Only a vote for the Scottish Conservatives will send a strong message that we oppose SNP’s divisive plan for a second referendum. pic.twitter.com/XUmDdg7VXZ

 

The Tories made opposition to a second independence referendum the central issue of their campaign. They explicitly asked the Scottish electorate to come out and vote against it. This is, of course, not really a local election issue so their failure to reduce the pro-referendum SNP vote means they lost the election on that issue. From the SNP website:

1. The SNP won the election nationally, with the largest number of councillors and the highest vote share of any party.
2. We’ve won more councillors, with 431 elected compared to 425 in 2012.
3. The SNP is now the largest group in 16 of 32 councils.
4. The SNP has ended almost 40 years of Labour control in Glasgow, becoming the largest party in the city for the first time.
5. The SNP are now the largest party in Scotland’s four largest cities: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.

In response to the Tory call for a vote against Indyref2, those who were already in agreement merely switched their vote to the Tories. While the mainstream media are making much of their 164 seats gained, these came from Labour who lost 112 and the Independents who lost 86.

So, on their own chosen ground, the Tories lost. The idea that they have in any way damaged the referendum bid is plain daft. As for the Labour voters who stuck to their leftist principles, who knows how close they are to becoming Yes voters next time?

https://www.snp.org/snp_win_the_scottish_council_elections

(c) grist.org: The orange dots here are natural gas extraction operations with one or more environmental violations.

The gas leak from an INEOS pipeline inGrangemouth on Wednesday all but shut the town down. Residents were told to stay indoors and shut windows. It happened at 12 noon so hundreds of schoolchidlren were presumably kept in too. There was an all-clear by normal closing time.

The gas came from Pennsylvania where there are 7 788 active wells, where there have been 4 006 violations of safety (leaks) and unattributed earthquakes. These leaks and the effects from flare stack fumes have been associated with increases in asthma and birth defects.
If we needed a wee reminder to stand firm on our opposition to fracking as it gets underway in Lancashire and Yorkshire with the possibility of long pipelines from there to the INEOS plant across the border in Scotland, this is it. A newly installed and reinforced Conservative administration in Westminster will be pushing hard to increase fracking.

https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/leak-reported-scottish-gas-plant-linked-pennsylvania-fracking

(c) Construction News

I’ve already reported on this in:

‘Scottish construction employment closes 2016 at 3-year-high’

Now we have further news today from Scottish Construction News of signs of even greater optimism. Avant Homes based in Stirling have reported 44% year-on-year growth to £368 million and building services provider T Clarke have reported 22% growth in demand since the beginning of the year to £400 million having only predicted £300 million. Needless to say both were asked about the potential disruptive effect of Indyref2 but Avant responded that the market:

‘remains positive — we still can’t build as many houses as people want to buy. We are confident about our forward view and strategy’.

You might remember a similar quote in an earlier piece, from Bellway:

‘If you do end up with a scenario where Scotland becomes a different country to the UK, to separate that, it’s so embedded I can’t see how it becomes structurally a different country to invest in, in the way it’s different to invest in France…..The barriers to entry can’t be that great. Of course it has a degree of uncertainty for people but we’re still investing in Scotland and Scotland is doing very well for us. Demand is strong, we’re buying land and reservations are coming through well. We’ve got a good business so I don’t see how the referendum will change that.’

Major UK Housebuilder says Scottish Independence no barrier to continued growth

All this alleged instability caused by a second independence referendum, trotted out by employers and establishment media is pure hooey. There is no evidence.

 

http://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/18859/t-clarke-order-book-exceeds-400m-for-first-time/

http://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/18858/avant-homes-to-focus-on-central-belt-following-excellent-year/#

(c) academicstudies.com

Here’s the table based a Deutsche Bank survey:

1. Wellington, New Zealand
2. Edinburgh, UK
3. Vienna, Austria
4. Melbourne, Australia
5. Zurich, Switzerland
6. Copenhagen, Denmark
7. Ottawa, Canada
8. Boston, United States
9. Amsterdam, Netherlands

47 global cities were compared in the survey. Previous surveys have tended to be more heavily dominated by Australian, Canadian and New Zealand cities with only Vienna making an entry from Europe. Edinburgh placing at 2^nd is a stunning achievement. Mega-cities like London and Tokyo tended to do badly on crime levels, congestion, pollution and long commuting times.

Edinburgh also rated as a less stressful place to live and work and, of course, its ranking benefitted from the wide range of cultural activities it hosts.

