Talking-up Scotland

‘A massive gap in the electricity system caused by the closure of coal-fired power stations and growth of unpredictable renewable generation has created the real prospect of complete power failure.’ 

The Herald headline is an astonishing piece of hysterical hyperbole and ironically is based on a report by the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland (IESIS). The major sponsor of IESIS is Babcock, a subsidiary of Doosan of South Korea.

IESIS number one sponsor is Babcock:

Babcock belong to Korean giants, Doosan

Doosan Babcock specialise in ‘the delivery of construction, aftermarket and upgrade services to the thermal power, nuclear, oil and gas, petrochemical and process sectors.’ Doosan Babcock currently have a deal with French company EDF to maintain 7 of the UK’s 8 older nuclear power stations including Hunterston B in Ayrshire.

After 4 years of life-extension by Doosan Babcock, Hunterston B’s reactor has 350 cracks

Doosan Babcock no doubt regrets the disappearance of large power stations in Scotland as we move toward a distributed-generation-systems based on renewables. However, the notion that thousands of renewable electricity generation sites, wind, marine turbine, hydro, hydrogen, solar, spread across the land and sea, are more vulnerable than one or two massive nuclear, coal or oil-fired power stations is, in the wake of the Chernobyl and Fukushima failures and in the context of global terror, both astonishing and simply wrong.

Let’s see if and what, Reporting Scotland make of this exciting story, which the people need to hear of.

 

 

Border Terrier attempts to drag Mrs Prof into sea to begin triathlon training

According to Scottish National Heritage (SNH), the number of outdoor trips made by Scots, including English, Polish, Pakistani, Chinese and other Scots, increased from 396 million to 547 million in only four years. Please note that I have used BBC Scotland’s editorial guidelines on adding up smaller percentage increases to produce a nice big one for my headline.

The report also indicated that more than half of those surveyed, reported getting out every week with many visits taking place in urban areas and with increasing experiences of nature closer to home than in the past.

The most common reason given for visiting the great outdoors was to exercise a dog followed by health and exercise. Two-thirds of those who visited the outdoors felt it had improved their physical health as well as helping them to reduce stress.

While tackling obesity has required multiple strategies, the above trend must have played some part in the stabilising then reducing levels currently being denied by our Nomedia. See these two sources:

1. From Growing Up in Scotland: Overweight and Obesity at Age 10:

‘Historic data from the survey shows that the prevalence of overweight [in Scotland] including obesity remained relatively stable between 1998 and 2016, fluctuating between 28% and 33%. However, in recent years levels of obesity have shown a steady decline dropping from 17% in 2014. This is largely due to a decline in obesity amongst boys which have dropped from 20% in 2012 to 12% in 2017 [40%].’ (14)

https://www.gov.scot/publications/growing-up-scotland-overweight-obesity-age-10/

2. From the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine:

‘Under current trends 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.’

The researchers offer a surprisingly clear, confident and simple explanation for the significantly slower growth in Scotland – Scottish Government policy initiatives and resource allocation:

‘The government put a massive push on developing a route map for how we can actually combat this. They put together resources from the NHS that were proving to be effective. They did put a lot of work into it.’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/morbid-obesity-double-britain-poverty-education-employment-study-a8369731.html

 

The National reports uncritically on the latest British Medical Association’s loyal Scottish branch as it uses unreliable data to undermine NHS Scotland.

The National is denied access to report critically on the PM’s last-minute Northern campaign.

I’ve written before expressing reservations about recent converts to the cause such as Kevin Mckenna and Michael Fry, who have found shelter at the National. McKenna’s fluidity enables him to continue to write for the Herrod, Observer and Guardian regardless. I’ve doubted the effectiveness of the ‘intellectual’ and ‘professional’ strategies of those such as Common Space and the Herrod’s Iain Macwhirter. I’ve defended the Yes movement’s wild and hairy but impressively analytical and effective, shock troops at Wings, against the accusations of an unhelpful lack of good manners by some of the former. I’ve been characterised as a narrow zealot by the former and told to ‘up your game’ by the Rev Stu at Wings.

