessly-biased/

 

 

 The ‘research’ report used by BBC Scotland News, this morning, to generate the headline ‘Over a third of children with autism have been unlawfully excluded from school in the past two years’ is unsound on the basis of both a predisposing bias and a fatally flawed methodology leading to the headline being essentially a lie.

Artlessly, the researchers signal their predisposition to condemn Scottish schools catering for autistic children, by naming their report ‘Not included, not engaged, not involved’ and then peppering the text with more than forty melodramatic and sometimes redundant references to ‘unlawful’ exclusions.

Off course, if the methodology used had been able to scientifically demonstrate the existence of practice in schools warranting these accusations, then the criticism would have only been of lack of taste. However, the methodology as designed and implemented is utterly inadequate for that purpose.

The researchers tell us (p14) that they surveyed only parents and carers of children. 1434 chose to respond with some forms incomplete but still included. We are told that this represents around 10% of the pupils with ASD in Scotland. If the sample was random then it might be valid but given that the respondents were self-selecting, we cannot tell whether they meaningfully represent the total population or whether, as is more probable, they represent only those who perceive problems. For all we can tell, a strong majority of parents and carers may be satisfied with practice in schools. The authors seem to acknowledge this but then go on to write their findings as if they had forgotten it. Worse still, the level of non-completion of parts of the survey further reduces the sample to a very small number of responses. For example: ‘[Only] 37% of the 478, [only], who answered this question (p19) indicated that their child had been excluded without formal recording’. That’s only around 160 pupils out of their sample of 1 434 and out of a possible total population of 10 000. How on earth do you get from those data to the researchers’ own conclusions? Even worse, the headline by BBC Scotland saying: ‘over a third of children with autism have been unlawfully excluded’, becomes frankly dishonest?

Furthermore, to only interview parents and carers and to fail to access school documents reporting absence or to interview head teachers, is to thoroughly weaken the research – triangulation anyone? We only know, from this research, what a perhaps unrepresentative sample of parents THINK schools are doing with regard to recording informal exclusions. We do not actually know what even a sample of schools IS doing in terms of recording.

Finally, the researchers make the astonishing assumption that percentages should be calculated from those responding to any question and not from the total sample. For example (p23):

When asked whether their child had been placed on a reduced timetable on more than one occasion, 63% (n=248) of parents told us that they had.

This sentence is utterly inaccurate, bananas, and should use the full sample to give the percentage – 17.2% (only)! This practice is repeated throughout to suggest that problems are more common than they are – astonishing incompetence or naked bias?

This research was commissioned, paid for, by Children in Scotland, the National Autistic Society Scotland and Scottish Autism. As you might expect, the researchers have clearly known from the outset what was expected of them. The ‘researchers’, notengaged.com have no published track record as researchers. Does their name suggest that they, like their funders, are campaigners and not really researchers?

https://www.notengaged.com/download/SA-Out-Of-School-Report.pdf