Talking-up Scotland

It’s been some time since my last report suggesting that Scotland is a better place than the UK and that its leaders share a set of values driving us further away from it. Some have mistakenly labelled them ‘Scottish values’ when they are just values more commonly held here than in, say, SE England. Some have deliberately misinterpreted my argument suggesting that it is ‘Scottish exceptionalism.’ That’s a deeply ironic notion now as Boris Johnson’s ‘Plucky Britain’ is launched.

To be clear again, a higher percentage of the people living in Scotland seem to hold and be prepared to vote for parties espousing more democratic, egalitarian, collectivist and fairer policies. Around 20% in Scotland seem to prefer more totalitarian, individualistic, competitive values, judging by their support for the Conservative and Brexit parties. Of course, given its much larger population, rUK probably has far more people holding the above democratic, egalitarian, collectivist and fairness values than there are in Scotland. The poor souls are just outnumbered in a way that we are not.

Yesterday in the Guardian I read:

Scotland’s universities are to offer guaranteed undergraduate places to students who have been in care at any point in their lives as part of a ground-breaking effort to increase the number from that demographic doing a degree. The formal announcement by Scotland’s 18 higher education institutions is backed by Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, as a way of helping those who have been in care overcome the barriers they face.

Here are some earlier reports on ‘differences’:

Abuse of women and the disabled far higher in England than in Scotland

Less homicide, less knife crime, less domestic violence, safer cities and now much lower alcohol problems: should Scotland’s old stereotypes be sent south?

Racial hate crimes increase by 33% in England & Wales while falling by 10% in Scotland: Who says we’re not different?

Scottish Muslim students far less likely to report abuse or crime?

Terror de-radicalisation referral rate in Scotland less than one third per capita of that in England

Only in Scotland! ‘A review of small country’s approaches to public policy reform in response to economic, demographic and other pressures found that only in Scotland could this ‘golden thread’ be so clearly discerned’

Scientific evidence that Scots tend to be different from the other groups in rUK?

Who said Scots were not more left-wing than those in the rest of the UK?

With 1 in 4 living wage employers already in Scotland, the Scottish Government aims to make this a ‘Living Wage Nation’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

80 000 lowest paid workers in NHS England still on poverty wages as NHS Scotland follows Scottish Government policy to pay a living wage to all public-sector employees

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

Different Scotland in the UN report on ‘Workhouse Britain’

Scottish values making oil and gas firms a tad different too?

Are Scotland’s employers also different – more willing to pay a decent wage?

With 1 in 4 living wage employers already in Scotland, the Scottish Government aims to make this a ‘Living Wage Nation’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

Another difference as UK small and medium-sized business people prefer Boris while Scots prefer…

Another difference between Scotland and rUK?

NHS England’s new motto: Who is laike us? Dem few and they err awl daid!

Scottish Government support for small businesses superior to that in non-Scottish parts of UK

Yesterday, in the Constitutional Affairs committee, Wishart flirted with Rees-Mogg:

‘Could I obviously warmly welcome him to this place. He’s the fifth leader I’ve had, in my fourth year, but I would have to say that he is by far the most exotic.’

Note the sense of belonging comfortably in ‘this place’, in Wishart’s words. Rees-Mogg may seem exotic but we know he is really a cold reactionary politician who despises the left-of-centre democratic values of the SNP. He was rewarded by laughter and reciprocal warmth from the Tory front bench:

A delighted Rees-Mogg was then enabled to witter on about the parliament’s long history going back to 1265 and to refer to Wishart as ‘the honourable gentleman is a very good parliamentary historian.’ Wishart loved it:

Contrast this with Ian Blackford’s combative style in welcoming the Prime Minister as the ‘last prime minister of the United Kingdom’ before going on to warn him not to try to take Scotland out of the EU:

We’ve seen Blackford, many times before, earn the cold contemptuous death stare from former PM May. That is as it should be.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00071jj/thursday-in-parliament-25072019

Has Wishart, charmed by Rees-Mogg’s humour, forgotten that he is dealing with a man who despises both Wishart and all of his people? See:

A cold reactionary lies behind the Jacob Rees-Mogg act

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/22/jacob-rees-mogg-cold-reactionary

We did not send our MPs there, to flirt with the likes of Rees-Mogg.

There were earlier signs that Wishart likes playing the part of erudite and witty honourable gentleman a bit too much, in his earlier astonishing bid (aborted) to become the Speaker!

The BBC reported:

His announcement prompted criticism from some independence supporters online, who told Mr Wishart that SNP members should be at Westminster to “settle up, not settle down”.

