Talking-up Scotland

 Wishaw Pact chemical warfare troops hose down Soviet-era blocks around the school

Four teachers at Buchanan High in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, have developed the same rare cancer. Three work in the same corridor of the school. The site was formerly used for industrial waste including chemicals and hazardous substances such as ­arsenic, nickel and lead. The decision by the Tory-backed Labour council to permit the build on a landfill site is astonishing as the risks are well-known:

‘Health is at risk for those who live within five kilometers of a landfill site. … The results showed a strong association between Hydrogen Sulphide (used as a surrogate for all pollutants co-emitted from the landfills) and deaths caused by lung cancer, as well as deaths and hospitalizations for respiratory diseases.’

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160524211817.htm

The school has also been associated with disturbing concerns about its drinking water:

BBC Scotland’s fearful Disclosure Team were alerted to the story but, having just watched the very scary TV series about Chernobyl, have gone off to Spain following the wrong lorry of calves, again. In their absence Lisa Summers has been ordered to visit the site. She is expected to accuse the council of being dysfunctional as she did, wrongly and all by herself, NHS Tayside’s cancer treatment, after ‘finding’ further evidence such as:

From news.gov.scot yesterday:

‘First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will highlight Scotland’s growing political, cultural and business links with Ireland and explore the potential for further investment during a visit to Dublin. The First Minister, who will meet with the Taoiseach during the visit and host an investment round table with the Irish business organisation IBEC, will say that Ireland is hugely important as Scotland’s closest international trading partner with exports worth £1.5 billion going to Ireland in 2017.

https://news.gov.scot/news/first-minister-to-visit-dublin-1

This is the latest in a long line of attempts to compensate for Tory self-destructive behaviour.

In May 2018, I was able to report:

‘More than 200 engagements between Scottish Government ministers and European governments, institutions and organisations have taken place since the start of 2017. The ‘strong desire’ to connect with Scotland and listen to our views signals that the EU continues to see Scotland as an important partner – according to External Affairs Secretary Fiona Hyslop. In just 16 months, Scottish Government ministers have initiated or accepted more than 200 meetings and visits with European partners, which on average means a European engagement has taken place at least three times per week.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/not-the-final-europe-day

Getting on with the day job, as the Scottish Tories do SFA, we read in the Scottish Business News Network:

‘Scotland’s economic ties with Canada will be strengthened through the launch of a new Scottish Government office in Ottawa next month. The new Canada office will encourage investment between Canadian and Scottish businesses and organisations and promote Scotland as a place to work, study and visit along with encouraging collaboration between business, research, education and cultural institutions. Canada has consistently been a top 20 export partner for Scotland, with exports in 2016 totalling £610 million. It is also one of Scotland’s biggest inward investors, with around 3,650 jobs provided by 45 Canadian companies in Scotland.’

https://sbnn.co.uk/2018/08/20/new-scottish-government-office-to-open-in-canada-next-month/

Earlier reports on SG working to forge new compensatory economic links are here:

Getting on with the day-job? First Minister is in Brussels for 201st attempt to counter Tory Brexit damage to Scottish economy

Scotland moves closer to the Arctic Circle

SNP leadership on hectic northern hemisphere mission, from the Baltic to Canada and a’ pairts atween thaim, to save Scottish Economy from Tory incompetence

These three images and live links to reports, still ‘up’, captured together on Sunday 26^th May, tell a confusing, but the only, story to any reader planning a barbeque or trip to the beach.

I got a wee thrill about the first before reading that it was for Wednesday 15^th May, 11 days before.

Maybe the second would be more useful? Nope, on 12^th May, two weeks ago (!) Craig Snell (!) of the Met Office was promising a fine week ahead. Snell is, of course Scots for ‘piercingly cold’ so Craig is better named than Michael Fish was.

Surely Craig was responsible for the third report posted more than three weeks earlier but still up there, on the 2^nd May. ‘Arctic blasts’ must be his thing but no it was Graeme Madge, pop music correspondent (?) standing in.

I recommend the Met Office website because I’m not anti-English, see?

The headline is a question because, I only feel sure that I don’t know for sure what the situation is here and welcome comment from readers, some of whom will know more than I do about this quite technical issue.

However, from the BBC today:

‘Fire safety experts have warned that 1,700 buildings in England are likely to fail a new round of tests into cladding and building materials. Hospitals, schools, nursing homes and tower blocks are among buildings which could be “at risk”, BBC 5 Live Investigates has learned.’

