BREAKING NEWS
Sometimes stuff breaks. Apparently this is news.
As one alert reader noted, it wouldn’t be the Christmas holidays without Jackie Baillie honking out some old rubbish about an NHS crisis. We trust Scottish Labour have at least checked the figures properly this time.
But that, in a grim and narrow way, is Jackie Baillie’s job. Her party’s long-standing modus operandi is to spew out an endless stream of “SNP BAD” stories for the press to unquestioningly regurgitate, like some sort of political Human Centipede.
What journalists are supposed to do, though, is examine the partisan guff they get sent every day and analyse it to see if it has any news value. And under scrutiny, it turns out that the latest “crisis” is this: human life goes on.
The figures cited show that of 179,527 planned elective operations in NHS Scotland over a six-month period, 2,779 – around 1.5% – were “cancelled” (though in most cases, including the only one highlighted in the Daily Record’s story, that really means “postponed”, often for as little as a day) for “capacity or non-clinical reasons”.
The meaning of that term is clearly defined:
Insurance companies would call many of those things “acts of God”. If you’re due to have a scheduled minor operation but then an emergency comes in, there’s a chance you’ll be shunted out of line by the priority case. Someone may have had a heart attack or a stroke. There might have been a road accident. Perhaps a pensioner fell down the stairs or slipped on ice and has broken some bones or suffered internal bleeding which has to be stopped.
The list of unforseeable consequences which could lead to a planned operation being put off is almost endless. Indeed, it’s almost miraculous that the chance of any given op going ahead at the scheduled time are as high as 98.5%, which is the figure NHS Scotland has achieved.
Yet this statistic, according to Scottish Labour and the Daily Record, represents a “CRISIS”. In reality, it’s a huge improvement on when Labour were last in charge of healthcare in Scotland – in 2005 the number of cancelled ops was almost three times as high, at a time when fewer operations in total were being carried out – and also 50% better than this February, when the Herald blared that 30 operations were being cancelled every day, rather than the current 15.
It’s an approach we see repeated time and time again by the opposition and media. When a small crack appears in a bridge (and is detected by routine maintenance checks and repaired before it causes any damage or harm), it’s a catastrophic failure of governance rather than a natural event. When it snows a bit more heavily than usual in Scotland in winter, it’s a scandal requiring ministerial resignations.
When these simple facts are pointed out, Scotland’s media shrieks up a frenzy about how it’s being attacked and dismissed for “holding the government to account”. But the government isn’t responsible if someone crashes their car because they’re playing videogames while driving or sets their house on fire while smoking in bed. It’s not the government’s fault that people (whether patients or NHS staff) get ill.
Sometimes stuff happens. Sometimes things break. And when they do, good people get on with fixing them, while Jackie Baillie and the Daily Record scream their lungs out trying to make basic facts of weather or physics or biology into a lurid outrage.
Older alert readers may remember a series of insurance adverts from the 1980s. If Scottish Labour and the Scottish press want to arrest the precipitous plummetting of their supports, they might be well advised to remember their message.
Labour Gravy Train is in crisis in Scotland.
I saw the Herald headline and thought this must be something serious. Further examination revealed that the “SNP Accused” accusers are Jackie Baillie and Scottish Labour. Yawn, nuff said, switch off.
It becomes really tiresome doesn’t it?
NHS Scotland staff must be really sick of the political football that Health has become.
SNP x 2 in May.
I wouldn’t trust any of the unionist parties with Health or anything else for that matter.
jackiebmsp again – one big drama queen but no one is listening – its the story of the girl who cried wolf.
God bless them. They really know how not to let context get in the way of a good story. 🙂
The SNP/Scottish Government really has to grow a pair and in 2016, go on the attack against the BUMS.
Stand no nonsense, fight fire with fire – even if it means walking off the likes of Brewer’s and Neill’s shows when they go over the line, and refusing to speak to papers until they correct misinformation in a prominent position.
Attack the BUMS in party political broadcasts. Time to stop playing nice.
There are days when the political senility of Scottish labour is breathtaking. You find that you don’t have the words to express your anger. You can’t even say that they have gone too far. They did that last May when Miliband tried to hold Scotland’s vote hostage. No it is another in a long line of tedious point scoring. Another torrent of bile thrown up onto our laps. No context. No attempt at balance. No perspective or insight. Just a dreadful attempt to inflate a non crisis into a crisis. Done for no other reason than another SNP=BAD story. There is something so predictably pathetic about it. You could set your watch by them its that constant.
