Talking-up Scotland

From Insider today:

‘A Scottish firm which makes protective coatings used on cruise ships, oil tankers and lighthouses has become the latest to be employee owned. The 24 staff at Chemco International in Coatbridge now own it after founder Manny Khorasani decided to step back from the business. The change of ownership process was set rolling after Khorasani attended an employee ownership event run by Scottish Enterprise as he had started thinking about taking a back seat in the business.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/chemco-international-employee-ownership-coatbridge-13744381

Also, from Insider, this June:

‘Scotland has been praised for leading the way in its approach and commitment to growing the popularity of employee ownership. The independent Ownership Effect Inquiry, led by the Employee Ownership Association, found a scheme driven by economic development agency Co-operative Development Scotland had helped deliver a “tenfold return on investment for every £1 devoted to on-the-ground support”. And it recommended that the UK Government echo the scheme’s success.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/employee-ownership-scotland-economy-boost-12818671

And, in January 2018, we read:

It’s estimated that there are around 300 employee-owned businesses in the UK and that almost one-third are in Scotland. Insider offers two reasons for Scotland having more of them:

1. The Nuttall Review identified two key obstacles to the wider adoption of employee ownership: lack of awareness and lack of practical support.
2. Co-operative Development Scotland has undertaken some sterling work with advisers, evidenced by the amount of interest shown at its January 2018 seminar. The expert help provided by Co-operative Development Scotland goes a long way to support businesses, and importantly the employees, through the process.

https://www.insider.co.uk/special-reports/graeme-nuttall-on-employee-ownership-11917414

I don’t doubt that this is part of a wider story. It seems to me to be too much of a coincidence that Scotland also has more living wage employers and a more caring approach to the disabled and to refugees. Further, the Scottish Government’s several anti-austerity and pro-human-rights policies suggest that these values are stronger at government-level in Scotland too.

Finally, to corroborate the headline:

Once again, it’s the ‘8% of the UK population but much more of something good’ meme. This time it’s 33% of employee-owned firms in the UK

 

My complaint on 28^th November can be reduced to one main point:

‘Talking about and only using statistics about ‘general obesity’ affecting c 20% of the Scottish population while visually illustrating continually and only with those who suffer from ‘morbid obesity’ (c 5%) makes a connection between the two which implies that there is a greater problem with obesity than there is and thus misleads the audience. In essence, their answer is that they can use these images with those statistics as they please because ‘All morbidly obese people are by definition obese.’

It’s a stunning claim.

Here’s the full complaint:

Full Complaint: In the ‘Shedding the fat’, statistics about overall obesity (BMI >30) were conflated with images of people with morbid or super obesity (BMI >40). All of those filmed were morbidly or super obese. Against the background filming of these people, we heard that ‘12 million in the UK are now obese’ and that ‘29% of people have so much fat it’s a danger to their lives.’ Given that these facts were spoken against the filmed background of only those with morbid or super obesity, there was a clear danger of equating those statistics with the images of morbid and super obesity, but morbid obesity is actually far less common than the 29% referred to. According to recent research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: ‘It is predicted that 11 per cent of the population in Wales will be morbidly obese in 2035, roughly 340,000 adults, while Scotland is likely to plateau at about 5 per cent and England will rise to about 8 per cent.’ 5% is a very much smaller figure than 29%. It was clearly important to inform the viewer that they were watching people suffering from morbid and super obesity and to inform them what the figure is for that group. This is a major distortion of the facts which can only have confused and concerned the viewers. Not only did the programme distort reality but, also, it lingered morbidly, titillating the viewer, with close-up images of extremely vulnerable people as they struggled to walk or as they sobbed desperately, feeling trapped in their awful circumstances – ‘we want to live!’. These people are seriously unwell, not circus acts. One has to wonder why they agreed to such invasive filming. Did they receive financial inducements?

Their response today:

“Before the programme the presentation announcer introduced it as looking at “four seriously overweight NHS patients who are shedding the fat”.

The programme starts with people eating, with the voiceover stating “People put on too much weight for all kind of reasons” over a clip of a featured obese person with the voiceover saying “Some eat for comfort and many are in denial” followed by a clip of a wife showing the bottle of spirits her husband consumes in one session accompanied by Diet Coke, which she says he regards as making it all OK.

This is followed by a shot of one woman – one of the four – ascending stairs slowly with the script line “12 million people in the UK are now obese” then a clip of the same woman talking of hating yourself so much that you feel no-one else can love you. As she is one of the startlingly large proportion – circa 20% – of the population who are obese, it is not misleading to include pictures of her. All morbidly obese people are by definition obese.