There’s no sign of BBC Scotland’s Disclosure Team on this. They’ll be busy investigating the worrying trend of dressing up puppies to look like babies.

Here’s what I did find about the response to Grenfell in Scotland:

1. From the Scottish Government news website in February 2019:

‘New rules to reduce deaths in household fires have been announced today, with improved standards introduced for fire and smoke alarms in Scottish homes.  The improved standards will mean every home in the country must have a smoke alarm fitted in the living room or lounge, and in circulation spaces such as hallways and landings. The changes also mean every kitchen must have a heat alarm, and the alarms will have to be interlinked so they can be heard throughout the property. There must also be a carbon monoxide alarm where there are fixed combustion appliances. The new rules mean the standard which currently applies to private rented property and newbuilds is being extended to all homes in Scotland. The regulations come after a consultation carried out following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower in London in June 2017.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/new-fire-safety-standards-for-scottish-homes

2. From BBC UK News in December 2018:

‘Fire safety checks across England have fallen by 42% over the last seven years, according to the new watchdog for fire and rescue services. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services says brigades do a good job in emergencies, but amid cuts have reduced “vital” prevention work. The watchdog said the number of audits carried out by firefighters dropped from 84,575 in 2010-11 to 49,423 in 2017-18.’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46627987?ns_mchannel=social&ocid=socialflow_twitter&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbcnews

3. From the Scottish Government, published in August 2018:

‘The number of fire safety audits carried out in 2015/16 was 9,829. Most of the premises audited by the SFRS have relatively adequate fire safety measures and are categorised as ‘broadly compliant’ (9,180 audits: 93%). While 79% (7,779 audits) of the premises audited have average or low levels of relative risk.’

https://www2.gov.scot/Resce/0053/00530445.pdf

In Scotland 2015/16, 9 827 safety audits were carried out. England has 10 times the population and so, all things being equal, might have been expected to have seen 98 270 fire safety audits. However, in 2017/18, England saw only 49 423 fire safety audits, just over half the number. Fire safety audits in Scotland are thus almost twice as common, per head of population, in Scotland as in England.

Why? Cost-cutting Tory local authorities? Cost-cutting Tory central government?

4. Two earlier reports perhaps still of interest here:

‘Stricter [fire] safety rules leave Scotland out of danger’ The English media spot the difference. Did BBC Scotland?

‘High rise fires in Scotland at lowest level in eight years’

‘The idea of Scottish independence is RADICAL.’

As Theresa May, dark mistress of the Windrush and Hostile Environments abuse, wife of an investor in the weapons killing thousands in Yemen and leader of the brutal Tory campaigns against the poor and the disabled, briefly sobbed for herself, the Scottish First Minister felt something for her and said so. Leadership is tough she empathised. Perhaps female leadership is even tougher she thought. It whooshed me as they say.

In 2016, she had angrily denounced the Trump and enthused about the inspirational qualities of ‘sister’ Hilary Clinton, for young women leaders, despite the evidence of her general monstrosity and hawkish foreign policy, so horribly clear when we saw her watch the murderous buggery of Gaddafi and gloat – ‘We came, we saw, he died!’

Less dramatically, she sided with and protected her top civil servant, another ‘sister’ of course, despite their combined, unprofessional, incompetent and perhaps criminal part, in the destruction of the man who had nurtured her career and made her leadership possible. Remember she was not elected leader. She likes to reflect publicly on leadership too much for my liking.

Only weeks ago, we saw another senior SNP figure show signs of detachment from what should be his prime purpose:

A leading blogger had this to say:

The over-familiarity with professionals, civil servants, may well have played a part in these examples of formerly radical politicians getting too cosy with the system. This is not a new idea:

‘Insurgents and renegades have a role, which is to jolt the system with new energy and ideas; but professionals also have a role, which is to safely absorb the energy that insurgents unleash. Think of them as analogous to antibodies and white blood cells, establishing and patrolling the barriers between the body politic and would-be hijackers on the outside. As with biology, so with politics: When the immune system works, it is largely invisible. Only when it breaks down do we become aware of its importance.’

