Talking-up Scotland

© Andrew Milligan/Press Association

Even the Scotsman admitted that NHS Scotland did not experience the humanitarian disaster of Winter 2017/18, suffered elsewhere in the UK:

‘It is clear – both statistically and anecdotally – that the crisis is not, currently, as extreme in Scotland. Flu rates have doubled since last year and A&E admissions are up by 20 per cent, with some people waiting longer than four hours for treatment, but though non-urgent operations have been postponed in some areas, there has been no blanket cancellation.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/health/insight-chronic-or-acute-the-nhs-crisis-1-4655245

Despite this, the Scottish government has acted early to make sure there is no such development in the Winter to come. See this from news.gov.scot yesterday:

‘A further £10 million will be allocated to NHS boards to help cope with added pressures over the winter months. Provided earlier than ever before, the funding, which comes on top of the £9 million already allocated to support unscheduled care all year round, will allow health boards to put robust plans in place quickly. The investment will support health and social care services to increase weekend discharges where patients are fit to go home. Traditionally, the weekend discharge rate is lower than during the week, leading to a backlog of delay going into a Monday morning.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/funding-for-winter-resilience

Evidence of NHS Scotland’s resilience in the Winter of 2017/2018 was reported here:

NHS Scotland A&E significantly outperforms NHS England A&E in January 2018

‘NHS England cancelling operations at three times the rate in Scotland!’ or ‘With 10% of the population to care for, NHS Scotland cancels only 3.3% of NHS England operations cancelled in January’

As anti-SNP media scrabble desperately for a crisis in NHS Scotland, GP numbers hold constant and access for patients remains far better than in any other part of the UK

As the Herald attempts to worry us with 0.58% of nurses planning to work abroad, official statistics show NHS Scotland has many more nurses per head of population than crisis-ridden NHS England, after 10 years of SNP administration.

NHS Scotland operation cancellations fall in November and there are no plans for increased cancellations in January but in NHS England…..

Winter crisis as NHS England cancels ‘tens of thousands’ of operations and NHS Scotland cancels……… none?

 

In Energy Voice yesterday:

‘Neptune Energy’s first ever results reveal hefty profit. Neptune Energy’s inaugural set of financial results revealed profits in excess of £250 million in the first half of 2018. Revenues were just shy of £800m as the company pumped out 166,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day during the reporting period. Pre-tax profits totalled £262m at Neptune, which did not own any producing assets last year.’

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/181017/neptune-energys-first-ever-results-reveal-hefty-profit/

However, it seems unlikely the UK Treasury will meaningfully tax this income any more than it did the profits of Shell (see diagram above) in the previous two years. Professor Richard Murphy has an explanation:

‘But why does the Treasury care? If it assists the spin that Scotland cannot survive on its own, I suspect that’s considered a price worth paying. And I would not be at all surprised if that is part of the political motivation for this.’

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/09/03/london-is-giving-away-scotlands-oil-revenues/

For more on the failure to tax North Sea wealth, see:

‘Huge swing in North Sea oil revenues’ suggests tax fiddle

Correction: Office for Budget Responsibility massively underestimates North Sea oil revenues

Up to 400 new jobs for Shell field in North Sea. Lots of tax revenue too? No?

Why were tens of billions in oil revenues lost by UK government? Would they have made Scotland seem too wealthy in September 2014?

 

According to a report in Energy Voice yesterday:

‘Top petro-economist Alex Kemp will soon deliver a more “bullish” forecast for North Sea oil production out to 2050. The Aberdeen University professor said higher than expected Brent crude prices and lower costs meant existing predictions could be too conservative. His last study estimated that nearly 11 billion more barrels of oil would be produced between 2017 and 2050 with Brent around $60 per barrel. But with prices hovering between $70 and $80 for the last few months, Prof Kemp and his colleagues at the institution could deliver more optimism.’

