Talking-up Scotland

As oil prices rise to $80 per barrel and are trending toward $100 pb, we now see that exploration levels have risen to a level which means they cannot be used by our business correspondents to cast doubt on the full recovery of the industry and its potential to make this a very rich country, if we grab the reins at Indyref2. My next piece will be on the recovery of jobs in Aberdeen. However, first, see this from Energy Voice today:

‘OGA [Oil and Gas Authority] hopes the round will unlock 320 million barrels of oil in undeveloped oil and gas discoveries which were previously “stranded”. Around 3.6 billion barrels worth of exploration prospectivity will be progressed by the new licensees, who run the gamut from majors to new entrants. OGA chief executive Andy Samuel said: ‘The UKCS is back. Big questions facing the basin have been answered in this round.’

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/172246/breaking-30th-north-sea-licensing-round-awards-revealed/

I know this means higher prices at the pumps but if Unionist commentators were able to insist that no oil income meant Scotland could not make it alone then this potential revenue cannot now be ignored. Of course, Douglas Fraser has already shown that he will change horses and concentrate on the damage high prices might do to other parts of the economy. We cannot win, if we let them control this narrative.

(c) Ross Fraser McLean

I’ve had cause to report several times recently on Dundee apparently punching above its weight. See these:

Glasgow only UK city to make New York Times top ten cities to visit. Dundee makes CNN’s most design-savvy list with Tokyo and Paris

It’s Dundee hitting the headlines for all the right reasons and not for the first time this year

Silver medal and second in list of best places to start a new business 2017, it’s….. Edinburgh? No, it’s Dundee. Sit down Edinburgh.

‘University of Dundee is UK’s highest ranked institution for influencing innovation’

Now, today, we read:

‘The city of Dundee has been named one of the best places in Europe to visit this year by travel guide Lonely Planet. It is placed sixth on the guide’s best in Europe 2018 list which includes Italy’s food heartland of Emilia-Romagna, the northern Spanish region of Cantabria, Provence in France and Kosovo. Describing Dundee, Lonely Planet’s writers praised a creative scene that “increasingly attracts some of the UK’s most visionary talent”, building on its selection by Unesco as the UK’s first City of Design in 2014.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/dundee-lonely-planet-va-dundee-12575478

It’s particularly good to hear this kind of thing about ‘Yes City 2014’.

From Insider today:

‘Figures reveal more than 2.6m people aged 16 and over were in employment in Scotland – the highest level on record and including twice as many people aged 65 and over as a decade ago. A total of 2,618,100 people aged 16 years and over were in employment in Scotland in 2017 – the highest level on record.’

Within the report, there were a number of highlights:

1. 84 700 people over 65 still in work
2. Twice as many over 65s as 10 years ago
3. Overall employment rate, highest ever at 74.3%
4. Only 0.4% lower than UK as a whole despite massive subsidies for South
5. Full-time employment at record high of 1 910 600
6. Lowest level on record, unemployed at 111 200
7. Near to highest level ever self-employed at 322 900
8. More women opting to be own boss
9. Overall unemployment at 4.1% below UK level of 4.4%

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/employment-scotland-hits-record-high-12577196

To Bill Grant, MP on May 19^th:

Dear Mr Grant

As my local MP, please raise my concerns, shared with others in Ayrshire, about the naming of a new Astute class submarine, ‘Agincourt.’ There are several reasons why this is a bad choice.

1. The battle of Agincourt predates British history.
2. The name is offensive to our NATO allies,France.
3. The battle featured the slaughter of French prisoners of war.
4. The battle was part of a piratical invasion of another state.
5. The English army was led by a tyrannical, French-speaking, Anglo-Norman aristocracy, deeply unpopular back in England and Wales.
6. There were Scots serving in the French army.
7. Scottish/Ayrshire taxpayers contributed to the costs of this vessel.

 There is nothing heroic about this name. Please join the protest against it.

Yours sincerely

Professor John Robertson

Ayr

________________________________________________________________________________

Reply from Bill Grant MP on May 21^st:

Professor Robertson,

By chance I met Gavin Williamson Minister for Defence this very morning, he advised as follows –

 There have been 5 or 6 vessels named “Agincourt” over the last 300 years

 The name is chosen by Naval / Defence staff

 Her majesty is advised of the name chosen and her approval is sought

 In the case of “Agincourt” for the astute class submarine, this has been approved by Her Majesty

Mr Williamson recalled somewhere in history, where a King at the time rejected the name “Cromwell “ for a naval vessel

 Hope this is helpful.

 Regards Bill Grant.