But his party leader, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, defended the move, saying: “For as long as the SNP is in the House of Commons, we should be trying to make it work as well as we can, and undo some of the barriers that are in the way – we’ve seen all too powerfully in the Brexit debate how Scotland’s voice is not being heard.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-48118739

From YouGov today with 147 Scots and fieldwork on 23^rd and 24^th July:

• Con      10%
• Lab      11%
• LibD     18%
• SNP      42%
• Brexit  13%
• Green  5%

They didn’t even ask if Jo Swinson would make the best Prime Minister, but the Lib Dems did least well in Scotland with support in England ranging from 20% to 26%

Click to access TimesResults_VI_190724_w.pdf

We hear regularly of the alleged failures of the SNP’s education policies. Emily Maitles tried to poke Ian Blackford with them last night. Kevin McKenna list some of the regulars for us, wrong and evidence-free of course.

It’s all a bit galling given the situation in England. Reader LEGERWOOD lists some for us.

Education/schools in Scotland failing? Here is a selection of education/schools Articles from the Guardian on the state of Schools in England. I have not given links just the headlines so you can search for them yourself but enough just from the headlines to get some idea about what is happening down south.

• It’s dangerous’: full chaos of funding cuts in England’s schools revealed ….. from March 2019
• More than 49,000 pupils ‘disappeared’ from English schools – study
• Data reveals one in 12 schoolchildren in 2012-17 were removed from rolls without explanation…..From April 2019
• ‘A national shame’: headteachers voice anger about pupils’ hunger…..20th May 2019. Note: as usual the article starts off saying it is ‘across the UK’ but read on and it is clear it is English Schools
• Former Ofsted head says government school funding claims are misleading…..26th May 2019
• School asks BBC Children in Need to cover funding gap
  …Jun 2019
  Some English schools ‘can’t afford to teach five days a week’…..4th July 2019
• More than 300 English primary schools forced to become academies
  Some failing schools shunted between trusts as sponsors collect millions in grants…….11 July 2019
  Vanity project’: debts pile up for English free schools scheme…..13th July 2019
• And earlier articles from the Guardian:
  From Dec 2017
• 40,000 children trapped in ‘zombie’ academy schools
• Education ministers urged to investigate after failed trusts leave pupils in limbo
  From July 2017
• More than 600,000 pupils in England taught by unqualified teachers, says Labour
• Party says many school staff have no guaranteed training in safeguarding children, and standards are at risk

 (Image: Steve McKendrick)

Thanks to a Freedom of Information request by, probably, some one hoping to fabricate a teacher supply crisis, we can see that the number of teachers retiring is actually falling, contrary to many reports.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-201900002486/

An earlier request, in May 2019, found that Scotland has  35% more teachers per capita than Tory England and 46% more than Labour Wales!

 

Thanks to this Parliamentary question and answer, we can reveal that NHS Scotland has been reducing its use of private healthcare to carry out operations:

Miles Briggs (Lothian) (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party): To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on the number of operations that have taken place in the private healthcare sector in each year since 1999.

Meanwhile in England:

The Department of Health and Social Care paid £9.2 billion to private providers in the year prior to 31 March 2019, according to their annual report.

The 14% increase comes as health secretary Matt Hancock pledged to reduce the outsourcing of patient care. “There is no privatisation of the NHS on my watch,” Hancock said to MPs and health chiefs in January 2019.

Shadow health and care secretary Jonathan Ashworth commented: “Tory privatisation of our NHS continues to gather pace with public expenditure on independent providers now at a record high. These accounts blow apart Matt Hancock’s claims to parliament there would be no privatisation on his watch.”

http://www.pharmafile.com/news/524883/government-spend-92-billion-private-healthcare-providers-nhs-2018-19

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In a Home Office report, ‘An analysis of indicators of serious violence’, published yesterday we see that more than 17 500 boys aged 14 carry a knife or weapon in England and Wales.

Click to access analysis-of-indicators-of-serious-violence-horr110.pdf

The above appears as fatal stabbings in England & Wales pass 100 cases already this year, with 19 of the victims under 20 years of age:

I cannot find a single fatal stabbing of a teenager reported in Scotland in 2018 or 2019.

This follows reports of soaring knife crime in England (graph above and map below) to over 140 offences per 100 000 population in some areas:

https://news.sky.com/story/kent-and-west-yorkshire-see-biggest-rise-in-knife-crime-over-the-last-eight-years-11655918

Knife Crime in Scotland:

The latest figures for Scotland are expected to be published in October 2019 but the trend has been dramatically downward. Offensive weapon carrying in Scotland has reduced by 64%.in the last ten years.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-handling-offensive-weapons/

By GAVIN

Has, in the last few years
Backed remaining within the EU, including its fishery policy.
Backed leaving the EU with the May Deal( though Westminster repeatedly voted it down).
Will now back the Boris No Deal position (when Ruthie comes out of hiding).

Has had a manifesto supporting testing children at 5years old, then attacked that very same policy in Holyrood.
Has bad-mouthed the DUP on its policies on equal marriage and abortion, but then has worked, hand in hand, in partnership with them.