Before the titles, there were clips of the featured people talking about their condition. This continued for about a minute afterwards. There was then a line of script to set up the documentary which stated: “Scotland has one of the highest levels of obesity in the world – 29% of people here have so much fat it’s a danger to their lives.”

So it is wrong to say that both the “12 million” and “29%” points were made over shots of morbidly obese people. And it is unreasonable to suggest that a voiceover giving general introductory background facts about obesity within a programme about “seriously overweight people” would have “confused and concerned the viewers” or that it was a “major distortion of the facts”.

I do not agree that the programme “lingered morbidly, titillating the viewer”. Also, your suggestion that the contributors received financial inducements is without foundation – all the patients featured gave their consent.”

This is, of course, part of a wider tendency in BBC Scotland’s reporting of obesity in Scotland:

BBC Scotland once more hide SNP Government’s policy success to create scare on obesity in women

Does thinking we’re in a national fat crisis make us afraid of independence?

 

This appeared on Friday 14^th. We’re grateful to reader Scott for alerting us to it. Here’s the main part:

‘Scottish Labour MP criticised for joining forces with the Tories to vote down a key amendment to the Fisheries Bill which would have required UK government ministers getting consent from Holyrood over fishing opportunities, rather than being able to bypass them.

As it stands, the Fisheries Bill would only require UK government ministers to inform and consult Scottish ministers but would give no meaningful say or veto to Holyrood over protecting Scotland’s fishing interests.

Brendan O’Hara MP (pictured), who sits on the Public Bill Committee which has been scrutinising the Bill, warned that the move was another dangerous shift towards a Westminster Brexit power grab, and the reality that Scottish Labour MPs are working with Scottish Tory MPs to sell-out Scotland’s economic interests and industries.

The amendment – proposed by SNP MPs Brendan O’Hara and Alan Brown – was voted down at the Public Bill Committee considering the UK Fisheries Bill, including by Labour’s Paul Sweeney MP.’

http://www.thehighlandtimes.com/news/2018/12/14/scottish-labour-and-tory-mp%E2%80%99s-join-forces-to-sell-out-scotland%E2%80%99s-fishing-communities/?fbclid=IwAR3ZIqoXtGNLPXeehe_aTX2KyTtANYoSzctzFcemXtYB3je8olCWkGzkX3A

The story has all the expected features of a headline story – national importance, contemporary relevance, shock, betrayal, hypocrisy. Journalists love that kind of thing, don’t they?

It hasn’t made any of the TV broadcasts to my knowledge and it fails to make the BBC Scotland News website today. Parochial or whit? The FM and EU just make it into the bottom right-hand corner:

BBC UK do better:

BBC Scotland have been very keen on the ‘Brexit and Scottish Fisheries’ topic before:

 So, just as the underlying narrative switches from Scottish Conservatives (pretend to) fight to protect Scottish fisheries to Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Labour MPs collude to betray Scottish Fisheries, they’re looking the other way, up a railway track in the hope of a delay. I name the concept ‘Bias by Recoil.’

 

 

 

http://www.thehighlandtimes.com/news/2018/12/14/scottish-labour-and-tory-mp%E2%80%99s-join-forces-to-sell-out-scotland%E2%80%99s-fishing-communities/

 

After an audience survey revealed that most viewers thought BBC Scotland’s Disclosure team were a bunch of wimps, not up to the hazards of real investigative reporting, an attempt was made to attract Strictly Come Dancing winner, Stacey Dooley, with the offer of a big salary, a personalised stab vest and the role of Senior Chief Reporter with the team.

Much of the criticism of the Disclosure team has concerned their apparent preference for just asking quiet old folk who are ill, quiet old folk who remember a tragedy, quiet old folk who were abused in a home or quiet old folk who had terrible surgery, to tell them what happened. In the one case where they were following a lorry full of wee calves with a big tough guy driving, they got mixed up, followed the wrong lorry all the way to Spain and then used the wrong film of wee calves in the final production. In sharp contrast, the at-first-sight, puny little Eastender, is a tough cookie who might have brought some steel to the team.

Dooley was briefly attracted to the package offered but after watching some of the Disclosure series, left quickly, sniggering. She has, in sharp contrast, interviewed Ulster paramilitaries who are kneecapping local youths, Russian pimps and Mexican gang members.

TuS contacted Dooley, were referred to this link and asked to pass it on to the BBC Scotland team:

‘Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Practitioners sometimes use the terms “watchdog reporting” or “accountability reporting”.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigative_journalism

In a genuine effort to help, TuS investigative reporter Johnny ‘Mad Bastard’ Robertskovovichkov, has suggested these topics:

Radiation and Cancer, Inside Hunterston B

Dark Money and the Scottish Tories: Inside the Loyalist Money-laundering Gangs

Don’t Touch Me There: Scottish Labour Grandees and Female Interns

Unwanted Cash Donations: Exposing the coin throwers of Scottish football

He Sleeps with the Fishes: Scotland’s Mackerel Mafia Families

Readers are asked to make further suggestions below.

