Talking-up Scotland

The combined forces of the Union, party branches, broadcasters and press, are all over this one, snapping, howling and slavering like a pack of hyenas round a lion which has stumbled and which they hope is mortally wounded. They’re in for a surprise as it stands, shakes its temporarily confused head, stares at them and pushes through, on its way again.

Back out of Africa – having attacked in the previous days, first by reminding and insinuating against Alex Salmond, then last night, slicing the other way trying to weaken the SNP Government with his victory in the courts over, in reality, a Westminster civil service appointee, they turn.

Now high on adrenalin, they try to use his victory to split off what they think is a compromised First Minister who, though a friend of his, must defend her Permanent Secretary. Indyref2 predicted this some months ago.

Richard Leonard looks nervous as his colleagues urge him onward – fight, fight, fight. Gammon-faced with pantomime rage, Jackson Carlaw, throws himself at her, all bluster and unsure footing.

BBC Scotland and the Herald feed their diminished audiences who, frankly, have seen more blood with David Attenborough. The Scotsman goes mental letting off its blunderbuss.

Some reader and viewers, trapped in front of their TVs or tired-eyed behind their papers, believe it really is happening. ‘Salmond is in for it now! Sturgeon has made a fatal mistake! She won’t last.’

But wait, as in SNP Civil War I, the infantry have not moved. Kenny is talking to the press. The MacTwittersphere is alive with debate. The Yes movement is showing signs of some anxiety, but the SNP seems unflinching in its outward stare.

The two ‘big beasts’ are wounded. They show it in their faces, but they are not turning toward each other with hatred. At worst there is regret but that will pass.

You should never predict anything in politics, but I’ll make an exception this time. Sturgeon will stay and lead impressively as Brexit and Indyref2 return in full force to demand everyone’s undivided attention. Police Scotland will not proceed with a case against Alex Salmond and the ‘offenses’ will turn out to have been, at worst, relatively minor, not physical and the kind of thing older guys sometimes forget they should not say these days but do say with a drink in them. [If I’m wrong I will eat my hat….which is made entirely from dark chocolate-covered ginger snaps]. Despite that, the media will attempt to blame him for the disappointment the two complainants now feel. The permanent secretary will take a package and she, with her alleged ‘rock’n’roll husband, will go off on his motorbike, three strings of pearls flying, to make a Scottish version of a Star is Born.

The SNP hold tight and focused on its purpose.

It’s that sense of overriding purpose that means the SNP will not split. Though now huge and with great diversity within it has a common core of such strength and meaning that it holds the centre together easily.

Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems, in contrast, are coalitions of convenience sharing few essential values or visons. Pragmatic and calculating, they will readily jump ship and join each other as long some material need is promised to be met.

Though some SNP members are most concerned with greater economic and social equality, where others are driven by a desire for a place where all, women, ethnicities, sexualities, beliefs, are treated with respect, where still others foreground the environment and where some, like me, care most about having a foreign policy free of imperialist pretensions and violence, all know one thing.

We know that only independence from the last part of hostile, unequal, jingoistic, delusional superior, Britain, will allow any of our shared desires to be achieved. We know how high the stakes are. If we split, all is lost. The centre will hold because it must.

 

 

From that throbbing organ the Greenock Telegraph today, with regard to the top rate:

‘Experts from the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) explained rising earnings are “sucking” more people into the additional rate band – which sees those north of the border earning £150,000 a year or more paying income tax at 46p.  The SFC has forecast the number of Scots in this category is to increase from 14,900 in 2018-19 to 22,000 in 2023-24, a rise of more than 47%. ‘

https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/news/national/17345743.top-rate-taxpayers-forecast-to-increase-almost-50-in-five-years/

Overall, the number of taxpayers is expected to rise from just over 2 500 000 to nearly 2 700 000 and revenue from nearly £11 billion to nearly £14 billion, by 2023-24.

Conservative ‘finance’ spokesman Murdo Fraser has warned:

“This is the sort of thing that drives wealth away, ultimately harming tax receipts and the economy. And all the while, our neighbouring economies with more competitive tax rates will reap the benefits.”

There is, of course, absolutely no evidence for Fraser’s claim. See:

Debunking the Tory idea that Scotland’s progressive taxes will trigger flight of the wealthy

 

 

I’m going to bend my own rules about research comparisons here, so any hypotheses raised must be pretty conditional.