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/181032/prof-kemp-to-deliver-more-bullish-north-sea-production-forecast/

This is a sign that more conservative, cautious, opinion is catching up with more alert thinking revealed in earlier reports here:

Scottish crude oil value surges to record level in more than 3 years

A fifth prediction of oil rising to $100 per barrel for Scottish oil, suggests pre-tax revenue of around $1 trillion!

As Scottish oil industry booms, Aberdeen contractors more confident but Scottish media pay little attention.

As oil prices soar and exploration increases, employment in Scotland’s oil industry returns to record levels

A wealthy independent Scotland? Nearly $300 billion in new oil revenue to be unlocked in latest offshore licensing round.

According to Bank of America, oil prices could hit $100 a barrel next year but all of Scotland’s ‘business correspondents’ miss the news again and for the fourth time in a year.

Scottish oil surging back toward £100 per barrel and massive Treasury revenue?

May 10, 2018johnrobertson8343 Comments

Oil prices to rise to $70 per barrel this summer as two new fields are discovered in last two weeks

Another major oil-find in Scottish sector of North Sea

Multi-million-barrel oil discovery in North Sea

Of course, for this wealth to be properly exploited will require a change of behaviour in the Treasury. See:

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/09/03/london-is-giving-away-scotlands-oil-revenues/

 

‘UK’ research misleads on operation cancellations in Scotland

 

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Waiting-Times/Publications/2018-09-04/2018-09-04-Cancellations-Summary.pdf?74837893248

In the Independent today, the headline:

‘One in seven major operations in UK cancelled on day of surgery, data shows’

suggested the usual Anglo-centric journalism conflating figures for England with the UK. One in seven is 14.3%. However, the article was reporting on an apparently UK-wide snapshot of cancellations in one-week in the Spring 2018 period:

‘Their study is published in the wake of a record winter crisis where in the first three months of 2018, 25,475 operations were cancelled on the day they were scheduled to take place in England alone (!) – the highest since records began. This is despite hospitals being told [in England] to pre-emptively cancel thousands of non-urgent operations to minimise same-day cancellations and focus resources on urgent cases.  For their research the RCA and UCL compiled data from an unparalleled 93 per cent of hospitals in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and built a seven-day snap shot of surgeries that took place between 21 and 27 March.’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-operations-cancelled-winter-crisis-surgery-patient-waiting-times-a8526171.html

No breakdown of the figures for England, N Ireland, Scotland and Wales is offered. I’ve found accessing such increasingly difficult with researchers telling me there were no significant differences between the four areas but not being willing to release them. Hmmm.

Operations cancellations in Scotland

Direct comparisons cannot be made but, as you can see in the above chart, cancellations for non-clinical capacity reasons, in Spring 2018, had peaked at just over 4% and were beginning to fall to around 1.5%.

In the absence of a breakdown, I am limited in what can be concluded but, given the comparatively very low figures for Scotland, based on actual data recorded by the hospitals and the relatively small proportion of UK hospitals located in the UK as a whole (8%), it seems most unlikely that this research has much relevance for us.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Waiting-Times/Publications/2018-09-04/2018-09-04-Cancellations-Summary.pdf?74837893248

Perhaps one of the most telling facts is that Scottish hospitals were not instructed to pre-emptively cancel thousands of non-urgent operations in this period. See:

NHS Scotland operation cancellations fall in November and there are no plans for increased cancellations in January but in NHS England…..

However, elderly Telegraph readers in Scotland [lots going by my local newsagent] saw this:

‘NHS hospitals ordered to cancel all routine operations in January as flu spike and bed shortages lead to A&E crisis

Every hospital in the country (sic)* has been ordered to cancel all non-urgent surgery until at least February in an unprecedented step by NHS officials.

The instructions on Tuesday night – which will see result in around 50,000 operations being axed – followed claims by senior doctors that patients were being treated in “third world” conditions, as hospital chief executives warned of the worst winter crisis for three decades.’

• Another use of ‘sic’ in a medical context!