They have no decency or integrity. Scottish labour along with its equally ridiculous friends in the Scottish media, actually think they can smear their way back into power.
They are petty, petulant and pedantic little pricks. I await the happy day when we can consign them to the dustbin of history; open the windows, and get the smell of their stupidity out of the seats.
I never thought I would see the day when I would hold Scottish labour and the Scottish media in a worse light than I do the Scottish conservatives.
Another great piece of debunking by the Rev. I don’t read these wastes of trees, but I would be interested if any of them mentioned the 98.5% figure which in anybody’s eyes is a very good delivery of services.
Considering most large companies will run at @ 3% or above absence rates, the figure then begins to look even better.
How does it compare with the rest of the UK. I will take an uneducated guess and say it will probably be better.
SNPx2 in 2016.
Haha, the advert at the end says it all. How do you remember all these things. Awesome as ever Mr Campbell.
Older readers also remember the Graham and McMaster scandal in Paisley that never saw the light due to Scotland’s press, or lack of it!
Thank you sir and top marks for the speed of your response which clearly decimates yet another piece of lying & distortion.
I do not read these pathetic “newspaper” articles and only pick up the headlines through twitter comments.
Context is everything
How many operations are cancelled by the patient for convenience or because the patients are ill, too frail, or have a cold. The NHS does a great job.
Too many people are sick because of Westminster policies. Cold, hungry, worried vulnerable people get sick. Sanctioning vulnerable people. Too cheap ‘loss leading’ alcohol and too much sugar additives. Illegal wars causing migration, death and sickness. Trident £170Billion, which could be better spent.
What the fuck, only 98.5%, lolz, Would anyone in any country anywhere in the world think the above figure is not only a failure but a crisis? I’ll take a guess and say no.
If 98.5% isn’t good enough and is a crisis then 100% wouldn’t be good enough either, 1.5% doesn’t make a crisis.
Unionist Politicians in this country are clearly fucking idiots backed by their idiot Unionist press as we can clearly see above.
I see the 2016 Holyrood campaign has started early. Thought we might have got over the New Year first but naw, they couldn’t help themselves, could they.
SNP/SNP
I had an operation “canceled” once. It was due to an emergency case (car accident. Shattered pelvis). I was rescheduled for six hours later. Never even left the hospital.
‘We won’t make a drama out of AAAAARGH! THERE’S THAT FUCKING SQUIRREL AGAIN!’
BTW, Moodie is soo-perb in The National today – The Hoff putting us all right after giving The Krankies the slip.
In 2010 it was not the depth of the snow that caused the problem. Rapid heavy snow fell but quickly started to melt. What happened next is what resulted in almost unique circumstances. A high front and clear skies moved in, dropping the temperature to minus ten and turning the slush to rock solid ice. At this temperature the salt had no effect and the blades of the snow ploughs were snapping so thick and hard was the ice.
Instead of examining these incredible circumstances the media decided to go for the SNP minister who made the mistake of praising the emergency and council services for the sterling work they were doing. Stewart Stevenson’s mistake was not realising their sterling work was having little impact. It was a freak weather incident and in fairness he was unlikely to have known full challenges at the time of his interview. BBC were cock a hoop they tasted blood. It was them, not opposition politicians, that led the chase.
Great analysis and debunking from the Rev.
I feel a conspiracy theory kicking in. How come this non-story propagated widely as top headlines? Perhaps they took a Labour Party press release at face value and just ran with it, Perhaps as often seems to be the case, they all just copied one another.
Or, donning tin foil hat, perhaps much more effort is being put into the coordination of such attacks.
Headlines read “15 operations a day” – and how many hospitals altogether are there? If, across the whole of Scotand, only 15 operations have to be cancelled daily, it looks a remarkably GOOD statistic to me.
Congratulations to the NHS for achieving such a high percentage of operations carried out at the first arranged date despite the overwhelming pressures that have been placed upon them by another heartless penny pinching tory government in Westminster.
The Tsunami is expected in May. A Unionist swipe out. Enjoy. Along with the Non Dom tax evading Press. Stop printing lies.
Hmmm. Such distortions and spin by our ‘supportive’ press The health service day to day running is the health board’s responsibility.
Holyrood can set the aims, strategy and provide the finance but if a service is disorganised and cannot retain its staff that is down to the health board, hence the differences between areas.
I remember nearly 30 years ago as a junior doc, one of the consultants getting patients due for discharge to sit on their beds to make the ward look full so that they would have to take fewer emergency admissions that day as he had list admissions coming in. The Admissions Sister would come up and see a full ward.