First, here’s a US study:

‘People over the age of 65 who self-identify as Republicans are most likely to share fake news on social media, according to a study. Researchers from New York University and Princeton University analysed shared links to so-called “fake news” sites on Facebook during the 2016 US presidential election campaign. The results revealed that most of the sharers were self-identified conservatives over 65, who were seven-times more likely to share the content than people aged 18 to 29. The study also found that the vast majority of social media users did not actually engage in the fake news content.’

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-fake-news-share-old-republican-conservative-new-york-university-study-a8719521.html

Are Scots, as a population, too different to suggest our more mature Conservative voters and No-supporters, might be prone in a similar way to share fake news on social media? Globally, I’d argue that Scots are relatively close to US whites. Clearly, we’d need to replicate the study here to be sure.

However, if Scottish Conservative politicians were more prone to disseminating fake news in the first place might that make it, statistically, more probable that it would be shared? As it turns out, they are. The Ferret fact-checking service found them much more likely to be telling lies in their communications:

Further, there is evidence that David Mundell’s Scottish Office had been directly targeting potential voter groups including the older voter:

The Ferret obtained details of the paid marketing activities on Facebook undertaken by the Scotland Office. It shows how Facebook messages from the department were targeted at specific groups of people in Scotland. The UK Government department aimed one advertising campaign solely at small business owners in the Dumfriesshire constituency of Scotland Office Minister, David Mundell. Academic Dr Mark Shephard said the data showed that the Scotland Office had targeted “sympathetic groups” while campaign group Unlock Democracy said the Scotland Office could be using taxpayer funds to “manipulate potential voters for party political purposes.”

https://theferret.scot/scotland-office-manipulate-voters-facebook/

Finally, it’s worth noting the clear evidence of older voters tending disproportionally to vote Conservative and/or No:

So, are older Conservative and No-supporting Scots more likely to share Tory fake news? There’s enough here to suggest follow-up research should be undertaken. Any takers?

 

As our NoMedia slaver and froth at the heels of Scotland’s most influential politician of the modern era, let’s remember just how ironic their chosen strategy is. Alex Salmond has been judged guilty in advance by many whose own records might not stand up to scrutiny and whose Tory chums are a toxic presence in many workplaces.

On 1 May 2018, the Sun gave us this short list from their Tory Dossier:

• Michael Fallon resigned as Defence Secretary after admitting that he got “handsy” when he inappropriately touched the knee of journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer. Married father-of-two Mr Fallon admitted to The Sun he had touched Julia — but insisted he apologised over the incident 15 years ago and that both considered the matter closed. Julia said she did not feel like she was a victim of a sexual assault, and found the incident nothing more than “mildly amusing”.
• Former Brexit minister Mark Garnier admitted calling his secretary “sugar t*ts” and taking her to buy him sex toys in Soho. Caroline Edmonson said Mr Garnier stood outside the shop and sent her in to buy sex aides for his wife and a member of his constituency staff. He did not deny the claims but told the Mail On Sunday the incidents were taken out of context. He was reported to the Cabinet Office and was later force out of the Cabinet in a reshuffle.
• Former Cabinet Minister Stephen Crabb sent sexually explicit messages to a 19-year-old woman who applied to work in his Commons office. The 44-year-old husband and devout Christian admitted saying some “pretty outrageous things” after the interview. Mr Crabb had previously been caught sending messages to a woman around half his age describing a sex act he would like to perform on her.
• Ex-Deputy PM Damian Green was accused of inappropriate behaviour towards a woman 30 years his junior. Kate Maltby, a Tory activist and academic, said he had made a pass on her in a bar – and flirted with her over texts. He denied the allegations, saying: “It is absolutely and completely untrue that I’ve ever made any sexual advances on Ms Maltby.” He also denied having signed up to extra-marital affair website Ashley Madison.  The 61-year-old was also rocked by a fresh scandal after it was police found pornography on his work computer when they raided his Parliamentary office. He was later sacked as May’s right-hand man.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4780221/mps-sex-scandal-allegations-sanctions-names/

A different kind of Dodgy Dossier or Dossier of the Dodgy?

Where are they now? Happily, back in fold of course.

More serious but ignored by the MSM, at the same time as an SNP MSP was exiled, over a humorous and at best, naive, tweet, we read in the Canary, on 21^st June 2018:

‘On 18 June, two Conservative politicians were convicted of child sexual abuse. The jury at Swansea Crown Court found former mayor for Pembroke David Boswell guilty of raping a girl under the age of 10. On the same day, former mayor of Godalming Simon Thornton pleaded guilty to more than 20 child sex offenses.’

