Talking-up Scotland

BBC Scotland Drinks Correspondent (right) gets the facts

They headline with:

‘Sales of alcohol fall to the lowest level since records began’

but they have their but ready for immediate insertion in case you might be thinking something good has happened in Scotland:

 ‘BUT has minimum pricing made the difference?’

Without further ado and certainly with no further information on the official statistics release, we’re straight off to a centre for the care of alcoholics where Lisa Summers will interview two old guys at length as the camera lingers compassionately (sic) on their tragic faces and one tells us:

‘Raising the price of alcohol isn’t going to stop an alcoholic from having a drink. He’s either gonna steal the money or steal the bottle!’

See, never mind the improving trends in consumption. Never mind the fact that the minimum pricing scheme was designed to reduce all problem drinking and not really expected to solve alcoholism. We’re telling you that Scotland is still a place of drunks and that you needn’t get above yourselves. And, never mind that alcohol-related stays in hospital continue to fall as they have done since the early days of this ‘SNP Government’.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/2019-02-26/2019-02-26-ARHS-Summary.pdf

And, never mind that waiting time targets for alcohol treatment by NHS Scotland have been smashed:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/2018-12-18/2018-12-18-DATWT-Summary.pdf?81350344420

The target is for 90% of people referred with a drug or alcohol problem to wait no longer than three weeks for treatment. 6 609 people sought alcohol treatment and 4 638 sought drug treatment. Despite these numbers, 94.9% seeking alcohol treatment and 93.2% seeking drug treatment waited three weeks or less for treatment.

The report is up the usual standard from Reporting Scotland – E minus for informativeness, A plus for cringe factor.

In a typically grudging BBC Scotland report, we read

‘For the first time, more than half of all board members appointed to oversee public bodies in Scotland are women. A 50% target for female representation among non-executive board members by 2022 has been met early. The goal was set by legislation in March 2018 through the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act. Of 680 regulated ministerial appointments made to public boards, 341 were women – up from 45% in 2016. The achievement applies to health boards, enterprise agencies, the Scottish Police Authority, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, colleges and universities. This encompasses 89 boards and women now make up half or more of the membership on 57 of them.’

Set by legislation eh? I wonder who was responsible for that? Surely it wasn’t that SNP Government was it? Well read on and in the 13^th of 13 paragraphs you’ll find the Scottish Government gets a passing mention. SNP? Who? Noooo!

 

The Scotsman’s Chris McCall today delights in reminding us not to get too smug about falling hate crime in Scotland. The Guardian may be worried by a ‘surge’ in homophobic hate crime in England and Wales but, hey, it’s ‘on the rise’ here too. They’ll be hoping this further undermines Nicola’s claim for ‘Scottish values’ savaged by Marky Smith yesterday.

Read on, however, and you see the increase in Scotland was 5% but in England and Wales it was between 25% (Merseyside) and 42% (Kent), in the same year.

 

From a Freedom of Information response today, we can see that the number of court actions brought against each of the Scottish health boards, over the last four years, has fallen in all but two and that the overall level has fallen by 20.57%

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/court_action_against_nhs_scotlan?nocache=incoming-1338782#incoming-1338782

In 2017-18 there were 919 cases brought while in 2013-14 there had been 1157, revealing a dramatic fall of 20.57% in only four years. It’s interesting to see the rise in Dumfries and Galloway. This area tends to perform well against the Scottish average. For example, 93.5% of cancer patients were seen in the target time as against the Scottish average of 82.7% and in sharp contrast to Western Isles at 75%. The area does have a large population of middle-class English-born residents. Are they bringing an enhanced sense of entitlement and an ability to articulate complaints?

 

 

 

In this extract and in the above headline from Scottish housing News yesterday, I’ve helpfully added, for clarification, using BBC Scotland’s ‘Natalie McGarry is SNP!’ method, ‘SNP-led’ which might help any reader who think Labour’s reign in Glasgow goes on:

‘SNP-led Glasgow City Council has allocated £104 million to its affordable housing supply programme, the highest-ever figure for the city. The funding will help deliver over 3,500 affordable homes over the next two years, the council said. The council’s neighbourhoods, housing and public realm committee today approved the building of new affordable homes through the AHSP programme. The £104.44 million funding for the AHSP covers not only the continuation of ongoing projects and the beginning of new projects, but also medical adaptation to homes in Glasgow, allowing tenants to remain in their own homes.’

https://www.scottishhousingnews.com/article/glasgow-city-council-allocates-record-104m-funding-for-affordable-homes

As always, related posts on affordable housing:

Scotland’s affordable housing supply continues to increase ahead of non-Scottish parts

‘Social housing: One of Scotland’s best kept secrets?’ Tell our Nomedia

92% of Scots happy with their housing!