_______________________________________________________________________________

My follow-up on 22^nd

Thanks Bill

I’m not sure why previous inappropriate practice and the Queen’s approval is an answer to my criticisms.

Do you feel you’ve done all you can?

Readers, should I pursue this? If so, how?

Early today and six times before 9:00 am, BBC Scotland’s insert in the Breakfast show, announced:

‘BBC Scotland has found people addicted to drugs are having to wait up to six months for treatment including for methadone prescriptions. Figures show that only 42% of problem drug users are in treatment compared to 60% in England. The Scottish Government says it is investing additional money in drug treatment and that the 42% figure may not represent the full picture.’

So, this damaging and deceptive comparison of Scotland with England, of the kind which Yes supporters are often derided for doing themselves, is repeated six times. This is a time when audiences are more likely to be made anxious and to be influenced by bad news and so the propagandising effect is more powerful that at, say, 6:30pm. See this for evidence on that:

The Power of Early Morning Nightmares: Waking up to BBC Scotland and learning to fear an independent future: 16th April 2018

The story is told in greater detail on the website, but this too leads with the same claims plus additional personal accounts to further dramatize the BBC claims. It is only after we read deep into the report that we find:

‘In England the number of opioid users in treatment was about 60% – but there were some differences in how the figures were compiled.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-44162600

This highlights one of the key problems with the BBC’s comparison of Scotland with England. Are the Scottish Government’s figures actually comparable with the English figures? The difficulty in making in any comparison is compounded by the failure to source the English or, indeed, the Scottish data.

Update: The Scotland/England comparison was dropped for Reporting Scotland at 1:30pm.

However, the English figures are clearly of opioid users only whereas the Scottish figures are of all problem drug users. Is it not possible, even likely, that the percentage of all drug users being treated in England, will be less than 60% or that the percentage of opioid users only being treated in Scotland will be more than 42%?

If the Scottish figures include benzodiazepines (eg Diazepam), methamphetamine (Crystal Meth), cannabis and cocaine and the English figures do not, then the comparison made by BBC Scotland is more than questionable. I understand that the first group, benzodiazepines, can be more addictive than opioids and thus more difficult to treat, making their inclusion n the Scottish figures a key constraint on the usefulness of the BBC’s research and there is hard evidence that this is true. See:

‘This data cannot be directly compared to Scotland due to differences in the definitions and source datasets (opiate and/or crack cocaine use in England versus opiate and/or benzodiazepine use in Scotland).’

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/2014-10-28/2014-10-28-Drug-Prevalence-Report.pdf

The above seems to confirm that English and Scottish data are based upon different sets with the Scottish data, only, including the highly addictive benzodiazepines.

Further, neither the broadcast nor the online reports bothered to conxtextualise the figures with this important fact:

‘[T]he rate of high risk drug users in Scotland is double the rate for England’

http://www.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefingsAndFactsheets/S5/SB_17-22_Drug_Misuse.pdf

If the problem is far greater, overall, in Scotland than in England, viewers should have been told this. This casts BBC Scotland’s already dubious comparison of Scotland with England, finally into the dustbin of research.

Is this the beginning of another media campaign, weaponizing drug problems? We had this only a few days ago:

‘Drug users in Scotland ‘consume most cocaine’ in one session’

The claim was demolished here:

BBC Scotland News misuses research findings to lie and scare about drug use in Scotland

Finally, I’ve been monitoring the early morning broadcasts for several weeks now and I am in a good position to observe any change in the climate following on from announcements such as a date for Indyref2 or, even, the recent announcement by the First Minister of the publication of the SNP’s economic growth commission report later this week.

Footnote: My report was produced well-before Reporting Scotland was broadcast. Any improvements in that do not remove my concerns about these earlier and potentially very influential pieces of propaganda.

Footnote 2: Why is serious drug abuse twice as high in Scotland? Has dependency on the Union been bad for us in some way?

(c) Daily Express

In September 2017, I wrote:

‘In Scotland, homeless applications in 2015/2016, were down 4% on the previous year. There was a fall in 22 out of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. It’s thought that the continuing fall in homelessness, during the period of SNP administrations, is mainly due to the introduction of the Housing Options service in Scottish local authorities with an emphasis on prevention and the abolishment of the Priority Need Test in Scotland. The underlying drivers of homelessness such as UK Government welfare reforms remain the same and make the above fall something of an achievement. It is, of course, still wholly unsatisfactory that here should be any homelessness in this country.