Changed days and different ways but still as disorganized in some areas. Staff do what they can but good admin is essential and there has to be some slack in the system for emergencies.
Nicola Sturgeon and Shona Robison are no more responsible for cancelled ops than JK Rowling …
98.5%, that’s amazing.
Pity SLab and BUMs spread 100% manure.
Well done, again, Mr Campbell, for subjecting the figures to an analysis that any secondary school pupil studying statistics could have done. However, I suspect that few of our journalists know how to use statistics correctly. It would be useful to see if the data categorise the postponement/ cancellations by reasons. It would also be useful to know the distribution of the postponement periods.
From a political point of view, does the Labour Party and its megaphones not realise that they are failing to recognise the outstanding work of NHS staff in achieving such a high level of success. Unfortunately, they will be able to find one or two NHS staff, who will provide some lurid headline which will never be checked for veracity.
It’s 11:30 and BBC Scotland still do not have this “NHS Crisis” story on their website – don’t they realise that Labour need them to cover it so Blair McDougall can flood Twitter with links to it as confirmation that the “crisis” is real?
I saw that item on the Scotsman front page, next to pictures of the floods in York. Underneath is an item on OAPs demanding more plastic surgery. Someone’s been rummaging through the NHS stats again looking for scraps. Probably a Labour SPAD.
Imagine the anti SNP outcry if those floods were afflicting us to the same extent!
Phew!! I was completely taken in for a moment
Everybody knows Jackie Baillie is as honest as the day is….
NAW!!…..I cannae keep that up
Lol. Just yesterday I was thinking that it was the middle of winter so it must be about time they started their “NHS Crisis” attacks again. Right on schedule.
Let’s not worry . Every new ‘crisis’ just tightens the noose around their own necks. Should we let them continue, or should we kick the stool away and put the nation out of it’s misery.
Reminds me of a quotation a few months back, possibly from WGD or Grousebeater. ‘There has never been so much self inflicted damage since Edward Scissorhands poured itching powder down his ‘Y’ fronts.
I think we need more of a rapid response to the misleading claptrap that is the staple of our Unionist media – the Rev does a splendid job, but he’s just one man. When they come out with their lies and nonsense, we need to demand the right of reply: I wouldn’t want them to be gagged, oh no no no, but if they were forced to publish the truth as well…
Here’s what the IPSO has to say about it in its Editors’ Code of Practice (just the first two clauses):
“Clause 1 Accuracy
i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.
ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and – where appropriate – an apology published. In cases involving the Regulator, prominence should be agreed with the Regulator in advance.
iii) The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.
iv) … [On defamation]
Clause 2 Opportunity to reply
A fair opportunity for reply to inaccuracies must be given when reasonably called for.”
So, yet again, here we have more hysterical ‘SNPBAD’ nonsense, about nothing from the ‘scottishy’ press.
And the ‘journalists’ wonder why people now openly ridicule them. Tedious.
Perhaps Mr Gardham should take note. This bollox is what’s basically known as QED on the subject of SNP BAD.
Its also stupid and dangerous. We are now at that point where we don’t (for good reason) listen to a word either the press or opposition parties release. Its no longer ‘holding to account’ its opposition and undermining for its own sake. For purely self serving reasons our media and our major political parties undermine our institutions be it police, NHS, or government.
At some point someone is going to come to serious harm because they have been brainwashed into believing they’ll receive no aid from any of the above. That harm can be laid directly at the feet of both those parties and the media. How callous do you have to be? How eager for a career or that big chair?
So yes, that would be why they’re unfit for purpose.
Oops – here’s the link
http://en.kiosko.net/uk/np/scotsman.html
galamcennalath at 11.15
You are right. The press against us has been coordinated for some time. It is surprising it is not on the BBC. Time enough yet
It has come to a sorry state of affairs when the once respected Herald is spouting tabloid nonsense alongside the Record
cannot describe in words how much i love wos
A relative works in HNS hospital and the biggest reason for cancellations is decisions by the patients themselves who sometimes just don’t turn up without any forewarning.
Just been speaking to a close relative who is a midwife in NE England.
I was telling her about the constant attacks on the SNP for NHS-related non-stories. She wasn’t that aware of them but confirmed that the same stuff goes on in her area. She said it’s depressing for staff, and patients often parrot some of the shite they’ve picked up from front pages without knowing any of the background detail.
Employers have a clear duty of care, and that should be particularly keen in any health-related workplace. There’s no excuse for the relevant unions not defending their members from this type of scurrilous point-scoring.