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-american-politics-went-insane/485570/

While you may have little time for them generally, some Brexiteer thinkers have noted the same phenomenon in MEPs and have applied it to SNP MEPs:

‘Such arguments of course are rejected by the corporate managerialists of the Scottish Government and its advisers from academe. They live in a Keynesian world where the state is the economy, and where good people doing good things with taxpayers’ money produce good results; with the proviso that they are the good people – earning fine sums from the public purse and developing statist strategies in cahoots with the civil servants who administer those.’

https://brexitcentral.com/eben-wilson-paradoxes-scottish-politics-snp-two-different-political-unions/

Even the formerly fiercely radical Sinn Fein have been associated with this tendency to lose edge:

‘The main reason for the new shift is that Sinn Fein wants to get into government – even if that means being a minority partner with either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael. This, however, would be a disastrous move as the experience of the Labour Party has demonstrated. Once a party adopts this stance, its election commitments must be looked on with some scepticism as it will claim – like Labour – that in government it had to compromise. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael want to develop a tax haven model of Irish capitalism. Any radical party which joins them it will be forced to embrace that project and with it comes deepening inequality and a run-down of public services.’

http://www.andrewkeegan.ie/why-are-sinn-fein-losing-their-radical-edge/

Are these two the only ones showing signs of decay?

Ross Thomson is first Ratory to leave

Think about it. Judging by all the opinion polls recently, Steven Kerr MP for Stirling is a man who, like all his colleagues, would struggle to come third in his own constituency in any quick election. The UN has compared his party’s welfare reforms to a version of a Victorian workhouse! They face wipe-out in the EU elections because of their Brexit chaos. His leader had just resigned in self-pitying tears. The Cabinet has seen 36 resignations! His Scottish leader has done a u-turn on further referendums, has supported the DUP deal against her own LGBT convictions, and seems ready to work with the awful Boris.

So here we have Stirling MP, Steven Kerr, in the Good Morning Scotland hot seat. This will be good. Hayley or Laura (I can’t tell which) will have him for breakfast. They have so many inroads there and they’re renowned for their sharp, exasperated interruptions.

No, she ignores all of these opportunities and opens by asking him why his published view that the Scottish Tories ‘should loosen ties with their colleagues down south’ is the ‘way ahead for the Scottish Conservatives?’

He tells the most enormous fib: ‘The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party is to a very large extent already a discrete organisation, its own political party. I mean no one can surely imagine Ruth Davidson taking orders from anyone in London for example.’

This will be the Ruth Davidson whose MPs who clearly do not consider her to be their leader, who utterly ignore her views and who was ordered by the PM to accept the DUP deal despite their hostility to gays and to same-sex marriage, including her own presumably?

Surely, she has him now? But no, she just accepts it.

‘Dear listeners please do not confuse your lovely local unionists with the nasty party down south. BBC Scotland recommends this new clean (Well apart from that one who…) party to, especially, older voters.’

She goes have quite a go but it’s a decoy strategy appearing to attack him on his apparent acceptance of Boris, but we all know it won’t stick beyond this morning. Why didn’t she probe him on all the many problems the party has now, before Boris is anywhere near power? Well that might actually weaken them and without Labour, the state broadcaster has nowhere else to go..

Early this morning we heard:

‘The Scottish Government needs to take urgent action to stop the equivalent of a classroom of children a day falling into poverty according to a leading (sic) think tank. IPPR Scotland calculates that without new measures being introduced, 50 000 more children will be affected by 2024. It’s calling on the government to bring forward plans to introduce a new family income supplement. The Scottish Government says it will report progress on the supplement next month.’

GMS has hours in which to report fully so, there was no excuse for missing this key point:

‘The new family income supplement is an attempt to compensate for Tory austerity.’

As for the IPPR Scotland, back in 2014, we could read:

‘The Charity Commission has concluded that the charitable think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research “exposed itself to the perception that it supported the development of Labour Party policy” when it launched a document earlier this year.’

https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/ippr-think-tank-exposed-itself-perception-support-labour-its-report-social-renewal/governance/article/1326918

Remember this was the pre-Corbyn, centre-right New Labour Party being referred to.