The National’s first editor, now Editor Emeritus, Richard Walker, made it clear they would have space for criticism of the SNP. While still editor at the Sunday Herald, he had refused to report my 2014 research, insisting that it had not demonstrated bias at the BBC to his satisfaction. Richard maintained warm connections with BBC Scotland throughout and appeared often on it. My colleagues at UWS who worked with the BBC were told to stay away from me if they valued those links. Richard, as explained by Chomsky, is a member of those media elite groups interlocked with other elite groups across the establishment. He and other senior staff in the National/Herald teams are, an at least Shetland-sized, Trojan Horse presence, within the Independence movement and remain so, even though they may feel they have reinvented themselves at the conscious level as pro-independence. Their positioning depends primarily upon a deep need to self-preserve and is fluid enough to adjust to changing circumstances. Should we fail, watch them slide back into some, no doubt subtle, but in essence, Unionist place. Should we succeed, watch them slither into positions of influence in post-independence Scotland their last surface traces of Unionism shed.

I have been and will be again, accused, of paranoid, even deranged thinking here, but that’s how establishment figures, even lesser ones, work to destroy any who dare to criticise them: ‘First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.’

Hahaha, he’s comparing himself to Gandhi! What next, Christ? Can lesser figures not use the quote? Is it reserved only for the greater heroes? I have lost quite a lot of weight but do not yet sport a beanpole.

This report in the National required me to doubt the National editorial team focus on the core target of winning independence. The BMA report is almost certainly unreliable and even if it were not, giving it space seems a dubious decision if you are aligned wholeheartedly to the cause of Scottish independence.

The key points in the National report of the BMA survey:

1. The British Medical Association (BMA) surveyed 999 doctors across Scotland and almost three-quarters (72%) said they think targets are given higher priority than the standard of care. More than two-thirds (68%) thought the same of finances.
2. Some 71% said overall patient services have worsened in the past year, with just 2% seeing improvement.
3. The vast majority (97%) believe NHS resources are inadequate and affect the quality of patients’ care, with 66% saying the impact is significant and 31% that it is slight.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/17259882.doctors-fear-for-quality-of-care-in-scottish-nhs/

We’ve been here before, several times, with the BMA and BBC Scotland presenting unsound research findings to undermine the reputation of NHS Scotland and, by association, the SNP administration.

I’ll keep this short. Why is the BMA ‘research’ of little value in informing us about the true state of NHS Scotland?

1. The BMA is a trades union, like Unite or the RMT. Its ‘research’ is designed to produce results which it can use to campaign for more staff and more money, regardless of objective needs. Would an RMT survey of railway workers wanting more pay and resources be given comparable respect or prominence by BBC Scotland?
2. We’re not able to see the wording of the questions used in the ‘research’. Leading questions are common in a partisan survey like this and completely invalidate the findings.
3. The research sample was self-selecting. In such samples, typically, those with a grudge or with a negative disposition are more likely to respond. The results don’t tell you what the majority of doctors think.
4. The research sample was small. There are around 13 000 doctors of various kinds in Scotland. The sample was 999 or 8% and not all responded.

To conclude, why did the National report this and report it uncritically? Whose side are they really on?

 

Reporting Scotland yesterday, nine times throughout the day, had much to say on the recent waiting time target figures for NHS Scotland. The 90% target was not met.

Today, however, the reservations shared by others about the effects of such an undue focus on targets, were reinforced by a report from the BMA in Scotland, which suggests such concerns are widely shared by GPs. While there are, as always, methodological concerns about the BMA ‘research’, they and BBC Scotland News have formerly had quite a cosy and even symbiotic relationship. The BMA report does not, of course, directly attack BBC Scotland’s reporting of targets, but it finds them diametrically opposed for what may be the first time.

