Talking-up Scotland

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…

 

Back in March we read the above and heard the same story broadcast repeatedly. It’s not true. I wrote to the Scottish Retail Consortium for a breakdown of the figures in their UK-wide survey to seek confirmation of the nine-a-day figure for Scotland.

Yesterday I received this:

They just made it up!

 

After two shocking experiences on Monday, when Willie Rennie (above left) and Alex Cole-Hamilton (above right) were ‘goosed’ while working for the people of Scotland, Tavish Scott has spared no expense in bringing this parliamentary question:

https://www.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/WA20190522.pdf

Rennie and Cole-Hamilton say they are unable to forget the incidents and have urged Cunningham to get to the bottom of this problem as soon as possible:

 

 

Miles Briggs (Lothian) (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party) has asked:

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-09444 by Shona Robison on 9 June 2017, whether it will provide the information for each year since 2016-17. (S5W-23083)

Jeane Freeman has responded:

The following table highlights data from Higher Education Statistics Agency HESA records, from the Scottish Funding Council, showing Scotland-domiciled people who have entered pre-registration nursing and midwifery training since 2016-17.

Academic Year Entrants (Headcount)

2016-17 2857

2017-18 3087

So, student nurse recruitment up 8%.

https://www.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/WA20190523.pdf

The number of applicants through UCAS for nursing in England to 30 June 2018 was down by 23%.

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2018…/CDP-2018-0252.pdf

The current level of nursing/midwifery staffing is:

www.rcn.org.uk/-/media/royal-college-of-nursing/…

Scotland has 10% of the population of England but 13.2% of the nurses and midwives.

Here are the main references to Scotland. I’m sure you will draw your own conclusions about where to lay the blame and what to do in the future:

Wait, late news from Reporting Scotland:

‘President Mugabe says an independent Scotland cannot expect easy transition to UN membership.’

https://undocs.org/A/HRC/41/39/Add.1

From YouGov today, for fieldwork between 19^th and 21^st May 2019 and based on a quite a reasonable sub-poll of 332 Scots:

• Con 7%
• Lab 7%
• LD 12%
• SNP 40%
• Green 9%
• UKIP 2%
• Brexit 23%
• Chuka 1%

As before the Brexit ‘surge’ has barely affected SNP support but has nearly wiped out support for ConLab. Brexit support in much of England was around 40%.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/05/22/european-parliament-voting-intention-brex-37-lab-1

Why? Because it’s what they do with any media-induced scare story on NHS Scotland. See this from only two weeks ago:

BBC Scotland misreport deeply flawed research based on tiny (1.77%) self-selecting sample by novice researcher which provides NO evidence of a ‘bullying culture’ in NHS Highland

THIS latest interim report on NHS Tayside, published yesterday has been headlined all day in BBC Scotland broadcasts in dramatic terms with claims of the abuse of ‘patients.’ The 22-page interim report, however, is essentially a padded-for-impressions account of generic anecdotal comments with no real statistical substance that could be used to inform the public. The investigation has no methodology. There are no research questions. There is no sampling technique. There are no criteria for evaluating the results. There is no apparent mechanism for checking the accuracy of any comment made by any patient, relative or staff member. Remarkably, the report claims to have engaged with more than one thousand individuals but there is no sign of the University of Dundee and its Professor Stonebridge who has written in the media defending the service.

Critically we do not hear how many patients have complained or have had complaints made on their behalf nor do we hear how many patients have been treated in the same time period and, consequently, what percentage the first group represents. Reporting Scotland are able to present only one case. So, we do not know how representative complaints are of the system as a whole and thus we do not know if there is a level of problems typical of such institutions which might be dealt with locally or whether there is a level suggesting a wider problem that you might describe as a crisis.

This is important because if we do not know the answers to these fundamental questions then reporting of the kind we have seen on BBC Scotland, will not serve the public interest and may actually cause damage to the system being reported on.

Some earlier media reports on complaints made on behalf of patients at The Carseview Centre clearly related to only one or two out of the hundreds treated there and cannot be used as reliable evidence of wider practice there.

Neither the Independent Inquiry not the BBC report considered the expert opinion of Professor Stonebridge of the University of Dundee who asserts that there is no special problem in NHS Tayside. See:

‘NHS Tayside has claimed rates of violence and restraint in its mental health services are not excessive compared with other health boards, after an internal report claimed patients in Dundee had been pinned to the floor for too long and in a dangerous position.’

The professor does not fit the agenda here. The ‘Independent Inquiry’ report is available here:

https://independentinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Independent-Inquiry-Interim-Report-May-2019.pdf

‘SOME victims of a crime known as revenge porn say they’re being ignored, rejected and humiliated by Police Scotland, ‘A NUMBER of women have told the BBC they were not taken seriously by officers when making complaints.’

In Reporting Scotland’s typically dumbed-down, fact-free, tabloid style, ‘some’ becomes one as we hear from a single self-confirmed victim. At the end:

‘Well Police Scotland say no formal complaints have been made…’

So, our ‘public service broadcaster’ once more ignores its own editorial guidelines recommending that it verify the information it broadcasts and, in the critical absence of any formal complaints, chooses to give time to one self-confirmed victim of crime who has inexplicably not bothered to report it formally. This is of course not news of any informative value for the public which pays for that same service. It is also news within a long-standing agenda which undermines wider perceptions of Scotland and its institutions.

See these for a fuller explanation of likely effects:

The BBC proxy war on the SNP using NHS Scotland

The Power of Early Morning Nightmares: The consequences including even death at home for expectant mothers of BBC Scotland’s reporting of one stillbirth

 

‘Something is happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr Jones?’

Why is Highland region so strongly supportive of Scottish independence but the two border regions so supportive of the Union, when both have very high densities of English-born?

Dear readers, I haven’t got a real scoobie here. Whadya think?

And, should Dundee be renamed ‘City of Independence and Discovery’?

Wait, have the Anglo-Highlanders come out of love and the Anglo-Borderers come just to get away from multi-culturalism, air pollution and a failing NHS?

 

PDF version of Powerpoint presentation I did for the fine activists of Yes East Ayrshire last night:

The BBC Proxy war on the SNP

If you want the file in some other format, email me at: thoughtcontrolscotland@gmail.com