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2018/06/20/in-under-24-hours-two-former-tory-mayors-are-convicted-of-horrific-crimes-against-children/

Finally, for today, how does the Conservative Party in Scotland treat complainants? Well, behind doors, of course. See this in the Times on 2^nd October 2018:

‘Ruth Davidson said the way her party deals with sexual harassment claims could change after recent criticism. Miles Briggs, the Lothian MSP, was cleared of sexual harassment at a hearing of the party’s disciplinary committee last week. Rape Crisis criticised the way the complaint was handled and called on the Scottish Conservatives to “urgently change their approach to investigating sexual harassment complaints”. At the time Ms Davidson, the party leader in Scotland, tweeted that she had “confidence in the robustness of the disciplinary process” but has now said that it may look at changing the way such allegations are handled. She told BBC radio’s Good Morning Scotland: “Complaints of sexual harassment are dealt within the same framework of other disciplinary procedures like bullying. It might be we have to separate that.”’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-abuse-claims-procedure-to-be-reviewed-after-miles-briggs-case-9rgxk76cf

Conservative in every sense?

 

One of several objective measures of health in an economy, unlike say the dubious GERS figures, is growth in the number of staff appointments. The latest RBS Jobs Market Report shows permanent that staff appointments increased at an ‘historically marked’ rate at the end of 2018. Notably the Scottish labour market seems to pulling-away from the UK’s falling trend. See this for permanent posts:

 

https://www.rbs.com/rbs/news/2019/01/jobs-for-scotland-report-shows-labour-market-conditions-remain-r.html

These figures reinforce the wider trends apparent in Scotland and revealed in these earlier reports:

Umpteenth post on underlying strength in Scottish economy: Property investment up 19.8%!

Scottish business confidence well above UK average

SNP blamed as private businesses experience too much demand and overcrowding with new staff second only to Labour-mayored London.

Scottish business confidence stays high…Ah but!..Oh shut up Revoking Scotland!

63% fall in large business insolvencies as Scottish economy reveals strength

See this Douglas? Business investment in Scotland up 250%!

Scottish Business Strength No.77: Small Scottish construction firms’ growth up 17%

Scottish small businesses still more confident than those in non-Scottish parts

Business activity soars to four-year high across manufacturing and service

Business confidence in Scotland soars by 24% while it sinks 29% in non-Scottish parts of UK

Scottish businesses more likely to be stable than those in rest of UK: News from a parallel universe unknown to our mainstream media

Scottish Government supports economy with new business rates unique in UK

Scottish business confidence higher than in any other region of UK

 

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Emergency-Care/Publications/2019-01-08/Summary-Weekly/index.asp

89.3% of over 25 000 patients were seen within 4 hours in the last week of December 2018. This compares very favourably with December 2017 when only 78.1% of over 25 000 were seen in 4 hours.

Note: I have use BBC Scotland editorial guidelines in rounding the numbers above.

The December figures for NHS England are not out yet but even in November 2018, only 81.1% were seen in 4 hours.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2018-19/

Note: This was reported pretty fairly on Reporting Scotland las night. They were careful to give the actual percentage which I have previously accused them of withholding in case any viewers were to think ‘91.2%? That’s no bad. I’d take thae odds.’

Note 2: Sadly, veteran demonstrator, Jackie Bird, was unavailable to present this report (sick?), leaving it to the more agreeable presentation of Ms Whyte.

 

   

Covert Professor, John ‘le Careless’ Robertson, a leading academic and a frustrated spy-writer, gives us his thoughts on the latest developments in ‘Salmondgate.’ Please note that this apparently humorous approach is a cunning ploy to fool conspirators into revealing themselves and, of course, to dupe vulnerable members of the public into believing a conspiracy theory. Please note that that last bit is, of course, a double-bluff.

The Mactwittersphere is alive with very lively conjecture. Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans, who led the internal complaints procedure against Salmond, is allegedly a Westminster appointee and allegedly the secret wife of the Head of MI5, Jonathan Evans. One half of the previous sentence is demonstrably true. She’s the allegedly dumped wife of David Mundell, Scottish Governor. According to her, he is in the music industry – ‘He works in rock and roll, touring with bands.’ Aye right! Clearly a spook.

https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/interview/interview-scottish-government-permanent-secretary-leslie-evans-%E2%80%93-where-else-would

@PlayMI5tyforme suggests that the head of the UK civil service had her allegedly appointed as a ‘sleeper’, to sit quietly and patiently waiting for an opportunity to ‘do-in’ the SNP and this is the best she could find. The likely presence of ‘sleepers’ in Scottish Government departments was exposed by a sleeping Scotsman writer in 2013:

“Sleepers” could already be embedded in Scottish Government departments. James Aitken, formerly involved in overseas development, said “sleepers” may have been placed “ready to be activated as required”.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/spies-could-already-be-operating-in-scotland-claim-1-2781455

Today, Salmond’s lawyer even accused Evans of ‘giving the complainants encouragement’ [Winding them up?] to pursue a case against the former First Minister, five years after the events. Her lawyer rejects that claim.