Concerns about targets have been raised before. For example, from a 2015 report for the Health Foundation (p5):

1. There have been instances where reported performance has improved without services improving for patients: ‘hitting the target but missing the point’.

Example: Cancelling procedures along parts of the pathway not covered by the target (for instance aftercare) in an attempt to direct resource towards the targeted area of referral to treatment, even though overall patient outcomes could be negatively affected. 

2. [Targets] may lead to a disproportionate focus on areas which are measured at the expense of those which aren’t.

Example: Reports that the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) had a negative impact on holistic care in general practice, with the targets skewing focus towards single-conditions or issues.

3. There have been reports of gaming and manipulation of data. 

Example: Some ambulance trusts reported reaching patients in less than one minute (a near impossible time), suggesting manipulation of the data to meet the target.

https://www.health.org.uk/sites/default/files/OnTargets.pdf

Research from business schools, reported in Forbes magazine in 2013, suggests a wider and deeper problem with the whole idea of target-setting arguing that they tend to do more harm than good and that they often cause real damage to organisations and to the people who work in, or who use, them:

‘We argue that the beneficial effects of goal setting have been overstated and that systematic harm caused by goal setting has been largely ignored,” the researchers conclude. Bad “side effects” produced by goal-setting programs include a rise in unethical behavior, over-focus on one area while neglecting other parts of the business, distorted risk preferences, corrosion of organizational culture, and reduced intrinsic motivation.’

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/01/02/why-setting-goals-can-do-more-harm-than-good/#492a9d16115a

Where intensive national broadcast media attention to failures to meet targets is added to the above consequences, the effects must surely be even greater. During a recent one-month stay in hospital while at the same time writing this blog, I was able to ask 24 health practitioners about their reaction to the negativity commonly broadcast about NHS Scotland’s performance by BBC Scotland and STV. I had been especially interested in how their morale might have been affected but not one of the 24 reported watching or listening to Scottish news broadcasts other than by accident.

BBC Scotland’s weaponizing of the NHS, while potentially quite effective in scaring older and more vulnerable Scots into conservative mindsets conducive to voting against change, always risked conflict with those professional groups working in it and often otherwise aligned with their Loyalist mission.

Auchinleck in Ayrshire where ‘Shedding the Fat’ was filmed

In their recent ‘documentary’, ‘Shedding the fat’, BBC Scotland concealed recent encouraging trends in obesity and created a scare story based on the conflation of statistics about overall obesity (BMI >30) with images of people with morbid or super obesity (BMI >40). All of those featured were morbidly or super obese.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bsvjjx/shedding-the-fat

Against the background filming of these people, struggling physically and often sobbing, 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.’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/morbid-obesity-double-britain-poverty-education-employment-study-a8369731.html

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.

Presumably, super obesity is even less common than morbid obesity, yet we heard the 29% figure as a clearly morbid or even super obese woman appeared in the local hospital. 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 unforgivably, 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? Were they persuaded that the programme would improve services by drawing attention to the limited resources available?

Finally, this production is only the latest in a series of inaccurate reports on obesity in Scotland. See:

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 From the Alcohol Policy Unit on 21^st:

‘The Scottish government has published a new alcohol framework 2018, outlining 20 key actions that seek to ‘reduce consumption and minimise alcohol-related harm arising in the first place’. The strategy has three key themes including ‘reducing consumption’, ‘positive attitudes, positive choices’ and ‘supporting families and communities’, and coincides with the latest figures on alcohol-related hospital admissions in Scotland of 35,499 in 2017/18.  The strategy follows on from the implementation of Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) earlier this year after a long running legal challenge by sections of the alcohol industry.’