From Scottish Housing News yesterday:

The vast majority of Scottish households are satisfied with their housing, with a majority saying that they’re “very satisfied”, according to new Scottish Government figures. The annual Scottish Household Survey for 2017 found that over nine in ten households (92%) were very or fairly satisfied with their housing, with 56% being very satisfied and 36% being fairly satisfied.

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/23348/government-survey-reveals-vast-majority-of-scottish-households-satisfied-with-housing/

This news seems, at least in part,  a likely consequence of earlier Scottish Government initiatives:

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

Scottish social housing more accessible and cheaper than in rest of UK

 

 

From the Scottish Business News Network yesterday

‘The number of overseas tourists visiting Scotland rose by almost a quarter in the 12 months to the end of March 2018, compared to the same period in 2016/17. Figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) statistics for Q2 2017 – Q1 2018 showed 3.4 million overseas tourists visited Scotland, spending £2.4 billion, an increase of 29% compared to the previous 12 months. The number of UK visitors to Scotland rose by 11% to 12 million while expenditure increased by £401 million to £3.1 billion. Around 29% more European tourists visited Scotland during the period, with 2.1 million visits recorded. Across the UK as a whole the number of visits from European tourists fell by 2% and expenditure fell by 1% in the 12 months to the end of March 2018.’

https://sbnn.co.uk/2018/09/05/overseas-tourists-numbers-rises-by-almost-a-quarter/

These figures come after numerous earlier reports of a boom in tourist visits to Scotland:

Scottish tourism growth outpaces that in UK

‘Outlander links see visitors to historic sites soaring’

Tourism spending in Scotland surges ahead of UK figure

 

© Pussy Riot in St Magnus Cathedral event to raise funds for political prisoners including the ‘French Embassy 1’, Alistair Carmichael

Today’s Herald confidently shouts:

‘Alex Salmond under growing pressure to apologise and quit RT chat show’

Ooooh! Let’s see all this pressure! What, it’s just this one guy?

‘Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “Given the overwhelming evidence suggesting that this attack was conducted by Russian intelligence, it is abhorrent that the former first minister is still taking part in a weekly show on Putin’s propaganda channel. End this Trump-like apologism for Putin’s Russia.”’

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16691040.alex-salmond-under-growing-pressure-to-apologise-and-quit-rt-chat-show/

Wait a minute, that name, Alex Cole-Hamilton, keeps coming up. Is all this ‘pressure’ on Alex Salmond coming from just one awesome Lib-Dem force of nature? He’s the only source of pressure in this identical Scottish Farmer piece:

Alex Salmond under growing pressure to apologise and quit RT chat show

He was the only source of pressure in these Telegraph and Scotsman pieces back in March:

‘Alex Salmond accused of being ‘useful idiot’ as he is urged to quit RT chat show’

‘Alex Salmond accused of being ‘Putin’s useful idiot’ amid calls to ban RT’

He was the only source of pressure in this Scottish Sun story in May:

Alex Salmond faces fresh pressure to axe TV show after SNP defence spokesman slams Kremlin-funded station

And in August, revealing himself as a big Pussy Riot fan, he wrote:

‘When Alex Salmond started his show, I challenged him to feature courageous dissidents like Pussy Riot, who stand up to the Putin regime. Sadly, he shirked the challenge.’

https://stirlinglibdems.org.uk/en/article/2018/1274965/pussy-riot-condemn-salmond-rt-show

Sources tell me Cole-Hamilton had to be reminded not to tuck-in his ‘FREE PUSSY RIOT’ t-shirt, obscuring the word ‘RIOT’, after that last time.

Cole-Hamilton’s heroism was evident earlier (2011) when he caught scurvy rather than reduce his campaigning efforts:

‘An aspiring MSP caught a disease almost unheard of since the days when sailors had to spend months at sea without fresh food. Liberal Democrat Alex Cole-Hamilton, 33, caught scurvy as he spent months skipping nourishing meals while he spent hours knocking on doors to drum up support for his Edinburgh Central campaign. His appalling diet meant he has become only one of a handful of people diagnosed with scurvy in Scotland.’

