Talking-up Scotland

(c) officerofthewatch.com

In Oil and Gas People yesterday:

‘Oil rose further above $68 a barrel on Tuesday, touching its highest since May 2015, supported by OPEC-led production cuts and expectations U.S. crude inventories fell for an eighth week. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia are keeping supply limits in place in 2018, a second year of restraint, to reduce a price-denting glut of oil held in inventories. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was up 32 cents at $68.10 a barrel at 1311 GMT and earlier touched $68.29, its highest since May 2015. U.S. crude rose 37 cents to $62.10 and also reached its highest since May 2015.’

https://www.oilandgaspeople.com/news/15852/oil-hits-highest-since-may-2015-above-68-on-tighter-market/

This news comes after several weeks of prices well above $60pb. Brent crude prices rose to $66.87 per barrel, in early January 2018, from $27.67 in early 2016, due in major part to Saudi-led output cuts and growing demand from Asia. See this graph illustrating the trend:

Production costs have also fallen to £12 per barrel creating enormous profit margins for the major producers. I don’t know if the Scottish media or the Treasury have noticed yet. See:

Scottish oil expected to hit $68 per barrel, up 146% on 2016’s low with production costs falling below $15 per barrel and ‘peak oil’ still to come

Prices are expected to rise even higher. Reported in Energy Voice at the end of 2017, anonymous Saudi sources, presumably from Aramco, predicted that crude oil would rise to $75 per barrel. This is not that shocking a claim given the Aramco chief predicted massive shortages and prices rising to $100 per barrel, only months ago. See:

Will Scotland’s oil hit $100 (or more?) a barrel again after 2020?

Investors already betting on $100 per barrel oil in 2018? Indyref2 should be a very different story

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/159835/saudis-seen-counting-80-surge-oil-income-balance-books/

This is one more reason why we need to push for Indyref sooner rather than later and make sure this kind of information is everywhere on social media. Are the National and the Sunday Herald reporting this kind of thing. I’m not sure they are.

This is deeply ironic but I’m grateful to the BBC News website, yesterday, for doing the work for me, on this one

Some of you, not me, will have watched the barely concealed glee as BBC Scotland and other news reporters, announced the fact that only 78% of patients were seen within four hours in the last week of 2017. The freezing weather leading to increases in falls requiring treatment being up by more than 40% in Inverness and a nation-wide doubling of flu cases do, of course, explain what happened but under an SNP administration anything is fair game for the Unionist media.

However, right at the end of a long BBC Scotland News website article, they offer us the contextual information we need to put one bad week in perspective. Here it is:

‘The situation elsewhere in the UK

Last month, BBC analysis of NHS data showed that fewer patients in Scotland were waiting longer than four hours in A&E than they did in 2012/3 in contrast to England where the number had more than doubled.

It found England had a 155% rise in long waits between 2012/3 and this year, up to 2.5 million a year.

Hospitals in Wales and Northern Ireland also saw an increase over the period.

In Scotland, the number of patients waiting more than four hours fell by 9% to just over 100 000.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42620167

Over the whole of 2017, there were 100 000 waits over 4 hours in Scotland (5.3 million population) and 2 500 000 in England (53 million population). This suggests you were two and a half times as likely to do so in England.

Meanwhile, from the Head of Scottish News, or whatever, the propaganda and/or stupidity persists with this:

(c) Stefan Rousseau / PA Wire/PA Images

In some ways, it would matter little if the Tories had no members at all, as long as they had the support of their corporate and rich donors and as long as the Tory press peddled their nasty ideas. However, even they need some troops on the streets canvassing door-to-door and encouraging their increasingly elderly voters to turn-out if they are to keep winning elections in the future

So, the recent calm admission by new party leader, Brandon Lewis, that membership may have fallen to 70 000 as Labour membership reaches half a million must be a worry to them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brandon-lewis-cabinet-reshuffle-tory-chairman-party-membership-numbers-unknown-plunging-rumours-a8149446.html

The Conservative Home website seemed more than a little anxious:

‘In 2013, the Conservative Party declared a membership figure: 134,000.  A year later, it said that it had risen to 2014.  Conservative Home was first with the figures.  Since then, radio silence from CCHQ. The site is told that whatever the figure was in 2016, it has fallen over the last year or so by about a quarter.  The calculation is based on an assessment of four large areas, three of them in the so-called Tory heartlands.  It may be that the drop is bigger, since it could be bigger where membership is less established. Furthermore, some 80 per cent of the rush of new members who joined the party after the EU referendum have apparently not renewed.  That no national attempt was made to find them, enthuse them and keep them is scandalous.’