Scottish Government policy, based on science, has previously been praised by public health groups especially when compared with the Westminster approach based on unscientific local partnerships and self-discipline. The Alcohol Policy Unit view of the latter is:

‘A new national alcohol strategy is reportedly in development for England and Wales, though there have been few signs that calls for it to follow a more evidence-based approach will be heard. Minimum pricing appears to be off the table according to a recent parliamentary answer stating “the new strategy will not include a commitment to introduce minimum unit pricing in England at this time”, but that PHE would review the impact in Scotland following its introduction this year, despite Wales and Ireland taking steps to implement MUP. Earlier this month the Health Secretary Matthew Hancock said people should take greater personal responsibility for their health to take pressure off the NHS, provoking dismay from behaviour change academics and alcohol groups. Hope that the strategy will halt the ‘crisis’ facing treatment services may be one area where advocacy groups will continue to focus efforts on.’

https://www.alcoholpolicy.net/2018/11/new-scottish-national-alcohol-strategy-framework-published-.html

 

 As BBC Scotland scarily headline untested new method to measure obesity, a second research report shows obesity among Scottish children is in decline and is already significantly lower than that in non-Scottish parts of UK with Scottish Government policies once more associated with this progress.

Research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, reported in the Independent on 26^th May 2018 suggested:

‘Under current trends 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.’

The researchers offer a surprisingly clear, confident and simple explanation for the significantly slower growth in Scotland – Scottish Government policy initiatives and resource allocation:

‘The government put a massive push on developing a route map for how we can actually combat this. They put together resources from the NHS that were proving to be effective. They did put a lot of work into it.’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/morbid-obesity-double-britain-poverty-education-employment-study-a8369731.html

I appreciate that the trend graph relates to combined male and female obesity, but the table below shows that for other than two groups, the prevalence of obesity in Scottish women is expected to be significantly lower than that in England or Wales and notably much lower for the 15-24-year-olds most likely to have experienced, in schools and colleges, the ‘Scottish Government policy initiatives and resource allocation.’

Table: Predicted % prevalence of obesity

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/five-million-british-people-will-be-morbidly-obese-by-2035-study-shows-2/

Published three days ago but ignored by the Nomedia, new research findings support the London School findings:

From Growing Up in Scotland: Overweight and Obesity at Age 10:

‘Historic data from the survey shows that the prevalence of overweight [in Scotland] including obesity remained relatively stable between 1998 and 2016, fluctuating between 28% and 33%. However, in recent years levels of obesity have shown a steady decline dropping from 17% in 2014. This is largely due to a decline in obesity amongst boys which have dropped from 20% in 2012 to 12% in 2017 [40%].’ (14)

‘The results are broadly comparable with similar UK research. For example, analysis of data from the Millennium Cohort Study showed that the proportion of healthy, overweight and obese 5-year olds becoming or remaining obese by age 11 were 6%, 32% and 68% respectively (Mead et al, 2016). Comparative figures from analysis of administrative data from the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP)13 in England were 8%, 43% and 77% (Copley et al, 2017).’ (25)

So, compared to England, 25% fewer healthy 5-year-olds becoming obese by 11 in Scotland. Similarly, 25% fewer overweight 5-year-olds becoming obese and 12% fewer obese 5-year-olds remaining obese.

While the London School research directly attributes credit to Scottish Government policy initiatives, this merely associates them. See:

‘Food available in and around schools has also been a focus of policy aimed at improving children’s diets. Legislation5 requiring local authorities to ensure schools provide food and drink of an appropriate nutritional standard has been in place since 2007 with accompanying guidance’ (17)

‘Progress towards achieving the goal of a more active population has been made through a range of activities in recent years including the implementation of the National Walking Strategy (Scottish Government, 2014c), the Cycling Action Plan (Scottish Government, 2017b), the Active Schools programme8, Community Sports Hubs9 and the Legacy 2014 Physical Activity Fund10. Of particular relevance for children and young people is the Scottish Government’s commitment to expanding the Daily Mile11 to ensure that Scotland becomes the first ‘Daily Mile nation’ with roll out to nurseries, schools, colleges, universities and workplaces. Recent research results suggest the Daily Mile is effective at increasing levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA), reducing sedentary time, increasing physical fitness and improving body composition.’ (17/18)

https://www.gov.scot/publications/growing-up-scotland-overweight-obesity-age-10/

 

 

 

 

Bald isn’t always the worse choice?

