Talking-up Scotland

As the UK news agencies, including BBC 1, agonise over the awful surge in violent crime in England and Wales, BBC Scotland News ignores the obvious newsworthy story – ‘Why do Scotland’s streets now seem less mean than those in much of England and Wales?’ – and scrabble around for anything bad. Today, after the expected one mad cow story, they found that a temporary police officer had sent a sexist email about female armed officers. First thing in the morning they obliged the Minister for Justice to say he condemned the incident and that he was confident the chief of police would handle it. Can you imagine BBC 1 going to the Home Office minister and expecting them to answer for a similar case?

There were 736 murders including terror attacks in England and Wales in 2017/18. This was a fourth consecutive rise and up 12% in one year! Offences involving knives were up 15% in one year!

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2018#main-points

In Scotland, in sharp contrast violent crime was 35% down since 2008/9 and up only, a not statistically significant, 1%, since 2016/17. There were 59 killings in 2017/18. The population of England and wales is between ten and eleven times greater than that of Scotland. All things being equal, the murder rate in Scotland would be higher than 70. It was 59. Isn’t that newsworthy?

https://www.gov.scot/Resource/0054/00540695.pdf

They claim, when I complain, that they write what is newsworthy. How about:

‘No mean cities anymore?’

They could get someone to sing it to the Stranglers tune.

or

‘Thurrs noa been a murrderrr!’

 

A single case of BSE has emerged in the Huntly area and has been dealt with resulting in no further risk. Scotland and Northern Ireland were given Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) negligible risk status in May 2017. The last confirmed case in Scotland was in 2002. The last case in Wales was only last year and the last in England was in 2012. England and Wales are not due to have their status reconsidered before 2020 at the earliest.

Previously, the Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers submitted the application for re-grading with the help of the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Connectivity. In March 2017, they noted:

‘We applaud the work done by Fergus Ewing and his officials in advancing and pursuing ‘negligible risk’ case on the industry’s behalf and look forward to being free to trade under our new status as early as the summer.’

Some readers may remember how BSE started. If not see this from Frederick A. Murphy, DVM, PhD, Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California in mad-cow.org:

‘In the early 1980s in England the rendering process (by which livestock carcasses are converted to various products, including protein supplements for livestock feed) was changed. Earlier, a solvent extraction step had been used to extract fats (tallow); this step was stopped when the price of the petroleum-based solvents used to extract fats went up. The infectious agent is solvent-sensitive. Otherwise, the infectious agent is extremely hardy — it can survive boiling and many disinfectants but is readily destroyed by extremely high temperature (such as in an autoclave), or by oxidizing agents, or by solvents.’

The first reported case was in West Sussex in 1986.

http://meatinfo.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/20923/Scotland_92s_wholesalers_welcome_BSE_breakthrough.html

Given the likely source of the disease in the ‘unclean’ parts of England or Wales, Professor John Robertson, author of Dirty Globalisation: Drugs, Human Pandemics, Industrial Waste and Mad Cows, has called for a hard border with armed guards to preserve Scotland’s square sausage production chain and, of course, to prepare for Scottish independence post-Brexit.

 

 

© Getty

Princess Eugenie, her new husband and her dad, Prince Andrew, are to make a sentimental trip to the ancestral homeland of the Windsors, York, Wales and others, in modern day Saxony, Germany. They’ll be visiting castles and palaces in Mupperg, Mogger, Liebau, Lavischitzen and Oerlsdorf to see how their ancestors lived.

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BBC Scotland will be covering the royal visit every hour for the next two-weeks including the arrival of the lovely trio back in England on 2^nd November! Don’t miss any of it!

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The Saxe-Coburg and Gotha homelands

The visit will be a boost for Saxon royalist groups who are campaigning for the restoration of the ‘Windsors’ to the throne of Saxony and perhaps later to a reconstituted German Empire. Eugenie’s grandma, Elizabeth 1st of Britain, is next in line to the late Kaiser Wilhelm the Umpteenth.

Royal Brexiteer, Charles Wales, has predicted that England leaving the EU will trigger collapse of the organisation and the revival of royal dynasties across Europe as peasants seek the security of more traditional power structures. Scotland’s two royalists have already approached Radio 2’s Ken Bruce, to check if he will accept the Scottish Crown.

Saxon royalists welcome Princess Middleton with the traditional salute

As he’s in the area, Prince Andrew has offered his services as a judge in the Saxon Liebfraumilch-sponsored, beauty contest for under 16s. The organisers are consulting before replying.

Whoah, check out that young filly!

Note: Professor Robertson is on ‘leave’ in a ‘correction facility’. This report was produced by his Royal Affairs correspondent Gillian Horseworthy-Dung.

