Talking-up Scotland

Reported in the Independent today, based on research by BMG with ‘1,506 GB adults online between 6 and 9 November’, we read:

‘Almost 80 per cent of people believe police force spending cuts have made them less safe on the streets of Britain, an exclusive survey has shown. Some four-fifths of those questioned in the exclusive survey for The Independent said swingeing cuts enforced during a near-decade of austerity driven by the Conservatives have damaged public safety.’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/police-conservative-austerity-cuts-public-safety-theresa-may-research-a8626786.html

There’s a logical basis for at least some of this level of fear in the evidence of reported crime increasing at the same time:

Add to this hard evidence, the effects of media incubation of fear in their focus on crime in both news and in drama and it makes perfect sense that people feel less safe.

I was unable to get any regional or national breakdown but an earlier Ipsos MORI poll in April 2018 did offer this:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/issues-index-concern-about-crime-reaches-seven-year-high

Before looking at the breakdown, it’s interesting to note the much lower levels of ‘concern’ apparent in the above with none of the regions coming anywhere near the BMG figure of 80%. However, without a detailed comparison of the wording of the questions and the allocation of responses to categories of concern, there is little scope in suggesting that the level of fear of crime has increased so dramatically in these few months between the two surveys.

It is possible, that there has been some overall increase in this period though, given the continuing rise in reported crime levels across England & Wales and the epidemic of knife killings in London which is constantly headlined by media.

In Scotland, however, reported crime continues to fall and though media here have been determinedly milking the few cases they have, there seems little reason that the Ipsos MORI figures will have shifted much.

Our perceptions of crime levels are mostly constructed for us by the media coverage we consume, and, in Scotland, we face daily and intense coverage of any violence that can be found, along with a prolonged campaign to undermine Police Scotland and to cast doubt on its competence. That Scots seemed less anxious, at least in April, seems, to me, quite remarkable in the circumstances. The scale of the distortion, of the Police Scotland attacks and the failure to contextualise with comparative statistics, can be seen in these earlier reports:

As knife and gun crime rockets across England and Wales and falls in Scotland, Scotland has far more police officers per head of population

BBC News tries to spread knife crime crisis into Scotland to tell us: ‘You’re no different. Don’t get any ideas!’

Lib Dems, Tories and Labour take turns to help Scotsman, STV and BBC Scotland cast unjustified doubt on successes of Police Scotland, as crime plummets regardless

As crime falls, Scots feel safer than ever before

As hate crime falls in Scotland and soars elsewhere, STV and BBC Scotland report fake news of an increase

Scottish Muslim students far less likely to report abuse or crime?

Less homicide, less knife crime, less domestic violence, safer cities and now much lower alcohol problems: should Scotland’s old stereotypes be sent south?

Scotsman acts as Tory propaganda outlet in fake news about knife crime as statistics reveal dramatic fall in possession and use across Scotland

Better together? As crime falls in Scotland, English drug gangs invade Scotland. Build a wall?

 

Watching images of the deadly bush-fires in California today, I’m reminded of something I wrote here, just over a year ago, in that year’s, time of apparently ‘extreme’ environmental events. This year we’ve had massive deadly ‘fires’ in Portugal, Greece and Southern Australia to name only some of the worst. We’ve had deadly floods in Southern France and Spain. There have been floods and hurricanes across the USA and there was a global heatwave this summer which killed thousands of the old and weak.

Scotland ‘puts its head out of the car window’ to get some fresh Atlantic air

In October 2017, as wild-fires race across California, killing 40 and leaving 300 unaccounted for, Governor Jerry Brown said: ‘It’s a horror that no one could have imagined’ but I know someone who could and did imagine this kind of thing decades ago yet has been ignored.

‘Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster’

Mike Davis, a self-educated, Marxist, former abattoir worker and driver wrote ‘Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster’ in 1998.  In it he said there are two kinds of climates – ‘high frequency/low intensity’ and ‘low frequency/high intensity’ and that it matters a lot which you live in or move to.