https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2017/09/conservative-party-membership-is-down-by-a-quarter-could-it-drop-below-100000-next-year.html

Reading this, the 70 000 begins to look optimistic and the real figure is probably lower still. Also, within the overall figure there are further signs of looming problems. According to the Guardian, 71% are male and 44% are 65 or over.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/09/theresa-may-tory-party-dying-reshuffle-conservatives

Moving now to Scotland. The Scotsman headlined gleefully in September 2017:

‘The Scottish National Party have been hit with a drop, in membership, new figures have revealed.’

but then had to admit that the fall was only from 120 000 to 118 000 and that they remained larger than all the other Scottish parties put together.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/opposition-s-peak-nat-claim-realised-as-snp-membership-falls-1-4563234

As for the Scottish Labour branch, they had only 13 500 in 2014 but claim to have added 15 500 since Corbyn’s rise. Being kind, let’s agree they have around 29 000 before their new leadership lets them down just like the others have.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/general-election/in-numbers-scottish-political-party-membership-1-3905167

As for the Lib Dems, it looks like around 3 000

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/adam-ramsay/quick-note-on-party-memberships-in-uk

One more, before we get to the Scottish Tories, the Scottish Greens claim 9 000 members.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/general-election/in-numbers-scottish-political-party-membership-1-3905167

Now, the Scottish Tories, at best will have 8% of the UK total. Scotland has 8% of the UK population but do we have 8% of those likely to join the Tory party? I doubt it and suspect that the shires and suburban parts of England will have more than their share. However, let’s be kind and give them the 8% and kind again to say 8% of 70 000. That would give them around 5 600 members. Pathetic if correct? The 70 000 members figure led the guardian’s Owen jones to ask:

‘A question: do the Tories meaningfully exist anymore beyond Westminster and the closed circles of power and influence highlighted by the Toby Young fiasco? Corporate donations and hired help might just about get them through election campaigns. But while Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party can justifiably claim to be a mass movement, the Conservatives have not released any membership figures since 2013, and are reckoned to have as few as 70,000 members.’

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/09/theresa-may-tory-party-dying-reshuffle-conservatives

Can we ask a similar question? Do the Scottish Tories exist meaningfully as a political party within a democratic system where voters might expect their views to be reflected in the actions of that party or do they expect to be able to keep fooling them into voting for corporate and elite interests?

Footnote: The Scottish Socialists have around 3 500 members.

In a University of London survey report, ‘Grassroots: Britain’s party members: who they are,

what they think, and what they do’, published in January 2018, SNP members are revealed as the most committed and the most satisfied across a number of measures.

Asked why they had joined, SNP members were more likely than the others – Labour, Lib Dem and Tories – to support party policies and to believe in the party leadership. Also, interestingly, they were less likely to be concerned with opposing the policies of their rivals. This latter point suggests a more positive and healthy outlook where energies are not wasted on sniping but rather on pushing policies forward. See below:

Returning to the relationship with the party leadership, only 5% of members were concerned that leaders did not pay attention to members while this dissatisfaction was more common in the other parties and especially in the Tory Party. See:

Across a wider range of indicators, SNP members are revealed to be, in almost every case, found to hold to more progressive, open and caring values than those in the other parties. Perhaps most striking is their perception of their party as much more modern, efficient and competent. Less clear-cut but still there, is their tendency to be more open-minded or tolerant across a range of identity issues and in their compassion for groups such as the unemployed or immigrants. See below:

When it comes to engagement, SNP members had more positive views of local party meetings on all five measures used and, in particularly, the modernity of, presumably, procedures and behaviour, at these. See:

Finally, in terms of overall satisfaction with the extent to which membership lived up to expectations, SNP members were much more likely to fully satisfied than all of the others. See:

http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/qmul/media/publications/Grassroots,-Britain’s-Party-Members.pdf

This picture of underlying solidarity, commitment and strength in the SNP suggests that it still has the ability to survive and to continue to outfight the other parties when it comes to electioneering on the streets of Scotland.