Further calls to shut-down this blog will be ignored,

Responding to the above:

Contrary December 15, 2018 / 2:30 pm

Well, well, this is interesting indeed.

Would that be the same Iain Macwhirter that said on radio Scotland just this past week ‘there’s no appetite for a second independence referendum’? Really? Nearly 50% of the population champing at the bit desperate for one translates as ‘no appetite’. Perhaps he doesn’t look at opinion polls or talks to anyone outside his social circle? Maybe it wasn’t him, but pretty sure that was the name given?

Excuses for the BBC to be shite at their job? I’m tired of it.

If the story re Alex Salmond was interesting before, and the media was fair minded and had the objective of informing the public, then this story should have been headlining all the papers. It isn’t, so we can only ask why not, and ask that media what their objective really is (they would dissemble and say is was a mere formality, too complex for us simple minded plebs, or there’s no scandal so wasn’t relevant, or you know the drill, just add your own vague beside the point weasely excuse). Why not just say ‘we hate Alex Salmond because he threatens our nice tidy status quo, and we want you to hate him too even if he’s one of the few people that gives you a chance of getting you out of the shit-for-you status quo’? Or words to that effect.

There are a lot of alternative ways this could have been reported.

I’ve just finished watching a late night discussion from 1989, not relevant to today you’d think? I found it very relevant, it is a discussion about the security services just before the new state secrets act was to be passed – closing down any future discussions like this. The open and relaxed nature of the discussion brings it home just how much open debate is stifled these days, but also how much there was already an issue with secret service accountability, competence, and who they were targeting, their politicisation, their old boys network, the ability for anyone to report illegal orders or acts, ,,, actually, there is a big list.

1989 was of course after the Falklands, and during the Troubles, and Thatcher reigned. (And Bush was US president, they have an ex-CIA man in the discussion).

I was fairly horrified when the law was passed in parliament recently (2016 or was it 2017?, how time flies) allowing the secret services unparalleled, unrestricted and unaccountable power to spy on its own citizens, with no media fanfare. What the Rt. Hon. Tony Benn says in 1989, what his concerns were, have come to pass. One thing often said, was that the secret service is there to maintain the (internal) status quo at all costs, and by all accounts were a shambles at catching foreign spies.

Also interesting were the comments made about how the automatic reaction when any of these clandestine groups make a mistake, is to lie and make up a nonsense story – so even if their action was justified they can never come clean about what actually happened. Interesting opinions on what should and should not be secret, and the journalist in the group making a good point about ‘secrecy for its own sake, instead of when relevant’. You can have scrutiny without revealing state secrets (who is the state, asks Tony Benn, the crown? Who are we answerable to, is it a state within a state?). Also, the points made about your attendance at public school influences how much you can be ‘trusted’. Who decides what is ‘for the good of the public’, how can the public make an informed decision in elections when things are kept from them, etc.

There is a lot in this, rather long, programme – and these are people with links and knowledge. Only one conclusion really regarding Alex Salmond, the security services need to take him down to maintain their status quo, and are doing what they always do (interesting comments from Mr Benn regarding misinformation peddled about him – as a politician he has a platform to speak out and fight back from – while others were at the mercy of vindictive defamation). I am always suspicious of any sensationalist reporting myself. There have been some bizarre ones recently too. But it’s no wonder the SNP keep closed ranks and squeaky clean images – they will be targeted.

You might have been quicker watching (over 2.5 hours), than reading my comment though!!

Fascinating 1989 After Dark chat about security services just before new secrecy laws come into effect

As Tony Benn says, too, ‘we did not allow the excuse of ‘I was ordered to do it’ in the Nuremberg trials, and we should not allow that excuse in the secret services’ (I’m paraphrasing)

I would add that I think the staff of the BBC should not be allowed that excuse either. Or the people striking in the GMB union strike fiasco. Not a popular opinion I know, but we each have to take responsibility for our own actions, but at the same time there should be understanding that we can all make bad decisions and can be conned. Admitting a bad decision or not can make the difference between respect and disdain.

