I know, size isn’t everything, but I thought readers might be interested in seeing which 2019 reports drew the crowds, so to speak. Use this link to get them:
You’ll need to click on the eye icon top-right to open them. If it doesn’t work for some techy reason, use the big Q and type in the title or enough of it.
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
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
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?
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?
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 23rd and 24th July:
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%
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.
(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.”
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:
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