Scots and Northern, even some Central, Europeans, have lived in a ‘high frequency/low intensity’ climate for centuries, where it’s never the same from one day to the next but, also, it’s never very extreme. At worst we get a few storms and localised floods. Few if any die. However, some parts of the world, especially, California, Florida and the Caribbean, Southern Spain and South Australia have ‘low frequency/high intensity’ climates where it’s calm, warm and dry for days, weeks, months, sometimes years on end, but where rarely but devastatingly, they get tornadoes, hurricanes, flash floods because the ground surface is too hard to drain and wild-fires because the vegetation is so dry. They also, not surprisingly suffer water shortages, droughts, even desertification. See this map for growing desertification in Europe:

© wikileaks.org

Notice South-East England?

These latter regions had small, knowledgeable, nomadic populations surviving quite well before the mass arrival of Europeans in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, drawn by the ‘low frequency’ part of the climate but used to the ‘low intensity’ climates where they and their immediate ancestors originated. They have no cultural memory of the intense events and when these come, they seem extreme and abnormal, but they are actually normal just very infrequent.

Now in the 21^st Century, these high intensity events seem to be increasing due to climate change and I wonder, when do the populations in these areas decide enough is enough and want to move back to somewhere admittedly boring but safer? When this happens, does Scotland become more appealing than its current population could imagine.

Footnote: Mike Davis also wrote Victorian Holocausts which is a disturbing reminder of one of the many horrors of the British Empire, not celebrated by the BBC, unknown to most Brits and absent from our school curricula. A young German referred me to this book and pointed out that he had been obliged to visit the death camps to make sure he knew what his people had been capable of. He knew, of course, that our children visit the same death camps to learn how horrible Germans had been but never learn of the millions dead in colonial India or, indeed, of the massacres by British troops across the globe.

 

 

Listening to Jackson Browne again, his words continue to resonate years after they were written:

I’ve been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you’ve seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And there’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest ru

On the radio talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends–
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can’t take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can’t even say the names

They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

 

© Glasgow Pictish University

We’ve already heard of developments in NHS England:

Nursing course applications fall for second year after student bursary scrapped. Applications to study nursing in England have fallen for a second year, dropping by a third since the Government removed bursaries in 2017 requiring nurses and midwives to pay £9,000 a year in fees. UCAS figures for the first wave of applicants hoping to start university courses in September 2018 show that the number of students wanting to study NHS nursing have again fallen sharply, by 13 per cent on last year.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nursing-applications-ucas-course-drop-nhs-grants-funding-debt-tuition-fees-costs-a8191546.html

In sharp contrast to these tragic events caused by stupid Tory politicians, yet admired by those ‘clever’, ‘Scottish’, neo-liberal, ‘economists’ at FANNI, we see that SNP policies have had these results:

‘Student nursing and midwifery places will increase for the seventh consecutive year, reaching record levels, with the intake rising by 7.6% to more than 4,000. As announced by the First Minister in October, all eligible nursing and midwifery students across Scotland will benefit from an increased bursary in 2019/20, rising to £10,000 a year in 2020/21. Upping intake for the 2019/20 academic year is one of a number of measures to support the sustained recruitment and retention of NHS staff. In addition to the increase in student places, almost 460 former nurses and midwives have signed up to retrain through the Return to Practice programme, since 2015. The Scottish Government is also funding the Open University to deliver a pre-registration programme, currently supporting around 116 nursing students.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/supporting-the-next-generation-of-nhs-staff

I’m sure the SNP must be doing something wrong here. Worry not, that Richard Leonard will have his question ready:

‘Will the First minister take steps to increase the number of student nurses in line with Wales?’