The body responsible for transplants quickly rebutted Brown’s disgraceful lie about post-indy services being scrapped nationwide, but did he ever apologise for it? Did he ever even refer to it again?
If unions can’t summon the bottle to tell these liars to take a flying fuck to themselves, why on earth should anyone expect Scottish government ministers to do it? Having said that, I do agree with Socrates McS and others here who have expressed disgust and frustration at the softly-softly approach – it cannot be sustained until May, so why wait to get the gloves off?
Up and at ’em!
Utter guff as always from the MSM. Interestingly, the story hasn’t made the BBC Scotland News website(other than the Papers headlines). Either they are too embarrassed to run with it or the SNPBad staffer is still on holiday.
The MSM know there is going to be a repeat of the GE landslide for the SNP next May and are trying, in vain, to stem the flow. This nonsense will be swept away when the SNP gets its campaign started in January. With such a lead in the polls, avoiding complacency and getting the vote out will be more important than ever.
If you want an Independent Scotland it has to be SNPx2.
Dear Scottish Corporate Unionist Media,
I refer you to the article at the top of this page. Therein you will find FACTS. Actual FACTS. The TRUTH of your hyperbolic, screaming headline laid bare for all to see it for the utter tripe that it truly is.
And this is precisely WHY at least half of the Scottish population think you are not credible or trustworthy news sources. This batshit you churn as a ‘story’ (SNP Baaad ‘story’ naturally) is precisely WHY your publications will end up in the dustbin of history. So – keep doing what you are doing for the sooner you are in that dustbin, the better for us all.
Keep it up. Tick, tock.
And so it goes on. They really are dunderheeds. Do they not realise those who work in and use the NHS know there’s not a “crisis”? Aye it’s pressured. It’s hard work.
It is not in a state of crisis. Fortunately for us these endless tirades are now self defeating.
As usual Rev, you’ve given us the facts. May the Force be with you in the New Year.
Happy New Year to you and yours.
We wouldn’t be where we are without you and that, also, is a fact.
God bless you.
Are there comparable figures for the NHS in the rest of the UK that we could compare the Scottish NHS cancellation figures against?
The good thing is the more they trash the NHS the more voters they are losing
A nurse told me notices are being put up in offices saying the attacks are political and they all know its the labour party that is behind it
I think it’s about time that the SG organised a Fast Action Response Team to deal with the constant stream of lies and misinformation put out by its enemies in the media.
The acronym might just have the effect of blowing the opposition away.
My thanks to the NHS and the Rev for the sterling work carried out each and every day of the year.
Jackie Baillie is angry with the SNP government as the newly reinforced bridge still cannot support her weight.
Perhaps SNP should offer her the privilege to test the new bridge when ready, or possibly before the last section is installed in the middle? lol
What a horrible nasty woman who lives in hope that bad things will happen to the people of this country in order that she can keep her ar*** on the faux socialist gravy train.
No doubt the big Red & Blue Bird will be on our TV screens, yet again, to bring in the New Year Bells and wish everyone a “Good New Year”, other than you have a connection with SNP, have access to the truth via the internet, are unemployed, disabled, use a Food bank, or a refugee.
In fact, if you have any objections to a daily does of unfounded propaganda, you present a danger to her £Multi-Million contract.
Re Jackie Bailie HONKING, Rev is that no where Jackie wis born?
The BUMS have forgotten how the story of the wee boy who cried wolf to often, ended.
Jackie is a Chinese puzzle wrapped around a chicken chow mien. The BUMS are like lemmings heading for the cliff as fast as they can go. Thank you Scottish NHS and all who work in her merry Xmas and thank you. Let’s get out of this cesspit!
SNP X 2
Macart, I remember debating with a few guys in the pub during the indy ref with one being absolutely hysterical about a yes vote and what it would mean.
My jaw hit the floor hard when he came out and said that he would kill himself if there was a yes vote.
I was so shocked but it really upset me and angered me that the no campaign had dragged the debate so far into the gutter as to install such fear into some that they would even consider suicide.
As we all know to our dismay fear won over hope, at least in the short term but at what price to a nations feeling of self worth?
I will NEVER forgive the so called Scottish media for the way in which they have and still do treat the people of this country.
I’m sorry. It’s my fault.
Back in May I was diagnosed with a life threatening condition. I was on an operating table within 4 hours.
The following four and a half hours was spent saving my life, and as a result I suspect a couple of non emergency operations may have been cancelled.