Moving on to Director, Russel Gunson, see this from the Scotsman in 2007:

‘Two parliamentary researchers, Kezia Dugdale, who works for the Labour MSP Lord Foulkes, and Russell Gunson, who works for fellow MSP Claire Baker, were seconded to Ms Alexander’s office last night to replace Mr Marr on a temporary basis before a permanent replacement can be found.  Mr Marr’s departure followed the exit of Brian Lironi, who quit after apparently finding it difficult to work for the Scottish Labour leader. A party spokesman said two new spin doctors would be appointed by the end of the year, in place of Mr Lironi, and it was hoped to replace Mr Marr soon after that.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/labour-rushes-to-plug-gap-left-by-sudden-exit-of-wendy-alexander-s-second-top-spin-doctor-1-700634

Gunson clearly has a long association with the Labour Party, not mentioned on the IPPR site or anywhere else, and even spent some time in the jungle of Labour Party politics as stand-in spin doctor with Kez. I smell a rat, like the ones we saw all over Kez’s face a year or two ago. Actually, it’s probably Lord Foulkes I smell.

And, it’s clearly not over, see this Dugdale email only two years ago:

LabourList Daily Email

Everything Labour. Every weekday morning.

Post Tagged with: “Russell Gunson”

7th December, 2016 10:25 am

Kezia Dugdale: Tory Brexit gamble has not paid off – and it has held back healing the divisions of the Scotland referendum

https://labourlist.org/tag/russell-gunson/

Next time you see the IPPR (Scotland) called ‘a leading think tank’, in an attack on the SNP, remember this.

Finally, what did GMS not tell us today? See:

Is there less poverty in Scotland: Will BBC Scotland INFORM us?

New pregnancy and baby payments to offset Tory austerity in Scotland

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

Child poverty WAS and IS caused by policies of the UK government.

As Joseph Rowntree looks on, SNP Government ACTS to reduce child poverty with £450 000 grant

 From Glasgow Caledonian University:

‘Research which could help Scotland become the first country to beat HIV is being highlighted in a new campaign to promote the public impact of health research at universities across the UK. Professor Claudia Estcourt is leading work on HIV prevention with the new anti-HIV drug, PrEP, which has been proven to radically reduce the chance of infection in high risk groups. People across Scotland at high risk of acquiring HIV are now able to access the Pre Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) drug, which is a pill taken before sex to prevent HIV transmission. Her follow-up research is now seeking to make sure everyone across Scotland who could benefit has access to the drug.’  

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/research/latestnews/news/article.php?id=277830

From news.gov.scot today:

• The number of European visitors to Scotland increased by 19% in 2018, according to official statistics released today.
• Overall there was a 10% increase in visits from overseas tourists and a 1.2% increase in domestic (Great Britain) overnight visits to Scotland.
• These increases compare to a 3% decrease in overseas tourism visits and a 6% decrease in overseas expenditure for the UK as a whole.

https://news.gov.scot/news/rise-in-european-visitors-1

Earlier reports revealing same trend and explaining it:

Massive increase in overseas tourists coming to Scotland as numbers fall across the UK as a whole

From the Scottish Business News Network yesterday ‘The number of overseas tourists visiting Scotland rose by almost a quarter in the 12 months to the end of March 2018, compared to the same period in 2016/17. Figures released by the…

Spending by tourists in Scotland soars by infinitely more than in non-Scottish parts of UK!

More measurable than spend, the number of tourists visiting Scotland in 2017, increased by 17% while for the UK, as a whole, it only increased by 1%. However, according to Office for National Statistics (OSN) data released…

414% increase in Chinese tourist spending since 2007!

I know percentages greater than 100%, based on extended time periods, to get an eye-catching headline, just what I accuse others of doing. However, I’m doing it in a cool, self-aware, hipster, ironic way. From the news.gov.scot site…

Seven major Scottish tourist attractions now attracting more than a million visitors a year each!

Yesterday’s piece in Insider reported visitor numbers at Edinburgh Castle and the National Museum of Scotland exceeding 2 million in 2017 while the Scottish National Gallery, Loch Lomond Shores, Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and St. Giles’…

Will there be too many tourists in Orkney and Shetland now as minister confirms big cut in ferry fares?

We’ve already seen the chaos the SNP has caused [sarcasm alert] by promoting tourism in the Western Isles. There have been huge cuts for vehicle passengers, like Oban to Mull, from £56.65 to £16.45 and Mallaig to Skye,…

Tourists from North America flooding to Scotland in ever increasing numbers

I’ve already written several pieces describing the boom in North American tourism and some of the likely reasons behind it in: North Americans lead surge in Scottish tourism because they feel safer here ‘Outlander links see visitors to…