In England, in sharp contrast, homelessness is on the rise from 11% in 2009/2010 to 32% in 2016/2017. According to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO), reported strangely in Scottish Housing News, households in temporary accommodation in March 2017, were 73% up on 2011. The NAO attribute this in the main to [Tory] welfare reforms. Homelessness has increased every year since 2010 with steep increase in rough sleeping and families living in temporary accommodation. English Ministers are accused by the NAO of being slow to understand the problem. I suspect that’s far too understanding of the NAO. Do they really think Tory minsters give a?’

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/17234/england-rise-in-homelessness-likely-to-have-been-driven-by-welfare-reforms/

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/RefTables/Homelessness201516

Today, in the Guardian, we read:

‘Hundreds of homeless people fined and imprisoned in England and Wales. Homeless people are banned from town centres, routinely fined hundreds of pounds and jailed if caught repeatedly asking for money in some cases. Growing numbers of vulnerable homeless people are being fined, given criminal convictions and even imprisoned for begging and rough sleeping, the Guardian can reveal. Homeless people are banned from town centres, routinely fined hundreds of pounds and sent to prison if caught repeatedly asking for money in some cases. Local authorities in England and Wales have issued hundreds of fixed-penalty notices and pursued criminal convictions for “begging”, “persistent and aggressive begging” and “loitering” since they were given strengthened powers to combat antisocial behaviour in 2014 by then home secretary, Theresa May.’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/20/homeless-people-fined-imprisoned-pspo-england-wales

Meanwhile, back in Scotland, we heard, a few days ago:

‘Gazing down on the handful of colourful, cottage-style houses set amongst flower beds below, Rico Wallace jokes that he is “quite jealous” – and it is easy to see why. Arranged in neat rows on a hillside in Granton on the north side of Edinburgh, with views out to the Firth of Forth, the 11 newly-built dwellings make up Scotland’s first village for homeless people. The development is expecting its first residents within weeks, where they will be supported by a dedicated on-site team until they are ready to move to a permanent home.’

https://inews.co.uk/news/scotland/inside-scotlands-extraordinary-village-homeless-people/

I’ve written several times here on Scotland’s increasingly more enlightened approach to homelessness. If you need a reminder or evidence to use in an argument, see:

SNP Government to fund frontline efforts to help hardcore of street homeless while Ruth Davidson goes from baking show to celebrity list membership games and our media rats sniff the sewer air for SNP-bad aroma

As Windsor Council calls on police to clear the homeless from its streets before the royal wedding, Scottish Government gives £328 000 to reduce rough sleeping this winter

The world’s biggest sleep-out raises £3.6 million and 475 homes are allocated to homeless people in Central Scotland

Could Scotland end homelessness?

(c) Liverpool Echo

In the Observer today, confusing England with Britain, once again:

‘Fewer GPs are working in Britain’s deprived areas, despite government-funded incentives for new doctors to work among the poor. Wealthier areas, however, have seen the number of doctors rise. The exodus, uncovered by Labour MP Frank Field, is exacerbating the existing “under-doctoring” of deprived populations – the lack of family doctors in places where poorer people live. Experts said the widening divide between rich and poor areas in GP numbers – which is one of England’s starkest health inequalities – would force the least well-off to wait longer for an appointment, even though they are generally sicker and die earlier than the rest of the population.’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/19/nhs-gp-doctors-health-poverty-inequality-jeremy-hunt-denis-campbell-deprived-areas

The evidence is entirely from England. The Herald and the Scotsman seem to have been able to resist the temptation to pretend it applies to Scotland and to blame the SNP for it after the former’s slap on the wrist for this case of misleading readers, reported in Hold the Front Page, two days ago:

‘The press watchdog has rapped a daily newspaper for erroneously reporting that statistics quoted in a report referred to Scotland – rather than the whole of the United Kingdom. The Herald, Glasgow, had blamed an “editing error” for the mistake, which had prompted a complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The Herald’s story, which was presented in the context of a new report released by Oxfam, stated that the gap between “the haves and have nots” in Scotland was growing. It added that the new report revealed “that in Scotland, the richest one per cent has more wealth than the bottom 50 per cent combined”.’

https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2018/news/press-watchdog-raps-daily-over-front-page-story-error/

There isn’t research evidence to directly prove there is no comparable problem in Scotland. That, in itself, is reassuring because if there was any evidence at all, you can be sure we’d have heard about it from Reporting Scotland and the others. What there is, is evidence suggesting it is less likely here, based on a superior number of GPs and of practices, across Scotland.

The latest figures for the number of GPs in the UK are:

• 41 985 GPs in England – last published in Sept 2016
• 4 953 GPs in Scotland (does not include locums) – last published Jan 2017 (350 locums in 2015)
• 2 887 GPs in Wales (includes 634 locums) – last published 30 Mar 2016
• 1 274 GPs in Northern Ireland (does not include locums) – last published Oct 2015

The number of locums in Scotland in 2015 was 350.