Supports the people of Hong Kong when they march in favour of democracy, but attack Scots who do the same.
Are in favour of democracy in Hong Kong, Russia, Zimbabwe et al—but oppose it for Scots.
Support the people of Hong Kong when attacked by agents of the State (triad gangs) but stay silent when young Scots are attacked by British nationalist supported thugs( the orange order were invited to campaign alongside Labour, Tory and Dumbs) waving Union flags in George Square.

Agitate against wind turbines in Scotland, but support the same in England.
Are in favour of an “invisible” border in Ireland, yet insist that the Scottish/English border would consist of barbed wire, border posts and armed guards.

We read in the colonial press that Ruthie (and her party) are “winning”. If that means lies, burying facts and propaganda from “journalists”, then indeed they are “winning” in the same way as East Germanies Communists were “winning”, and for the same reasons.

To remind those loyal Scots Tories now willing to fluffily ‘serve under’ Boris, a wee reminder that’s it’s entirely a one-way street emerges in the Guardian today.  4-year-olds, not even 5-year-olds, are to be tested and their parents need not expect to be informed never mind consulted. It’s the kind of thing that used to madden those champions of family values and strict parenting like Ruth Davidson (still not available for comment). Less than a year ago she was furious:

Driven on by righteous indignation and ‘compassionate conservatism’, she attacked the SNP’s flagship policies on education:

But even the Tory press in England were unable to resist noting the hypocrisy. The Times wrote:

Ruth Davidson has been accused of “shameless opportunism” after the Tories stole a march on other parties by launching a formal attempt to scrap school testing at age five. The Conservatives used their position as Holyrood’s second party to lodge a motion for debate next week, which will lead to a vote on the policy that the SNP is expected to lose. Nicola Sturgeon pointed out that the Scottish Tories had supported P1 testing in their latest manifesto. Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who have consistently opposed it, had also planned to secure a vote on the policy.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/opportunistic-tories-call-vote-on-tests-at-five-fhkcchp7n

In a 1400-word piece on ‘Who would win if a general election were held now?’ by Sir John Courtier, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, we only read of the SNP twice, well down the page, is this revealing choice of word:

That means that not only are there as many as four parties recording substantial levels of support across Britain as a whole, but also a fifth which has a stranglehold on Westminster voting intentions in Scotland.

The SNP does not feature in either of the two graphics nor in any of the three photographs, but it is the choice of the word ‘stranglehold’ which catches the eye because it reminds us that the Prof Sir is by no means an impartial observer here.

Ironically, the Prof Sir is the BBC’s go-to-guy on elections and polls. I have never seen any other psephologist (poll-reader) perform for them. Is he the only one in the UK? I doubt it but he seems to have a stranglehold on the slot. Like some other stranglers in history, his grip has earned him a knighthood.

It’s at least as ironic and a bit laughable too, to see the SNP’s popularity described as a ‘stranglehold’ by the BBC. The SNP is popular as no other government has been. Twelve years in, they consistently poll around 40-45% and look like wiping the mat with their feckless and morally bankrupt opponents. In June 2018, the ONS reported that 61% trusted the Scottish Government to work in Scotland’s best interests compared to 20% for the UK Government. This popularity, unlike that gifted to populists such as Farage, with numerous unwarranted media invitations, was earned in the face of BBC propaganda including the well-attested demonization of Alex Salmond. To represent this hard-won popularity as a stranglehold requires a mindset already predisposed to attack the SNP at any opportunity.

When we think back to the BBC and its attempt to deny political bloggers, such as Wings, access to news reports excerpts because they might be used to evidence their bias, we see a veritable chokehold. In 2014, Good Morning Scotland removed episodes more quickly in an attempt to prevent those such as me digging into their dirty past.

When you consider the BBC’s attempts to jail licence fee avoiders who have chosen to make a principled stand against their propaganda, you see that they know all about strangleholds.

The term has previous as a Tory trope:

A strong Scottish Conservative opposition can break the “Labour-SNP stranglehold”

A strong Scottish Conservative opposition can break the “Labour-SNP stranglehold”

Miss Davidson will argue this Left-wing “stranglehold” suits Labour and the SNP but has made it difficult for the Tories as so many voters are reliant on the public sector for their household income.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/scottish-politics/9593135/Nine-in-ten-Scots-living-off-states-patronage.html

To join Labour in a bid to break the SNP’s “stranglehold” north of the border.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/smear-campaign-against-nurse-forces-sturgeon-to-step-in-hx3pkh6gx

Ruth Davidson vows to break ‘Labour-SNP stranglehold’

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14400153.ruth-davidson-vows-to-break-labour-snp-stranglehold/

And the appeal is obvious to political parties seeking to dent the SNP’s stranglehold on the majority of Scottish constituencies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-40170166

Proving that the Nat stranglehold on Labour’s territory was not quite as secure as it had seemed

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/scotland/2017/07/scottish-labour-way-back-or-heading-civil-war

How dare they vote SNP. Why don’t they like us…WAAAH!!!