Another interesting word that started being bandied about in the above discussion was ‘vindictive’. That word describes the impression I have of the English public school classes, I see it as the main describing feature of any future negotiations for an independent Scotland, we see it in their attitude towards Ireland even now – but that doesn’t stop decent trade deals and initiatives being made, so it just needs us to stay determined. (That is, expect it, but don’t bow to it)

I really think that out of all the nations of the U.K., it is England that most badly needs independence, not from the eu because they don’t have a say constitutionally, but from the uk. Their national identity seems to be wholly focused on the British empire and somehow without it they’d be nothing. What rubbish, England is a rich and vibrant country with a huge variety in culture and environment – why aren’t they celebrating that, instead of the weirdo need to only judge their worth by how many other peoples they can subjugate? It’s not healthy. But while they struggle with this, I think the best we can do is get Scotland to be an independent country again, constitutionally, financially, culturally, and we’d be doing a favour for their good, and our good.

Not-too-relevant but fascinating US graph from http://www.gradeinflation.com/

In 2008, 25.3% of All English A-level passes received an A grade. This triggered a call for readjustment to avoid accusations of unjustifiable grade inflation. In Scotland, the then Education Secretary, Fiona Hyslop, appealed for the Scottish system not to be dragged into the annual row about exam standards in England.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/aug/06/alevels.schools

This year, we see:

‘Attainment in Higher exams has fallen for the third year in a row, new figures have shown. Scottish Qualifications Authority statistics show A-C passes at Higher are down marginally by 0.2 per cent between 2017 and 2018. The figures, updated from August to take account of issues such as appeals and late results, show there were 55,083 band A passes at Higher this year, 48,592 at B and 44,274 at C.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/education/attainment-in-scottish-higher-exams-falls-for-third-straight-year-1-4843440

According to the Labour Party’s education spokesman in the North Britain (Scotland) region, Iain Gray: ‘The SNP should be utterly ashamed of these figures.’ Gray called for additional resource to further inflate the results.

However, renowned authority on criterion-referenced assessment and former visiting research fellow at the University of the Best of Scotland, Professor, Doctor, Herr Johann von Rubrikson has accused Gray of being a dummkopf who doesn’t know his Harris from his Elba. In 2015, Prof Rubrik demanded that the Scottish system act to preserve its reputation, at least in Baden-Württemberg, as being the next toughest, after that in Baden-Württemberg, where only 4% of students get an A pass. Rubrikson has commended the efforts of the SNP to push A-passes down for the third year in an attempt to protect the reputation of the Scottish system, in sharp contrast to the English system, where according to Prof Rubrikson’s research team, Richard Leonard  got a C pass in GCSE Arithmetic.

 

 

There it is, down at the bottom left of the screen after scrolling down from headlines about the weather, tinned fruit and old film of the M8, an actual ‘news’ story about the Alex Salmond legal case:

It’s there but small or down the page on the Record, Scotsman and Herald websites. Readers might let us know where it is in the paper versions. I can see no sign at all of it on the Guardian or Telegraph sites yet both were very interested in the accusations. Why is a success in his defence not worthy of a headline when the initial accusations caused repeat drooling headlines?

For one journo, the reason is simple:

That leaves unanswered the question ‘Why Alex Salmond so much and so viciously?’. Is it because he, like Ken Livingston, dares to bite back at media bias?

Unlike the current SNP leadership, Salmond’s all-too-human behaviour, sharp wit and willingness to fight fire with fire, casts doubt on the mainstream media’s delusional sense of professionalism and ‘journalistic’ standards. They especially don’t like his mocking tone. His preparedness to use Russia Today, when the UK MSM will not give him space, is despised, despite the hypocrisy of their position. It infuriates them.

The accusations against him were all over BBC Scotland reports for days beyond any then current news value. Let’s see if their much-vaunted balance is in evidence now.

 

Perhaps as her Christmas present, Sally McNair headlined a short piece on rough sleeping which was fair, accurate and even compared Scotland favourably with England and Wales! There’s always been something disturbingly likeable about Sally compared with Jackie or Glenn.

Anyhow, here’s what she said at 06:26 am:

‘Fewer people are sleeping rough in Scotland this winter compared to 5 years ago according to the homeless charity, Crisis. It says figures obtained through research at Heriot Watt University show a 6% drop in the number sleeping on the street between 2012 and 2017. That’s in stark contrast to the situation in England and Wales where increases of 120% and 63% were recorded over the same period. The Scottish government says it has made rough sleeping a priority and recently published a new action plan backed by £50 million in funding.’

I suppose door-stepping Kezia or that heartless Tory woman for comment is asking too much?

Let’s see if it’s repeated the usual six times this morning and whether it makes it to Reporting Scotland as the headline story and still as essentially good news.

• Haha by 08:26am they’d added this to start off the report: ’16 hundred people will sleep rough in Scotland this Christmas!’