SNP Government builds affordable/social housing at almost twice the rate of Tories in England

Scotland increasingly ‘streets ahead’ of England on affordable housing delivery

Scottish social housing more accessible and cheaper than in rest of UK

 

 

We posted this only a week ago:

8% of the population but 20% of the electricity production: How Scotland subsidises Britain’s green power ‘achievement’

Now, reported in the Independence City Courier today:

‘Scotland has surpassed its targets for planting more trees across the country, official figures show. According to Scottish Government statistics, 11,200 hectares of new planting was undertaken in Scotland last year – above the current annual target of 10,000 hectares. The number of trees planted in Scotland also represents a total of 84% of all new planting across the UK.’

Scotland ‘ahead of the curve’ as tree planting targets surpassed

More on the 8% theme or meme:

Not Reporting Scotland: 8% of the population but 85% of independent renewables projects are in Scotland

Why Scotland has 8% of the population but 0% of the UK’s worst places for child poverty

 

8% of the people 20% of the space sector jobs

8% of the population but 20% of the electricity production: How Scotland subsidises Britain’s green power ‘achievement’

 

8% of the population and 34% of the natural resources

8% of the population but 28.5% of the wind-powered electricity

Return of the meme! 8% of the population but 38% of the food and drink exports. How would Scotland survive?

 

 

 

Mark Smith of the Fall, well the Fallen Scotsman, is infuriated because Nicola suggested that Scotland might have a greater tendency toward certain democratic, collectivist, values of the kind currently far from evident in the dominant narrative of elite control and heartless disregard for the infirm and the poor or the just different, currently spewing out of England’s politicians, journalists and member of the public interviewed in the streets. The BBC documentary series exploring who we might allow to stay in Britain shows how far the rot has set in.

Well, I know we’re not absolutely different and that some of us Scots are right hunts but then 20% do vote Tory (nearly 40% in England). However, collectively there is evidence that enough of us share the kind of values that Big Eck said we could use to make a ‘better nation’. From many earlier posts here see:

Another difference as UK small and medium-sized business people prefer Boris while Scots prefer…Different Scotland in the UN report on ‘Workhouse Britain’

 

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

 

Return to the Meme: Even our employers are a bit different?

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

 

Scottish Nationalism is a very different and a better thing than English/British Nationalism and, at last, BBC Scotland seems to have faced up to the fact.

 

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?

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

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

90% of Scottish business people seem to have enlightened values. Another wee difference that would justify being a different country? Don’t we have Phillip Green types north of the border?

 

‘Scottish tooth fairies are the most generous.’ See, even more evidence we are different.

 

Another difference? Scottish charity bosses paid 9% less

 

Care spending in England falls under the Tories

Scots’ attitudes to the unemployed differ from those of UK

Is NHS Scotland NOT wrongly or ‘rightly’ fining the sick and elderly?

North American and English young people ‘significantly bigger bullshitters’ than Scots 

 

From Direct Line, in iNews today

In line with a wider fall in crime in Scotland, car theft claims here have fallen 23% in the last four years. In sharp contrast they have risen across the UK with almost unbelievable increases in parts of England.

You might remember that BBC Scotland made much of the allegedly low rate (24%) of car thefts being solved two days ago. It’s only 10% across the UK:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/06/nine-ten-car-thieves-not-caught-number-vehicles-stolen-increases/

A car is stolen every 5 minutes in the UK – here are the country’s theft hot spots

 

BBC Scotland keeping away from this kind of NHS story

This worrying report is all over BBC 1 ‘National’ News and the UK website but absent from any Scottish reports. Maybe the Scotsman will try to post it as if it is about Scotland and just hope we don’t read on past the headline?

From the Department for Health & Social Care (the Department), NHS England and NHS Improvement, yesterday:

‘Between July and September 2018, only 78.6% of patients were treated within 62 days of an urgent referral, down from 83.8% between September and December 2014 when we last reported on it.7 NHS England assured us that additional investment will be available to help improve its performance against cancer waiting times as part of the NHS Long Term Plan. However, NHS England could not give a commitment as to when the cancer waiting times standard will be achieved again.’

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/1750/175006.htm#_idTextAnchor005

From NHS Scotland ISD in March 2019:

82.7% of patients started treatment within the 62-day standard, an increase from 81.4% in the previous quarter.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Waiting-Times/Publications/2019-03-26/2019-03-26-CWT-Report.pdf

Perhaps more worrying is the dramatic variation in performance between boards in England’s more affluent and less affluent areas. Greater Glasgow’s performance under great pressure in demand, of 77.4%, or Western Isles, 75%, challenged by its remoteness, seem quite positive in the light of these:

The worst waits (% of patients started treatment in 62 days during 2018-19)

• Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells 60.8%
• Royal Wolverhampton 62.8%
• Weston Area Health 67%
• Southend University Hospital 67%
• Bradford Hospitals 67.1%
• University College London Hospitals 68.4%
• Mid Essex Hospitals Services 68.5%
• Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals 69.2%
• East and North Hertfordshire 69.2%
• East Kent Hospitals 70.7%
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48600926

How many more are there not listed, in the gap between these and 75%?