In Insider today:

‘A Deloitte survey has revealed nearly three in four Scots back increase in taxes to pay for higher public spending. The annual study on public services and the challenges they face found 73 per cent supported paying more tax to boost public spending, a larger proportion of the population than in Wales (70 per cent), England (69 per cent) and Northern Ireland (61 per cent).  Entitled The State of the State 2018-19, the Deloitte report also found 85 per cent of Scots were concerned about the future provision of public services – 15 per cent more than the UK average.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/deloitte-state-tax-public-services-13426709

Returning to a well-worn groove here, I find steadily increasing evidence that the people living in Scotland are predominantly different enough, in terms of core values such as fairness, equality and compassion, to justify thinking of running their own show. Here are some earlier reports offering evidence to reinforce this notion:

Are Scotland’s employers also different – more willing to pay a decent wage?

Another step on the way to becoming a ‘Living Wage Nation’ and a ‘Better Nation?’

With 1 in 4 living wage employers already in Scotland, the Scottish Government aims to make this a ‘Living Wage Nation’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

80 000 lowest paid workers in NHS England still on poverty wages as NHS Scotland follows Scottish Government policy to pay a living wage to all public-sector employees

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

At 78% level of satisfaction with NHS Scotland is impressive 36% higher than for the NHS across UK

UK Government urged to follow Scotland’s praised lead on employee ownership – another 8% story?

8% of the population but 11.8% of the charitable donations – ‘punching above our weight?’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

BBC Scotland lie and distort to try again to spread violent crime crisis into Scotland despite it having only 3.5% of the gangs for 8% of the population, falling levels of violent crime and because of falling levels of fear of crime?

 

Bird of prey crime map

From the Scottish Government website, yesterday:

‘2017 saw only one recorded incident of illegal bird of prey poisoning in Scotland, according to new maps published by the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime (PAW) Scotland. This is the lowest total in a single year since PAW Scotland began compiling data for 2004 onwards. There was a further 36% fall in all recorded bird of prey crimes during 2017. The new figures show 9 confirmed crimes compared to 14 the previous year.’

For more detail see:

Recorded Bird of Prey Crimes 2013-2017, by type of crime

Year	Type of Crime
	Shooting	Poisoning	Trapping	Disturbance	Nest destruction	Other	Not yet disclosed	All
2013	11	6	3	2	1	0	0	23
2014	8	5	2	1	0	2	0	18
2015	4	6	3	5	0	1	0	19
2016	4	4	3	3	0	0	0	14
2017	2	1	2	3	0	0	1	9

 

https://news.gov.scot/news/recorded-cases-of-bird-of-prey-poisonings-at-record-low

 

(c) fireco.uk

This from regular reader, Ludo Thierry but headline all my own  work:

Since beeb Scotland are getting confused between all respiratory illness and ‘flu I thought I’d do an edit of a wee piece from news.gov.scot which I’ve not noticed elsewhere. The official stats for Scottish emissions of air pollutants during 2016 have been published. The figures are good and the figures over the period since 1990 are very impressive (the period of the SNP Scottish Govt covers a decent chunk of that period – so fair to assume that well-considered SNP Govt public policy is having at least some impact on this encouraging progress):

https://news.gov.scot/news/scottish-emissions-of-air-pollutants-2016-results

Scottish emissions of air pollutants – 2016 results

An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland.

Scotland’s Chief Statistician today announces the release of a report on Scottish emissions of ammonia, sub-10 micron particulate matter (PM10), sub- 2.5 micron particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen oxides, non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs), carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and lead on the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) website.

The main findings are:

• Over the long term there have been reductions in emissions for all the pollutants. Since 1990, there have been decreases of:
12 per cent for ammonia,
64 per cent for PM10,
65 per cent for NMVOCs,
67 per cent for PM2.5,
72 per cent for nitrogen oxides,
84 per cent for carbon monoxide,
94 per cent for sulphur dioxide
and 98 per cent for lead.

Between 2015 and 2016, there were reductions in emissions for 6 of the 8 pollutants (sulphur dioxide 34 per cent, nitrogen oxides 12 per cent). There were small increases in emissions of ammonia (+3 per cent) and NMVOCs (+1 per cent).

The report notes: “There are uncertainties associated with all estimates of pollutant emissions … However, although for any given year considerable uncertainties may surround the emission estimates, it should be noted that trends over time are likely to be more reliable. “

Those darned EsssseNnnnPeee types are doing it again – they’re insisting on operating policies that benefit ALL of Scotland – and – what’s worse – they’re doing it DELIBERATELY.