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/General-Practice/Publications/2016-06-14/2016-06-14-PrimaryCareWorkforceSurveyScotland2015-Report.pdf

So, the ratio of GPs to overall population is:

• England 1 GP for every 1262 people
• Scotland 1 GP for every 999 people
• Wales 1 GP for every 1060 people
• N Ireland 1 GP for every 1421 people

The number of GP practices is:

• 7 613 in England – last published in Sept 2016
• 958 in Scotland – last published Jan 2017
• 454 in Wales – last published 30 Mar 2016
• 349 in Northern Ireland – last published Oct 2015

The number of practices is a limited statistic, nevertheless, it could give an indication of access in terms of geography.

The ratio of practices to overall population is:

• England 1 practice for every 6962 people
• Scotland 1 practice for every 5532 people
• Wales 1 practice for every 6746 people
• N Ireland 1 practice for every 5189 people

The relatively large number of practices in Northern Ireland, despite having the worst ratio of GPs to population might suggest a tendency only for smaller practices there. In contrast, Scotland having the best ratio of GPs to population along with a relatively high number of practices suggest better geographical access.

Above figures are from the BMA’s General practice in the UK – background briefing 2017

Will sisters not be put off by the idea of a burning bush?

After a day spent hiding from the telly, outside or in my study with the Sex Pistols as a safety filter against any monarchist sound pollution, I woke up to find that the Church of Scotland was not only absent from all that flummery (they don’t have the fancy gear) but that it seems to be leading the way on equality. In the Observer today, we see:

Rt Rev Susan Brown installed as Church of Scotland moderator

Church of Scotland to draft new same-sex marriage laws

Even as death approaches, there is no way, I’m going back to the Kirk, I left as a 12-year-old in 1963, but if I had to, it looks like the best of the bunch.

A female moderator and same-sex marriage would have been a bit of a shock for my dad back then and ministers were, in my mind, like the one in this well-kent joke:

Grumpy Minister: ‘Ah had a dream last nicht. Ah dreamt ye were aw doon in the fires o hell. Ye were moaning and wailing and beseeching the Lord wi ‘Oh Lord, we didnae ken it would be like this.’ And the Lord in his infinite mercy said ‘Weel noo ye ken.’

There’s a variation where he refers to gnashing of teeth, an old wife says ‘but meenister, ah havnae goat any teeth’ and the minister says ‘Madam, teeth will be provided!’

My point? Even our church is better than those in the rest of the UK?

(c) BGR

Today in the Scotsman, we read:

‘Officers left fatigued and frustrated in wake of Police Scotland cuts. The savings imposed on Police Scotland are unsustainable and have led to fewer officers supporting communities, according to force personnel interviewed for a Scottish Government document.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/officers-left-fatigued-and-frustrated-in-wake-of-police-scotland-cuts-1-4741752

As you might expect it’s a highly selective reading of the Evaluation of Police and Fire Reform document released by the Scottish Government with just a wee acknowledgement that there is positive in the report, at the very end, after a Tory rant.

I do go on about context but, once more, that’s what we need to properly judge the quality of Police Scotland. Here’s some:

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

Police Scotland, world experts on violence reduction, are now to advise The Met after helping the NYPD and Canada Police. Scotland’s media ignore the story in favour of anything negative they can find.

As knife crime soars in England and Wales and police numbers fall, Police Scotland is staffed at 50% higher level

First New York Police and now Canada’s police come to learn from Scotland’s successes in tackling violence

How the SNP have protected Scotland by maintaining police numbers and how Theresa May has exposed England to risk.

If officers are genuinely fatigued (no scientifically measurable data is presented), then thank goodness the Tories are not setting their staffing budget.

bill.grant.mp@parliament.uk

1. The battle of Agincourt predates British history.
2. The name is offensive to our NATO allies,France.

3. There were Scots serving in the French army.
4. The battle, on French soil, featured the slaughter of French and Scots prisoners of war.
5. The battle was part of a piratical invasion of another state.
6. The English army was led by a tyrannical, French-speaking, Anglo-Norman aristocracy, deeply unpopular back in England and Wales.
7. Scottish/Ayrshire taxpayers contributed to the costs of this vessel.

There is nothing heroic about this name. Please join the protest against it.

Yours sincerely

Professor John Robertson
Ayr

Footnote: Readers may remember, in 2015, then Chancellor George Osborne, announcing £1m to be spent on commemoration of the battle, and describing the French and Scots, ‘an ill-judged alliance between the champion of a united Europe and a renegade force of Scottish nationalist.’

Renegades while still an independent nation?