Glenn’s face on Brewer’s Sunday Politics yesterday, as he gave in to the overwhelming evidence that Scottish fishing rights were clearly not going to be protected by the Tories, with only a quick ‘It’s not over’ inserted, was a picture of angst. There clearly are times when even the stoutest supporter of the Union realises that he cannot construct an alternative story that anyone will believe.

However, Glenn does have a record of more successful campaigns, beginning with his 2009 US tour supporting FM Nicola Sturgeon. He appeared to reject the notion of covering the First Minister’s speeches and used the opportunity to try to find evidence that folk in the US hated the Scottish Government for letting the alleged Lockerbie Bomber go. However, one US citizen, Jeanne Tomlin, thoroughly Chomskyed him with this analysis:

Jeanne Tomlin said…

Off topic, but this is one IRRITATED American. Would you PLEASE take Glenn Campbell back and SHUT the man up. How skewed can a reporter’s work get? He belongs at Pravda.

He is consistently misreporting and skewing American opinion. Notice reporting in a restaurant they cut out the owner’s opinion PRO-MacAskill. When American express bafflement, he tries to turn it into hostility.

WORSE, he has consistently omitted parts of his interview with a representative of our State Department. What was REALLY said?

This:

The EXACT conversation was this:

QUESTION: Glenn Campbell from the BBC: Has the United States forgiven the Scottish Government for releasing the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing?

MR. KELLY (US State Department spokesman): Well, our views on that issue, of course, are extremely well known. Again, we’ve passed these views both in private channels and in – also publicly. I think just about everything that we have said to the governments in London and Edinburgh through diplomatic channels have mirrored what we’ve said publicly. I don’t think it’s a matter of forgiving anybody. I think all along, we recognized that Mr. MacAskill had the right to do what he did. We objected extremely strenuously at many different levels and in many different channels to the release of Mr. Megrahi. I think at this point, we’re looking to move on.

NOT what Mr. Campbell and the BBC wanted to hear apparently from the way they consistently edit his comments to leave the part about “nothing to forgive” and “he had the right to do what he did…”

DISGUSTING. It belongs in Pravda. You PAY for this stuff, right? My sympathies.

http://subrosa-blonde.blogspot.com/2009/09/bbcs-glenn-campbell-annoys-americans.html

Don’t hold back Jeanne. Say what you think.

A similar though more restrained view of this coverage was taken by GA Ponsonby of Indyref2 who wrote:

In analysing Glenn Campbell’s reports, I was struck by how many questions and issues were completely unrelated to the First Minister’s trip [to UN in April 2017].  Most could have been covered at any given week in the calendar.  I formed the view early on that he wasn’t there to cover the trip, but to detract or distract from it.

I’ve long held the view that Glenn Campbell should have been moved from political reporting after the first independence referendum.  He is simply unable to resist the temptation to inject his own agenda-driven asides into news reports and jab misrepresentations into interview answers.  He has a tabloid mindset that rears its pro-Union head all too often.

Readers of this site will of course have their own views on the merits of Glenn Campbell’s peculiar style of reporting.  My view is that he is the least trusted of political reporters at Pacific Quay for good reason.

https://indyref2.scot/whos-the-fairest-glenn-campbell-versus-james-cook

Then in 2014, I was able to report on similar techniques used by Campbell to distort and to twist the evidence. I note that the name ‘Campbell’ when translated from Gaelic, means ‘twisted mouth’!