With regard to the comment above about crime, it’s worth noting that in a survey designed to help parents and potential students choose a safe place to study, ‘violence against the person with injury’ was far lower in any of the five Scottish cities, including Glasgow, than in any of the English cities. The lowest scores for English university cities was around 4 incidents per 1 000 students with most scoring above 10. Glasgow scored 1.4 and the other Scottish cities scored less than 1.

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/preparing-to-go/staying-safe-at-university/how-safe-is-your-city/

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-ranked-second-in-the-world-for-quality-of-life-1-4436407

Throughout December 2016, January and February 2017, 21% of patients at England’s emergency departments spent longer than 4 hours in A&E. That means for clarification and comparison with the Scottish figures below, only 79% were seen and treated within 4 hours. In 2013/2014 , only 7% had to wait more than four hours. 3% had to wait more than 12 hours in Winter 2016/2017 with the figure as high as 15% in Leicester.

In Scotland, the figures were presented monthly rather than quarterly for December 2016 and January 2017 then weekly from February 2017.

In the month ending 31 Dec 2016 92.6% of attendances at A&E services were seen and resulted in a subsequent admission, transfer or discharge within 4 hours. Only 0.1% of patients spent more than12 hours in an A&E department.

In January 2017, 91.8% of attendances at A&E services were seen and resulted in a subsequent admission, transfer or discharge within 4 hours. Only 0.3% of patients spent more than

12 hours in an A&E department.

During the week ending 26 February 2017, 91.5% of people attending Emergency Departments were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within 4 houts. 0.1% spent more than 12 hours in an Emergency Department.
During the week ending 19 February 2017, 92.9% of people attending Emergency Departments were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within 4 hours. 0.1% spent more than 12 hours in an Emergency Department.
During the week ending 12 February 2017, 92.0% of people attending Emergency Departments were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within 4 hours. 0.2% spent more than 12 hours in an Emergency Department.
During the week ending 5 February 2017, 91.3% of people attending Emergency Departments were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within 4 hours. 0.1% spent more than 12 hours in an Emergency Department.
The contrast could not be more stark. Consistently, A&E departments in Scotland have dealt with patients within 4 hours around 92% of the time while their English equivalents have only managed 79%. A tiny percentage, typically 0.1% of Scottish admissions, have had to wait more tha 12 hours while 3% had to in England.

This should be condemned as a failure to manage the NHS by the Conservative Government in England and praised as a significant achievement by the SNP-led Scottish Government during the challenging winter months.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=NHS+Englad+A%26E+dealys&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab&gfe_rd=cr&ei=wWALWabTG4P98wehlouIAQ#tbs=qdr:m&q=NHS+England+A%26E+delays+percentage

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Emergency-Care/Publications/2017-02-07/2017-02-07-ED-Summary.pdf

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Emergency-Care/Publications/2017-03-07/2017-03-07-ED-Summary.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(c) de.wikipedia.org

The ‘Dunbeg Corridor’ as it is known is an area of outstanding beauty but little affordanle housing for the local population especailly younger adults with children. This will be a huge boost to the area helping to create a viable and sustainable community where workers can live within reasonable commuting distance sof their employment.

The additional houses will attract shops, cafes and other commercial activity to the area to add to the attractions of the existing network of walking and cycling tracks.

The houses should all be in place by 2021.

This, again, is more evidence of the SNP government’s commitment to building affordable housing at a level far in excess of previous Labour administrations or the current Tory one in London. See these for more:

SNP government spending on affordable housing to be more than twice, per head of population, than that of Tory government

‘Social housing on the up in Scotland’

The non-reporting of the Scottish Government’s commitment to affordable housing reflects the inability of our political journalists to highlight any good news coming out of Holyrood.

Once more the SNP’s progressive housing policies are helping Scotland weather the storm of Tory austerity

https://www.sfha.co.uk/news/news-category/sector-news/news-article/dunbeg-masterplan-of-600-affordable-homes-approved

 

(c) scotchmaltwhisky.co.uk

Scotch whisky export sales are booming again after a brief slump. Sales in the USA have recovered and new markets such as China are in large part responsible. Interestingly, single malts are the major factor in this growth with sales of these earning 26% of the totla income despite only making up 10% of the total quantity sold.

Sales in the USA alone exceeded £1.02 billion in 2016. including domestic sales, Scoich Whisky sales contribute £5 billion every year to the UK Treasury.