 

In the Guardian yesterday:

‘The NHS [England] is on course for its worst annual cancer waiting statistics on record, official figures suggest. In eight out of nine published cancer targets, between April and September, the health service treated the lowest or joint lowest percentage of patients since operation standards were introduced, according to official figures published on Thursday. They show that with half of the year gone, 133,843 cancer patients have not been treated within the relevant standards. The figure amounts to 77% of the number of patients treated outside the standard in the previous 12 months and is greater than the total in each of the first three years that all nine standards – introduced in 2012/13 – were in operation.’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/08/nhs-cancer-treatment-wait-statistics-2018-standards

Our Nomedia in Scotland has of course managed to cherry pick a few areas of concern here and has ignored the many success stories. See:

Cancer mortality rates fall 10% but Reporting Scotland ignore it

Only SNP Government has actual plans in place to reverse ‘abandonment’ of secondary breast cancer patients in UK. Researchers and reporters downplay or ignore this

95% of Scottish cancer patients treated within 31-day standard but NHS England in crisis

NHS Scotland significantly outperforms NHS England on cancer waiting times despite demand soaring: Herald fails to report properly again

 

 

At least the headlines are more honest than usual and let the reader decide not to bother reading on once they see which eejit wants to criticise the SNP this time. In normal times, with Tom Potemkin, we’d get:

‘Sturgeon under pressure to do something!’

‘SNP blasted for failure to something’

Then, after wasting precious moments we’d never get back, we’d discover it’s only Murdo or Willie or some ‘charity’. I suppose the headline would’ve been more useful if it had told us that the Tory in question was the eminently disregardable (new word) Union Jackson Carlaw.

Did he phone up to complain about the pussyfooting first headline and insist on the full blast from his mighty horn?

Anyhow, the Scotsman, to its minor credit, did include the crucially important contextual evidence in the 13^th of 13 paragraphs:

‘In England there are 71 GPs per 100,000 people while Scotland has 91 for every 100,000 of the population.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/tories-blast-nicola-sturgeon-do-more-to-help-family-doctors-1-4826727

 

Pay £28 000 to train as a nurse but hopefully earn too little to pay it back?

© Daily Record

One of Reporting Scotland’s favourite sources of ‘news’ is always a new report from the Fraser of Allander Nice Neoliberal Institute (FANNI). Their latest warns, oh my god, that health care will cost more as the Scottish population ages. Wait, is this new?

Anyhow, never mind the rest of Douglas Fraser’s report (Wait, another ‘Fraser’, is he a FANNI too?), but this bit takes the biscuit:

One of the politically challenging suggestions they put forward is for the introduction of student tuition fees.

‘Politically challenging’ is an interesting way of saying ‘daft’. Now you can see why FANNI and Douglas keep coming back to this. Free university tuition is clearly bad for the Loyalist parties and media. Along with a better-functioning NHS it might lead some to think the SNP are more capable than is desirable but suggesting this, with busy nurses in the background, is ill-judged even for them. See this from the Guardian in February 2018:

Nursing course applications fall for second year after student bursary scrapped. Applications to study nursing in England have fallen for a second year, dropping by a third since the Government removed bursaries in 2017 requiring nurses and midwives to pay £9,000 a year in fees. UCAS figures for the first wave of applicants hoping to start university courses in September 2018 show that the number of students wanting to study NHS nursing have again fallen sharply, by 13 per cent on last year.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nursing-applications-ucas-course-drop-nhs-grants-funding-debt-tuition-fees-costs-a8191546.html

So reintroducing tuition fees for nursing students in Scotland would result, a few years later, in greater numbers of unfilled vacancies. Oh, yes, I get it. Nursing vacancies are a good thing for Reporting Scotland, Douglas and FANNI. See my next post.