So, in April 2014, as the Scottish Independence Referendum loomed for him:

‘Glen Campbell refers to only a ‘slight’ narrowing of the polls despite evidence of a gap which according to a New Statesman report in April, has narrowed from 24 to 8.’ (p44)

‘The issue hovered around the fringes of debate for a while until one morning a BBC reporter called Glenn Campbell filed a report that suggested at least one current EU member was against Scottish independence. An item broadcast on Radio Scotland in March heard Campbell’s colleague Gary Robertson tell listeners that the Government of Luxembourg had “broken the mould” and had come out against a Yes vote….Within days of the item appearing on the BBC, Luxembourg officials complained that they had been misrepresented…..According to the Luxembourg’s English speaking news organisation Wort, the phrase ‘going separate ways’ was not a reference to Scottish independence but was in fact a reference to the UK Government’s anti-EU European stance!’ (p60)

‘The party [Labour] was -and still to some extent is -claiming that Labour for Independence was a front set up by the SNP….A BBC Scotland online article written by reporter Glenn Campbell contained an image which had come from the official No campaign group ‘Better Together’. The image had been altered to include the phrase ‘SNP Cllr’ beside three men who were pictured holding a Labour For Independence banner which proclaimed – ‘Yes is the future!’…The images distributed by Better Together – and published by the BBC – had in fact been cropped in order to remove other individuals who were holding a Yes Scotland banner.’ (P61)

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/propagandascotlandreferendum2014.pdf

The best Campbell could manage yesterday was to insert a desperate ‘It’s not over’ with regard to the selling out of Scottish fishing rights.

Now, I often disagree with some who argue that most BBC Scotland reporters are consciously biased and deliberately act with bias. I fully accept that Campbell knows what he’s doing and has a clear agenda constrained only by his need to be able to deny it. In today’s youth-speak, he’s ‘awoke’. There are others too, especially at Good Morning Scotland. However, for many, I don’t think they are consciously acting to damage the Independence cause but, rather, just going along with the flow, believing it’s just what really is out there, being reported because the editor says its important, or what the people want to hear.

Here is how Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann explained the emergence of a dominant way of thinking and behaving which she applied to Nazi Germany and later to the US, in the 1970s:

‘Spiral of silence is the term meant to refer to the tendency of people to remain silent when they feel that their views are in opposition to the majority view on a subject. The theory posits that they remain silent for a few reasons:

1. Fear of isolation when the group or public realizes that the individual has a divergent opinion from the status quo.
2. Fear of reprisal or more extreme isolation, in the sense that voicing said opinion might lead to a negative consequence beyond that of mere isolation (loss of a job, status, etc.)

For this theory to be plausible it relies on the idea that in a given situation we all possess a sort of intuitive way of sensing what the prevailing opinion happens to be.’ (masscommtheory.com)

Applying this to BBC Scotland staff doesn’t mean that they are always consciously biased against independence though they, especially the senior and managerial staff, may be so. When Glenn Campbell was caught on screen tearing up an SNP leaflet, we got a wee glimpse. Rather, I’m saying that it is, mostly, unconscious predispositions nudging them toward choices which favour the Union. Noam Chomsky though often accused of being a conspiracy theorist, by those who had failed to understand him, was saying essentially the same when he talked about how consent is manufactured. Stepping back onto the thin ice of a Nazi analogy, Sir Professor Kershaw’s notion of ‘Working toward the Fuhrer’, can be added to this dark way of explaining bias. Reminding us that Hitler gave few direct commands but, rather, by his speeches, set the parameters for the behaviour of those below him in the Nazi system, to please him. Here’s how Kershaw puts it:

‘Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above everything which he intends to realise sooner or later. On the contrary, up till now everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer. Very often and in many spheres, it has been the case—in previous years as well—that individuals have simply waited for orders and instructions. Unfortunately, the same will be true in the future; but in fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer along the lines he would wish. Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough. But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.’ (wikipedia.org)

Try reading that but substituting the words ‘Head of News’ for ‘Fuhrer’ and ‘reporter’ for ‘his’, ‘everyone’ or ‘everybody’.