Perhaps wilder, but not impossible, is the suggestion put forward by @McGlashanTumshie that this is part of Operation Obvious Eejit, Labours joint campaign with some unions to weaken the SNP, previously exposed and named in this organ by Professor Robertson. In this scenario, the alleged Labour leader is contacted by an old pal in the Civil Service Union who tells him of the two ‘victims.’ He then, allegedly encourages the two ladies in question, with promises of vast wealth, to revive and inflate their complaints.

How plausible is any of this?

Well, you may say, the UK Civil Service has a proud history of unconditional loyalty to whichever party is in government and has served faithfully, politicians as diverse as Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair [What?]. However, the loyalty of the civil service to the Wilson government in 1964-70 does seem to have been questionable and led to calls for a purge from Labour leaders.

http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/research/working-papers/wp2theakston.pdf

More recently, there have been suggestions that pro-Remain senior civil servants have been briefing against Brexiteer politicians, to protect their now well-established and valued links and jaunts to the EU.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/911098/Brexit-news-UK-EU-European-Union-latest-deal-Labour-MP

Of course, you’d need to remember that the UK Labour Party is part of the UK establishment and not the fundamental threat to the very existence of the UK which the SNP represents. Readers may remember this:

‘Nicholas Macpherson, the Treasury permanent secretary and its most senior civil servant, said earlier this year that he believed impartiality guidelines “do not apply” in “extreme” cases like the Scottish Independence referendum. “Her Majesty’s Treasury is by its nature a unionist institution. The clue is in the name,” he told a meeting of the Strand Group at King’s College London. SNP Treasury spokesperson Stewart Hosie at the time said the comments were “astounding” and wrote a letter to the head of the civil service Jeremy Heywood in protest.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/civil-servants-compromised-their-impartiality-during-the-scottish-independence-referendum-with-10126960.html

Much as I want all of the above to be true especially the Operation Obvious Eejit bit, I’m going to suggest a degree of overdone sisterhood combined with a dash of mental distress may be responsible for the Permanent Secretary’s misjudgement in this case.

Evans, a senior human resources professional is, not surprisingly, concerned about the pressures that have prevented many women from rising to her level in the civil service.

https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/interview/interview-scottish-government-permanent-secretary-leslie-evans-%E2%80%93-where-else-would

This suggests that she may have felt a kind of sisterly pressure to be too encouraging of the complainants and perhaps even pressurised them to revive their complaints on behalf of the sisterhood, when they had been reluctant to do so. If her contacts with the Scottish Secretary, with MI5 or with her line manager in the Civil Service played any part in her decision, we may never know.

The highly-esteemed Craig Murray has taken this thesis further in his blog:

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/01/the-salmond-stitch-up-the-incredible-facts-and-why-mackinnon-and-evans-must-be-sacked/

Further increasing the likelihood of the above thesis, is the evidence of her being under high levels of stress recently. See this from the Herald on 8^th September 2018:

‘Scotland’s most senior civil servant has been commended for speaking about her personal experience of mental health problems. Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans said she had worked through “several tough and very stressful episodes” in the past and had seen a health professional at one point.’

Well then, where are with this? You tell me.

Footnote: Readers confused or irritated by this, at times, flippant approach and, perhaps, doubting the subversive nature of TuS might like to read this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster

 

(c) Getty

In Insider today:

‘A report by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) indicates a change in the pollutants emitted by Scottish regulated businesses as the country moves to become more sustainable and resource efficient. Greenhouse gas levels have reduced 57% since 2007 when 26 Megatonnes (Mt) of pollutants were released. The 2017 total was 11 Mt. The largest decrease, according to the data, was in 2016, with Longannet power station only operational for the first few months of the year. There was a further reduction of 6% (just under 1 Mt) in 2017 as the first full year with no emissions from the plant.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-country-13823608

A major factor in this will have been the recent dramatic increases in electricity generation from renewables. For more see:

Scotland’s wind energy smashes through 100% threshold but fails to bother BBC Scotland

BBC Scotland have only murder on their minds as Scotland’s wind turbines produce enough power on one day to power three times more homes than we have!