 

Richard Leonard                                        Richard the Lionheart IV, Earl of torbay

Labour’s colonial office in Scotland, has reported the anger of their leader as he struggles to visit his new Devonshire estate in the middle of rail chaos in South-West England. He said:

‘Passengers from Paddington beared the worst of these delays, the worst I’ve known since I was named as the heir to Richard the Lionheart IV, Earl of Torbay, yesterday. Humza Yousaf and Scotrail have failed to take action to stop a test train between London Paddington and Bristol causing damage to overhead powerlines in the Hanwell area of Ealing.’

Reporting Scotland have announced:

‘Flooding caused more train delay, in August 2000 but Scotrail cannot guarantee it will not happen again!’

The newly anointed Sir Richard Leonard of Torbay has said he will abdicate his title of Labour Leader and campaign for greater equality in the House of Lords. Anas Sarwar has promised to ask his mum to pay her workers the living wage if they let him be the new Labour Leader.

Humza Yousaf has promised to pass on Leonard’s comments to the current transport minister and to confirm his readiness to nationalise South-Western Railway.

 

Prof Robertson (centre) with young graduates from the School of Propaganda Studies

The staggering success of the Alex Salmond crowdfunding scheme which reached its target within less than one day, has probably inspired the decision by Orbital Marine Power to do something similar to raise £7 million in funds for a new Orkney tidal turbine. According to expert on digital funding of pocket money and former Naemeritus Professor of Media Politics at the University of Pacific Quay’s School of Propaganda Studies, in Ayr, Dr John W Robertson:

‘Orbital Marine Power must have doubted the effectiveness of crowdfunding when their local MP, Alistair Carmichael, only managed to raise £3.54p, for his legal costs in the case know locally, allegedly, as the ‘The Big Fatuous Lying Bar-Steward’.

 

Salmond and Carmichael

It was only after the dramatic success of Salmond, also, according to local Lib-Dem, Labour and Tory-supporting, bar stewards, a BFLB, that they decided to give it another go.

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/orbital-marine-power-scotrenewables-tidal-13425513

 

We hear, often headlined, the single cases of NHS Scotland patients travelling to London for specialist care, such as for Ebola, not available in Scotland or for access to expensive drugs not approved here.

Far more significant, but rarely reported in our Nomedia, are examples of large numbers being transferred from a system ten times its size, into NHS Scotland, because of shortages in NHS England.

In the Guardian yesterday:

‘At least 154 vulnerable patients, mainly women and some teenagers, had to travel hundreds of miles from their homes in order to receive residential care in Glasgow and Edinburgh, costing the NHS millions of pounds annually. The data, obtained under freedom of information from NHS England, is the first of its kind to be revealed. Official figures showed that in 2017-18, caring for English eating disorder patients in Scotland cost £5.1m, compared with £4.5m the year before and £2.2m in 2014-15. Mental health experts expressed alarm and blamed the NHS’s use of cross-border care on an acute lack of both beds in mental health units and specialist staff to look after patients. They said care further from home could damage patients’ chances of recovery, increase their sense of isolation through the separation from their families and even raise their risk of dying.’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/16/nhs-england-eating-disorder-scotland-treatment

See this from only one English Board in July 2017:

‘Mental health patients in Oxfordshire have been wrenched from their families and forced to travel as far as Scotland to receive care and treatment. As many as 478 residents with mental health problems have been sent out of the county in the past three years, with the furthest travelling 532 miles to New Craigs Hospital in Inverness. The British Medical Association (BMA) found that patients of Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust had to travel some of the greatest distances of anyone in the country.’

https://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/15383748.Bed_closures_force_mental_health_patients_to_travel_as_far_as_Scotland_for_treatment/

These are very large numbers being supported by NHS Scotland and, all things being fair, headline stories for our Nomedia.

It is inevitable that any small country such as Scotland, Belgium or Denmark will find itself sending patients with rare conditions to specialist facilities in larger countries such as England, France or Germany. It’s one of the things the EU was built to do efficiently but the proportionately heavy traffic of regular cases from England to Scotland suggest the smaller country is, in this case, subsidising the larger one.

 

In the Independent today:

‘Average basic pay for UK workers jumped at it fastest rate in almost ten years in August, according to the latest official data. The Office for National Statistics reported on Tuesday that regular pay, which excludes volatile bonuses, was up 3.1 per cent on a year earlier in the three months to August.’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-wages-pay-average-august-fastest-decade-august-ons-a8585861.html

There’s no ‘regional’ breakdown but in Insider on August 8^th, 2018:

‘Amid rising staff vacancies and shrinking candidate supply, pay pressures intensified in July. Salaries awarded to permanent starters in Scotland increased at the fastest pace in six months, with inflation outpacing that seen for the UK overall. Meanwhile, temp pay rates in Scotland rose at the sharpest degree since April 2017.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/royal-bank-of-scotland-jobs-13044872