Imagine inside the mind of a BBC reporter or a junior editor. See little stories on paper, some favouring independence, some favouring the Union, falling downward in a spiral. Some are caught by the unconscious mind and others fall into the silence below. The unconscious mind programmed by years of Unionist education, Unionist socialisation in the mainstream media and the words of current senior staff, catches mostly the pro-Union stories and reports them as representing the world, outside their minds even though they more accurately represent the world within their minds.

So, BBC Scotland staff are not Nazis. Trying to survive inside an hierarchical power-based system, they’re just like citizens under Nazism.

To conclude, please pass this to our Glenn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmSftbBr–I

Footnote: Surely one of the BBC Scotland staff is Jewish thus making this whole report, me and my dog, anti-semitic?

In 2017/18, the alcohol-related stay rate per 100,000 population in general acute hospitals was 668.3, a 2.5% decrease compared to the previous year (685.4). There has been a general decline in alcohol-related stays since 2007/08.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/2018-11-20/2018-11-20-ARHS-Summary.pdf?82140749693

The first SNP government was sworn in on 16 May 2007. I know it’s only a correlation, or is it? Look at these faces and see how you feel.

How do we compare with the rest of Europe? Contrary to English stand-up comedians, we were by no means the drunk man of Europe, even in 2010 as the calming effects of life, under the SNP, could only have begun to have impact.http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/190430/Status-Report-on-Alcohol-and-Health-in-35-European-Countries.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

As the opinion polls started to close in the summer of 2014 and one even gave a majority to Yes, the Unionist forces were stirred into action. David Cameron came to Scotland to launch a love fest, pleading with us to stay and to ‘lead’ the UK. Gordon Brown intervened to draft a pledge which would guarantee Scotland federal powers. Who knows what effect these interventions and others had on the outcome of the Referendum, but did a less transparent intervention weaken the case for independence by concealing a major oil find to the west of Shetland?

When Cameron chose to visit Shetland, on July 22^nd, the first PM to do so in 34 years, suspicions were raised.

Research published in the Scotsman on 8^th September 2014 found that ‘almost half of Scots believe the UK government is hiding North Sea oil discovered during the independence campaign.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/half-of-scots-say-oil-finds-are-kept-secret-1-3534186

Official reports discounted the rumours and any expressing suspicions were sneered at in social media, for some time after. BBC Scotland’s Douglas Fraser and that other Tory, Murdo Fraser, played leading parts in this:

More than four years later, however, is new evidence suggesting a cover up emerging? Today, BBC Scotland have announced, though not headlined, Scotland’s biggest ever field has begun to produce oil and will continue to do so at levels and for a time greater than expected.

We heard:

‘Oil from BP’s major Clair Ridge development which is expected to produce for the next four decades – has begun to flow. Two new bridge-linked platforms and export pipelines will be used to recover an estimated 640 million barrels of oil at Clair Ridge. BP expects production to peak at 120,000 barrels of oil a day. The Clair field – 47 miles (75km) west of Shetland – was discovered in 1977 and is estimated to contain seven billion barrels of oil and gas.’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-46304346

There is much to say here but little of it will make our Nomedia.

1. There are apparently now four decades of oil to be tapped yet we were told oil would run out long before that
2. We’re told now that the field was discovered in 1977 but when was its true scale discovered – 2014?
3. What are 7 billion barrels worth? At today’s prices ($80pb) it would be $560 billion!
4. This is only one of the oilfields in Scottish waters.

Footnote: Remember this other Cameron intervention before the 2014 Referendum:

‘The “importance” of the US television drama Outlander to the political atmosphere of last year’s Independence Referendum was highlighted by key TV executives before a meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron. In a cache of leaked memos from the Sony organisation obtained by Wikileaks, an email written by Keith E. Weaver, executive vice president at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which produces Outlander, discusses a meeting with the Prime Minister last summer [2014].  An Outlander insider last night said the meeting may have been why Sony “took the foot of the pedal” with finding a UK broadcaster.’

From the above, it seems clear that Outlander’s potential effect on the first referendum was a concern to the Cameron government.