 

© GETTY

From the Independent, yesterday:

‘Brexit is set to exacerbate the NHS staffing crisis and a new report estimates that as many as 51,000 nursing staff will be needed by the time the UK leaves in 2021 after its transition period.  This would mean the health services is missing the equivalent of 45 hospitals’ worth of nurses, according to the report by the Cavendish Coalition, an alliance of 36 health and social care organisations which is urging government to step up recruitment and training to mitigate the loss of EU staff. The latest workforce figures have revealed a grim and growing gap in key staff with 41,722 nursing roles unfilled in June.’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/brexit-latest-eu-nursing-shortage-hospital-social-care-nhs-a8618976.html

41 000 nurse vacancies do seem to be a lot but what if it was worse in Scotland per capita? That would be good for our Loyalist Nomedia. Let’s find out. From the Holyrood magazine in in June 2018:

‘Workforce challenges ‘have never been greater’ warns RCN. NHS Scotland long-term vacancies for consultants and nurses have increased by around a quarter in one year, according to the latest figures from official NHS stats body the Information Services Division (ISD). The NHS Scotland workforce report shows there are 418 unfilled consultant posts and 850 nursing and midwifery posts vacant for three months or more across the country.’

https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/nhs-scotland-doctor-and-nurse-vacancies-rise

Conveniently, England has ten times the population so, all things being equal, might be expected to have ten times the 850 vacancies in Scotland or 8 500. But, but, but it’s more than 41 000, around five time as high per capita. I suppose, if you were a BBC Scotland reporter, you’d have no choice but to abandon any standards you might have had back then, forget context and just go for a complicit voice who will wail about 850 vacancies.

Footnote: According to recent editions of the Oxford English Dictionary, the word [blighty] derives from “bilayati“, a regional variant of the Hindi word “vilayati”, meaning “foreign”, “British”, “English” or “whitey.”^[4] In India, vilayati came to be known as an adjective meaning European, and specifically English or British.^[5]

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

 

© Getty

From Glasgow Live, yesterday:

A Glasgow attraction has been ranked as the top art museum to visit in the UK – and we’d be remiss not to agree. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum has made it to the top of TripAdvisor’s best rated art museums, bypassing the National Gallery in London, the British Museum and the V&A. The list is decided by traveller votes, with Kelvingrove also named number one of 283 things to do in Glasgow.’

https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/kelvingrove-ranked-top-art-museum-15383231

More recent good news about Glasgow:

Miles Better? Glasgow hotel revenue growing eight times faster than UK average

Massive increase in spending by international visitors to Glasgow

‘Glasgow named top convention spot for a record 12th year in a row’

Glasgow’s lower costs and supply of technology graduates tempting financial services firms away from London

Glasgow only UK city to make New York Times top ten cities to visit. Dundee makes CNN’s most design-savvy list with Tokyo and Paris

Glasgow builds more satellites than any other European city and Edinburgh firm makes breakthrough in satellite propulsion

Glasgow wins two first places in global tourism awards and comes 4th out of 50!

More evidence Scottish economy is strong: Demand for office space in Glasgow highest for ten years

 

Protesters at a far-right rally in Glasgow in 2016 (PA)

In UK Bulletin yesterday:

‘Figures from Police Scotland show 15 individuals on the fringes of the far right were referred to de-radicalisation schemes in 2016-2017. That is compared to eight vulnerable individuals formally referred under so-called “Prevent” strand of Britain’s Contest counter-terror strategy in 2015-16. And it tops the entire intake of 13 people who were identified as being at risk of international extremism, including Islamism, in the last financial year.’

https://theukbulletin.com/2018/11/06/far-right-referrals-to-scots-terror-scheme-double/

This gives a total of 28 referred in 2016/17.

In the Guardian in March 2018:

‘The number of people referred to a UK government counter-extremism programme because of concerns about right-wing extremism has risen by more than a quarter, official figures show. In the year to March 2017, 968 such individuals were referred to Prevent, an increase of 28% from the previous year.’

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/27/far-right-referrals-prevent-programme-up-by-more-than-a-quarter-counter-extremism

All things being equal, Scotland with one tenth of the population might be expected to have 96 such referrals rather than only 28.

Earlier reports on extremism:

As Scotsman announces 58% increase in terrorism-related arrests ‘in Britain’, were any made in Scotland? If there were none or very few, why not?

Scotland and Terrorism: Are we safer?

An alternative headline:

‘In Scotland, evidence of right-wing terror risk greater than that of Islamic terror’