And, intriguingly, might this development have had unintended but beneficial consequences? See this from a year ago:

As major global cities like London struggle with pollution, levels in Scotland have dropped by more than 66% since 1990. Has this contributed to falling crime levels too?

Footnote: I used to work in Longannet (Long Annet NOT Long Gannet!)

 

Operation Obvious Eejit

This has happened before in the context of education (school exclusions) where the National covered a piece unavoidably damaging to the Scottish Government. Don’t they know what is going on here? This is clearly part of Operation Obvious Eejit, the Labour/Unions combined forces attack on the SNP. Richard Leonard’s auld Trotksylight pals in the RMT, Unison and the EIS have been prepared to exploit their members, often for the second time, to help his campaign against the SNP and ‘screw the weans, auld folk, disabled and rail passengers.’

‘I know, it’s not real research but they’ll report it’

The EIS survey in question has been widely reported and utterly uncritically so. The location where I thought I might get to have a peek at the ‘methods’ appears to have gone:

 

Anyhow, I reasonably take the absence of evidence of any methods to be evidence of absence of proper methods as I would in marking a student assignment.

They proudly announce that they’ve ‘questioned’ 12 000 teachers. They did not. They sent an email with a survey attached, to all their members, a mechanical act requiring no thinking and no skill.

We don’t hear what the response rate was. It was clearly self-selecting. Even if there were thousands it is unlikely to be a reliable sample and is probably heavily skewed toward those with a predisposition to be negative.

Had they done a random sample and extracted a reasonable return from that, the results might have meant at least something.

We don’t get to see the wording of the questions. If you ask the members of any occupation if they feel stressed regularly or frequently, would you be surprised if 60% agreed? Only 16.5%, they admit naively, felt stressed ‘all the time.’

After 40 years of neo-liberal, de-regulated capitalism and in an increasingly unequal society, don’t we all, even the retired, feel that way much of the time? Maybe that 16.5% is a bit low?

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said:

‘The EIS carried out this survey as part of our ongoing Value Education, Value Teachers campaign. Our aim was to gather information on the issues affecting teachers, to provide a firm evidence base to support our ongoing campaigning.’

‘Firm evidence base?’ No!  Stop it! It hurts! Help! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha……………

 

Someone’s Freedom of Information request disappoints as NHS staffing climbs steadily under the SNP.

In a Freedom of Information (FoI) request made on 1^st December 2018 and responded to on 27^th December 2018, one of BBC Scotland (see below for their track record on this), or the ‘Scottish Press’ or Labour or Conservatives or Lib Dems (SCALPEL*), I’m guessing, asked for:

‘The total number and full/part-time breakdown of NHS Scotland staff, qualified doctors, qualified nurses and GPs; currently and ten years ago.’

https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-18-03583/

*Scottish Labour and Conservative Parties Especially Libdems

You can hear their whiney wee nasal voices – ‘aww nooooh, its rubbish!’ – when they saw the table above

Everything’s up: the total staffing, the number of qualified doctors, nurses and midwifes. Qualified doctor numbers are up a whopping almost 20% in only ten years of SNP control of the NHS.

I’m grateful to SteveB, who clearly lives among the girders, for his suggestion and help regarding the use of FoI request responses.

I plan to use these as a relatively labour-free way to get ideas and content for the blog. Just think? Wee SCALPEL gremlins do all the work and TuS gets the free content meant for NoMedia.

Note: I’m using the BBC Reporting Scotland Editorial Guidelines for the use of descriptive adjectives such as ‘whopping’, and the use of ‘almost’ in rounding-up.

https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/foi-eir-release/2019/01/foi-18-03583/documents/foi-18-03583-information-requested/foi-18-03583-information-requested/govscot%3Adocument

BBC Scotland, FoI and the SNP Government

In December 2016, I wrote:

‘According to the Scottish Information Commissioner’s (SIC) records, in the last three years (2005 to mid 2007), of the Labour/Lib-Dem coalition, BBC Scotland made only three FoI requests of Scottish Government departments. It would have been surprising if they had made more because a public service provider depends on government for its funding and so is unlikely to try to expose any flaws in any of its departments. Don’t bite the hand as they say. Again, according to the Scottish Information Commissioner’s records In the last three years of the SNP government (2014 to 29 November 2016), they made twenty-six! The SIC does not receive all the requests made and does not know of any made directly by the BBC to local governments or health boards. According to the Scottish Government’s Strategy and Constitution Directorate, BBC Scotland has made a total of 160 FoI requests since January 2008!’