(c) GETTY

The Scotsman today allows Ruth to emerge from the shadows with an ill-informed anecdotal rant attacking the Curriculum for Excellence in Scottish Schools. It’s an almost entirely evidence-free critique other than a single reference to unreliable international comparisons:

‘Time to end the chaos in the classroom. And, no-one has the faintest idea whether the curriculum has actually boosted standards. All we do know, 13 years on, is that Scotland has slipped down the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s league table for attainment and that those nationwide Scottish surveys which the SNP has not yet abolished show a fall in literacy and numeracy standards among children in both primary and early secondary school. ‘

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/ruth-davidson-time-to-end-the-chaos-in-the-classroom-1-4657381

The problem for Ruth is that international comparisons like those undertaken by OECD or PISA are utterly unreliable estimates and meaningless across different cultures. Indeed, some of the more successful systems, in terms of these measures, have been described as forms of child abuse. If interested, you’ll find a fuller explanation of this at:

Scotland’s school’s PISA results ‘lean’ toward nothing meaningful. Finland’s success is not real. South Korea and China’s educational programmes amount to child abuse

However, you can reasonably compare Scotland with quite similar educational systems in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. These comparisons become more useful if you can, unlike OECD or PISA, use large representative samples or, even better, complete national results. See this for England in January 2016:

‘Almost half of English Primary School students failing to make the grade, says report.’

The above Guardian headline in 2016, slightly exaggerated, was based on a study by the CentreForum think-tank and the Education Data Lab research body. On page five we see that only 58.5% hit the target set for reading, writing and mathematics. I wondered how it managed to be exactly the same percentage across all three subjects but that’s what it says. Here are the Scottish equivalent percentages reaching the targets:

Reading 72%

Writing 81%

Mathematics 68%

Now I know that we are not comparing exactly like-for-like here but the two educational systems’ key concepts and standards in core subjects are unlikely to differ much given the cultural similarities, extensive history of collaboration and research, over decades.

Why are the Scottish results better? I can’t say for certain of course because educational outcomes are affected by so many factors that it’s almost impossible to pin down the causes of any change. However, there is one factor which governments can control, which virtually every expert recognises is likely to play a large part and that is the pupil-teacher ratio. The more teachers you have per child the more attention each child should get and rather obviously the better they should do. A very large, in-depth English study in 2000-2003 (CSPAR) was reported in a UK government report and this concluded on p.55:

‘The CSPAR study found statistically significant gains for smaller classes for all ability groups in both literacy and mathematics.’

Here are the 2016 pupil-teacher ratios for the four UK areas:

• Wales: 18.6/1
• Northern Ireland: 17.6/1
• England: 17.4/1
• Scotland: 13.7/1

Again, I know these ratios are not evidence of actual class sizes (head teachers regularly adjust these to suit ongoing circumstances) but it’s reasonable to assume that Scottish schools will be using these additional staff members either to reduce typical class sizes directly or to increase team-teaching, flexibly, within classes, with the same effect of increasing attention-levels for each pupil.

Finally, real gaps in attainment within a country are, to me, far more significant than unreliable suggestions of gaps between countries. Evidence of progress in Scotland, in reducing these, can be found at:

SNP Government increases teacher numbers to create far superior pupil/teacher ratios and much smaller attainment gaps than in England

Sources:

http://centreforum.org/publications/education-in-england-annual-report-2016/

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/183364/DFE-RR169.pdf

England: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/533618/SFR21_2016_MainText.pdf

Wales: school.stats@wales.gsi.gov.uk or http://wales.gov.uk/statistics-and-research/schoolscensus/?skip=1&lang=en

Scotland: school.stats@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/SchoolEducation

Northern Ireland: statistics@deni.gov.uk or http://www.deni.gov.uk/index/facts-and-figuresnew/education-statistics.htm

Scottish housing associations look like being next to offer all their workers the real living wage of £8.75 per hour after the Director of Angus Housing Association called for all housing associations to lose public subsidies unless they commit to achieving Living Wage accreditation.

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/19209/housing-associations-pay-living-wage-risk-losing-public-subsidy/

It seems likely the Scottish Government will be sympathetic to the call as it already has a policy to pay all public-sector workers the living wage. Similarly, NHS Scotland will pay the living wage to all its employees. See these earlier reports for more detail:

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

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.

The UK Government living wage is only £7.50 per hour and payable only to over-25s. The report in Scottish Housing News does not make clear the starting point for the Living Wage but I understand from other sources it will be 21.

http://slw.povertyalliance.org/about

Another small but important step to becoming a ‘better nation?’