With the flood of revenue from oil sales to Asia and the massive discoveries west of Shetland, reported on earlier, this reveals why Westminster is taking such a big gamble in its contempt for Scotland’s independence movement and apparent refusal to increase autonomy post-Brexit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-38737183

http://scooptribe.com/scotch-whisky-breaks-record/

 

(c) renewz.biz

This is from the German (?) website maschinenmarkt.international which I hadn’t seen before. Is it strange or not that I didn’t find it on a UK site first? It’s another of these reports of the growing potency of our renewables sector. Here’s an earlier one:

‘Wind farms powered 4 million Scottish homes last month’ and there are only 2.4 million ‘households’ in Scotland
The report is based on figures from WWF Scotland for March 2017:

Total provided to National Grid: 1 240 095 MW

Percentage of demand by Scottish households: 136% (3.3 million homes)

Percentage of total demand by homes, business and industry: 58%

On two days, above demand provided by wind power alone 102% and 130%

Increase on total provided to National Grid in March 2016 81%
An important factor to bear in mind is that March 2017 was not especially windy so this is an indication of real increases in the actual wind power resources which can only lead to more consistent levels of supply throughout the year. Add this to the developments in marine turbines and solar power and Scotland is well on the way to 100% renewable self-sufficiency. The only potential barrier is the UK government’s decision to end support for onshore wind power. However the growth of the even more efficient offshore and especially floating wind farms of the kind described below may significantly reduce the the effects of this constraint:

‘The Biggest in the World!’ 270 tidal energy turbines to be installed to provide sustainable power to Scotland

http://www.maschinenmarkt.international/scotland-sets-new-wind-power-record-a-604466/

 

Photo: Flickr user mRio / Creative Commons

Some have been predicting gains of 12 seats on the basis of a 30% surge. Even that, I’ve already pointed out, based on the political bookies, would lead to far less than 12 gains. See:

Scottish Tories very unlikely to gain more than two extra seats according to real experts

The SoS/ICM poll with data collected between April 26-28 tells of more lmited expectations and thus, perhaps, no gains at all. They interviewed online which tends to be more accurate than landline telephone calls. The sample was 2,012 GB adults aged 18+ and weighted in an effort to be representative of the UK electorate. The Scottish sample was only 137 so there are limitations there.

However, when you dig down into the table showing how Scots responded to the question of how they would vote if there were an election ‘tomorrow’, the Tory surge (only 2% up on 2015) looks too small to achieve anything much in terms of seats gained. See this:

SNP 45%

Conservative 24%

Labour 17%

LibDem 10%

Greens 3%

UKIP 1%

You’d need widespread and almost 100% tactical voting across constituencies with all the Labour and Lib Dems voting Tory to get anything like 12 gains. My feeling is that all the Labour defections are done now and the remaining 17% will stand by their principles or just not turn up. As for the Lib Dems, there’s more hostility amongst many of them than in the past after their shafting by them in the last election when the Tories broke the expenses rules to swamp consituencies and oust vulnerable Lib Dems. Finally, if there was much sign of this in media reports, would the Greens come in to back up the SNP giving them typically 48% of the vote which is unbeatable.

https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017_sunonsunday_camp_apr28th.pdf

 

Re-conviction rates have been falling steadily in Scotland since the introduction of greater use of community service especially for those serving less that 12 months and for young offenders. The overall Scottish re-conviction rate for 2014/2015 was 28.2% while in England, in 2015/2016 it was 60%!

The statistics also show that offenders released from a custodial sentence had a higher likelihood of re-offending than those finishing Community Service.

For under 18 year-olds the re-conviction rate in England is a staggering 68%. According to the Scottish report a major element in the overall fall has been driven by decreases in reconviction of those under 25. For those under 21, the reconviction rate was 35.3%. The Scottish data do not separate out those under 18 to allow direct comparison with the English figure.
Justice Secretary Michael Matheson said:

‘These figures show we are continuing to make good progress on tackling re-offending – a key goal of this government’s justice strategy…..This is further evidence to back up our position that robust community sentences, particularly CPOs, are more effective at reducing re-offending than short custodial sentences.’

Background

Reconviction Statistics 2014-15

Reconviction Statistics 2014-15 statistical release

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/05/8362/341003

https://news.gov.scot/news/reconvictions-lowest-in-18-years

http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Bromley%20Briefings/summer%202016%20briefing.pdf page 2

https://news.gov.scot/news/reconviction-statistics-2014-15