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/234446/Scurvy-shock-for-Lib-Dem

This, of course, predates Tory austerity policies.

On Reporting Scotland today, the headline is:

‘Ruth Davidson accuses the Scottish government of offering nothing but warm words over the possible early release of a man who murdered an Ayrshire teenager.’

over the long close-up shot of the victim.

Later Brian Taylor tells us that it’s ‘on the agenda’ but that Davidson wants ‘concrete action now.’

Davidson knows fine that’s how a democracy operates, carefully and thoroughly discussing the options. She knows that ‘concrete action now’, without debate, is what you get in dictatorships and that it can often be the sort action that most of us might fear. None of this, however, matters, of course, because she is coldly pursuing an opportunity, any opportunity, to attack the First Minister and, with the collusion of the loyalist media, score a political point. BBC Scotland do not disappoint her. Any psychology student will spot in politicians like Davidson the characteristic behaviour of the psychopath, coldly exploiting the heartbroken parents and using their pain and anger to construct a weapon she can use for purely political gain.

Keen as ever to display their loyalist behaviour to someone they have been nurturing as the (last) hope of the Union, BBC Scotland give the story prominence and regular repeats fearing not that to do so exposes them as charlatans and lackeys.

In a sign that all is not well within the ranks of our usually loyalist media, it seems a BBC webmaster has revealed her SNP sympathies with the above headline, confirming what we already knew, of course. Churnalists at the Herald and the Scotsman will be deeply hurt by this betrayal which comes from former colleagues, university, school and playgroup chums.

Don’t ask me again Brian!  (c) BBC

There is of course a certain irony in BBC Scotland using the term ‘smiling assassins’ when they are host to Brian Taylor whose regularly chummy grin with Nicola Sturgeon is soon replaced by the smiling assassin as he courts the favour of Jackie Bird. It’s not going to happen Brian. She still thinks she’s a top bird and out of your league.

(c) BBC

This is the second clear sign of division after Kevin Keane, Acting Junior Assistant Temporary Editor, for the Countryside, warned on Re-parting Scotland (5^th June):

‘Every day of every year, we produce rubbish.’

Kevin’s English accent is, of course, a clever ploy. See this for more:

Reporting Scotland’s shock admission – ‘Every day of every year we produce rubbish’

Footnote: Reliable sources tell me that the webmaster is actually the grand-daughter of a prominent BBC editor and I can reveal she is ‘Ronalda ‘the Dude’ Smith!

Hume wearing his patented thinking cap to conceal his fear of recession

Broadcast 6 times this morning and on the website, BBC Scotland News report a David Hume ‘Institute’ study which wrongly claims:

‘[T]here had been “no progress” towards a target set by ministers in 2007 to improve Scotland’s productivity rankings.’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-45420482

However, in the first quarter of 2018, Scottish labour productivity increased by 1.7%. See this from 22^nd August 2018:

‘Additionally, this release contains a trend-based estimate of productivity growth. This indicates the underlying rate of change during the latest quarter by removing both seasonal and irregular (volatile) movements from the data. It is estimated that the trend in real output per hour worked increased by 1.7% in the first quarter of 2018.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/labour-productivity-statistics-2018-quarter-1

Was the DHI unable to remove the volatile movements from its data? Did they know about them? Could they do the sums? Did they prefer to leave them in to suit their predetermined conclusions? Did the news of a 1.7% increase in one quarter arrive when they were on holiday?

In the same period, UK labour productivity fell by 0.4%. See:

‘UK labour productivity is estimated to have fallen by 0.4% in the first three months of the year, as a result of continued strength in employment growth combined with weaker output growth; this is the first fall in output per hour since the second quarter of 2017.’

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/labourproductivity/bulletins/labourproductivity/januarytomarch2018