Scotland continues to have more GPs per head of population than any other part of the UK and the number of GPs has remained constant. The number of GPs in Scotland has remained at around 4 900 since 2008.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/General-Practice/Publications/2017-12-12/2017-12-12-GPWorkforce2017-Report.pdf?36372011900

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 less meaningful statistic than the number of GPs per capita as these vary in size considerably but the number, nevertheless, 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

This information can, of course, be added to that suggesting that Scotland also has a significantly higher number of nurses per capita. See:

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.

(c) churchofscotland.org.uk

First on banning tobacco in public places, first on minimum alcohol pricing, first on free care for the disabled, first to commit to really tackling poverty and homelessness, first to ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses, first on baby boxes and free sanitary products, the Scottish Government looks like being first to give refugees the right to vote. Kind of different from Britain First, I’d say.

From the Independent (one of the few homes for good journalism left) yesterday:

‘The Scottish government is considering allowing refugees and non-EU citizens to vote in local and Scottish parliament elections. Holyrood was granted new powers over taxation and the running of elections by Westminster in 2016 and the SNP minority government is keen to make major changes that will set it apart from the rest of the UK. A public consultation launched last month suggested extending the voting franchise to “everyone legally resident in Scotland”. This would mean anyone granted asylum or a visa to live in Scotland would be able to vote in the country’s regional parliament and local council elections – including refugees and non-EU or non-Commonwealth citizens.’   

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/refugees-vote-scotland-elections-parliament-local-council-democracy-a8145496.html

The results of the consultation are not in yet but I’m optimistic about the support here for the civil rights of all who live in Scotland. It’s another example of the Scottish Government acting to make this the kind of country I want to live in.

(c) Brian Monteith from https://twitter.com/thebluetrot

(Bluetrot?)

Under a headline and a mugshot, in today’s Scotsman, a right-wing extremist Tory writes:

‘Brian Monteith: SNP will be under fire for handling of NHS: This tactic of deflection has now worn thin and the evidence that Scotland’s NHS is in really serious trouble is growing. The reason for this is not just that the evidence shows it is true, but that the Conservative and Labour opposition are both using Freedom of Information requests and highly embarrassing Audit Scotland reports to bombard Scottish Health secretary Shona Robison with exposés of failures on the SNP’s watch.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/brian-monteith-snp-will-be-under-fire-for-handling-of-nhs-1-4655785

Monteith was a Tory MSP from 1999 to 2007. He used to work for the openly Thatcherite, Centre for Policy Studies. After that, he worked for Michael Forsyth Associates and even shared a flat with Forsyth. He then set up his PR company, Leith Communications which went bust in the 1990s owing more than £50 000 to its creditors.

He’s clearly a man, we’d walk miles to hear him talk about how he’s going to ……. go away?

Anyhow, back to the quote. The ‘tactic of deflection’ he’s talking about is those comparisons of NHS Scotland with NHS England that many of us use as a guide, if only partial, to the state of NHS Scotland. It’s called context and it’s a widely used tactic used by groups such as the Centre for Policy Studies. I have a feeling that if NHS England was demonstrably doing better than NHS Scotland, the tactic would be more than popular with the Tories in Scotland. The current tactic is ‘find anything, no matter how insignificant or how localised’ and make a crisis out of that.

I’ll let him have his way on this. He doesn’t like comparisons with NHS England, so here are a few which don’t have them and the first is from Audit Scotland and far from embarrassing:

Despite massive increases in demand, NHS Scotland maintains performance levels extremely close to the most rigorous of targets and patient satisfaction is at an all-time high. Audit Scotland say: ‘There were no significant weaknesses in the overall quality of care being provided.’

NHS Scotland has massively increased staffing of consultants and acute medicine specialists under SNP administration. Try telling the Daily Excess.

NHS Scotland continues improvements with 65.7% drop in young mental health patients treated in non-specialist wards, in one year

NHS Scotland research applauds major successes of Scottish Government’s pioneering tobacco strategy

As I looked through my archives, I can see why the comparisons with England are not popular with the Tories and why they had to think of a name to discredit them with. See this just from the beginning of the year. Many more could be added but I don’t want the tactic to look too thick and unworn:

1. We’ve had nothing you could call a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in NHS Scotland. Red Cross chief executive, Mike Adamson, said: ‘The British Red Cross is on the front line, responding to the humanitarian crisis in our hospital and ambulance services across the country [England].’ Indeed there is no evidence of anything like a system wide crisis in Scotland. Reporting Scotland have scrabbled around for something/anything as in their sad Twitter plea for pregnant mothers who have been inconvenienced which found five who had to travel an extra 7 miles for a bed. See: https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/01/14/have-you-been-affected-by-the-death-of-journalism-by-lazy-social-media-stalkers-let-us-know-your-story-bbc-reporting-scotlands-desperate-trawl-for-dirt-on-nhs-scotland/
2. We’ve had NO junior doctors’ strikes causing thousands of cancelled and delayed operations because the SNP unlike the UK Tories haven’t tried to bully them into new contracts. Thank goodness for BBC News at 6 telling us this because Reporting Scotland won’t touch the story with a disinfected endoscopic probe.
3. NHS Scotland has NOT been cancelling large numbers of urgent operations like NHS England (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/24/number-of-urgent-operations-cancelled-record-high-nhs-england). If they had, do you think Reporting Scotland would have neglected to tell us?
4. Scottish hospitals have NOT been told to put thousands of operations ‘on hold’ over Xmas and New Year to ‘free up beds.’ (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/16/hospitals-in-england-told-to-put-operations-on-hold-to-free-up-beds). Again, if they had, do you think Reporting Scotland would have neglected to tell us?
5. There is NO social care and bed-blocking crisis in Scotland because the Scottish Government has been integrating the two for years now (https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2016/dec/21/theresa-may-recognises-social-care-crisis-but-solution-seems-far-off)
6. Bed blocking by the elderly is down 12% in Scotland (http://www.scotsman.com/news/bed-blocking-in-scottish-hospitals-continues-to-fall-1-4160213) and up 80% in England for the same reason (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/10/tory-plans-making-social-care-worse?CMP=share_btn_tw)
7. There’s NO evidence of a crisis in Scottish Maternity wards despite a shamefully distorted Reporting Scotland story (https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/11/22/the-power-of-early-morning-nightmares-and-expectant-mothers-bbc-scotland-callously-undermines-the-morale-of-midwives-their-patients-expectant-mothers-and-their-relatives-with-highly-selective-and/)

Who is next, Scotsman: Damien Green on the pornography crisis at Holyrood?

(c) age scotland

In 2016/17 there were 532,423 bed days occupied by people delayed in their discharge.

In NHS Scotland. Roughly 1 in 12 or 8.2% of beds were occupied by mostly those over 70 years of age awaiting care in the community or at home arrangements to be made.

This is a fall of 3% from the 2015/16 figure and the most recent figure for October 2017 was 10% lower than in October 2016.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Health-and-Social-Community-Care/Publications/2017-12-05/2017-12-05-DelayedDischarges-Annual-Report.pdf?83099001647

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Health-and-Social-Community-Care/Publications/2017-12-05/2017-12-05-DelayedDischarges-Summary.pdf?83099001647

Rather than report the above the Scotsman used a Labour freedom of information request to report:

‘Figures show SNP pledge to end bed blocking in tatters. More than 1,000 Scots patients have died while waiting to be released from hospital since the SNP pledged to end bed blocking, new figures show.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/figures-show-snp-pledge-to-end-bed-blocking-in-tatters-1-4655171

Would the Scotsman prefer that these patients were turfed-out to die, perhaps even quicker, in their empty homes, in their children’s living rooms or jammed into overcrowded old folks’ homes?

Leaving aside the tabloid style, this is another example of the way the Scottish mainstream media operates largely as an uncritical (dirty) mouthpiece for the three main opposition parties.

A brilliant, devastating, account of this, leaving the reputation of them all in tatters can be found at Derek Bateman’s excellent blog. He begins:

‘The media has been positively bursting with bad news stories about the SNP government over the holiday period. Expose after expose has covered the front pages and filled the bulletins with a wearying persistence. You’d think the country was going to the dogs what with single-staffed ambulances, Scots missing out on tax credits and violence against shop workers on the rise – stories often based on Freedom of Information Requests and always contriving to make the SNP the culprit.

What has been striking is the repetitive nature of the day-by-day shock horror output, all written with similar phrases and all with the same simple narrative of SNP bad.

You’d almost think it was planned. Well, it was.

The Labour Party has been doing the media’s job for it by spending the summer preparing a long list of negative news stories to feed out daily to the journalists. In keeping with the cosy friendship they enjoy, it is called the ‘Scottish Labour Christmas Box – Stories for the many, not the few.’ Ha, ha. Merry Christmas, comrades.’

http://derekbateman.scot/2018/01/05/manipulating-the-media/

See also:

http://derekbateman.scot/2018/01/07/done-up-like-a-kipper/

Everyone should read and share these.