When I was released from the new Southern General (I refuse to call it by any other name) I was indebted to the bbc and other compliant media sources for opening my eyes to what was really going on for the two weeks I had been there.
I thought I had been looked after by the best nursing staff in the world in an amazing new hospital.
Apparently I was completely deluded and I was actually in a war zone in a major crisis.
Now? Same shit different day.
Caught this on the front page of the Record while getting The National this morning. Knew it would howling at the moon time again. It proved correct.
This is why this happened.
Goodbye it’s not been good to know you list. 🙂
https://archive.is/1SsuB
Also headlining this morning and on Call Kaye (what a coincidence) was this appeal to Sturgeon
‘Nicola Sturgeon under pressure to ban parents from smacking their children’.
And as for Torrance well… Get tae Falkirk!
No more turkey… just popcorn left while waiting on the footie.
What’s the difference between Scottish newspapers and toilet paper? One has arses smearing people, and the other smeared by peoples arses.
Read on: http://wp.me/p4fd9j-2Y6
@Col
They’ve gone way too far Col. The who truly require holding to account ARE the media and the likes of Ms Baillie. Undermining trust, deliberately instilling fear and putting folk in harms way.
May can’t come quick enough.
Many of you will know that the NHS in Wales is run by the Welsh Labour Accounting Unit.
They are the worst performing NHS body
in the UK, being operated by Labour probably makes that obvious.
If you open the link below, you will see reference to some 13,000
NHS Wales operations being cancelled over a 3 year period.
I propose that this breaks down to some 4,334 operations cancelled per year in a country that has less than half the population of Scotland, fewer challenges in supporting extreme rural health matters, and a country that has fewer problems with poor diet, and bad history with alcohol related illness.
In summary, I estimate that the SNP government’s NHS Service is around 4 fold more efficient than the Welsh Labour NHS.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/13000-nhs-ops-cancelled-2010-5747939
Now if you value your health, which country, and which party would you like to support?
Feel free to counter these FACTS Ms Baillie?
Should read ‘Those’ above.
Predictive (mutters). 🙁
Meanwhile, the number of nurses and doctors determined never to vote labour again just keeps on growing and growing.
I welcome such hysteria in the BUM. The problem is that No voters rely on the NHS more than Yes voters due to the age statistics. They receive a genuinely good service and are genuinely grateful for it.
And then they read such headlines or listen to Eleanor Bradford’s description of some sort of parallel country called “SNP-bad-istan”. And a voice inside begins to work on them…. “Ever been had?”
We were chatting last night about Orwell. The “SNP bad” narrative of the BUM is the mirror image of the “Party doubleplusgood” narrative of “1984”. The Scottish press and the BBC describe a Scotland in which everything is bad, no one is genetically programmed to take decisions ourselves, we are too wee, too poor, too stupid to do anything ourselves, we must rely on Westminster to allocate the proceeds of our oil wealth by “pooling and sharing” across the UK…. yet we look around and look at the SNP record in government… and see that true reality is really quite different!
[I suggest someone release a pop record called “Jackie Baillie Said”]
“How could you tell how much of it was lies? It might be true that the average human being was better off now than he had been before the Revolution. The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were intolerable and that at some other time they must have been different. It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the Party was trying to achieve. Great areas of it, even for a Party member, were neutral and non-political, a matter of slogging through dreary jobs, fighting for a place on the Tube, darning a worn-out sock, cadging a saccharine tablet, saving a cigarette end. The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering — a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons — a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting — three hundred million people all with the same face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage and bad lavatories. He seemed to see a vision of London, vast and ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and mixed up with it was a picture of Mrs. Parsons, a woman with lined face and wispy hair, fiddling helplessly with a blocked waste-pipe.”
What might help is an organized protest outside the Rancid office by NHS Scotland staff – but are they allowed to protest? This foul, dishonest and careless reporting by the Rancid and the other lesser nonentities is going to lead eventually to tragedies when people will have been convinced that NHS is unreliable. No words I have are strong enough for how I feel about the Rancid, and other rubbish that calls itself the press,BBC Scotland and most of all that supposedly responsible politician Jackie “the mouth” Baillie. Damn them for their irresponsible, dishonest stupidity. The lowest of the low!
Strange that 3 different newspapers had almost the same headline. This was pure co-incidence of course!
The Unionist attack dogs are co ordinating their attacks.
Torrance had an “interesting ” article today in which he proposed the SNP had to change. Funny how your opponents want you to change even when you are doing well the way you are.
What Torrance wants is for the SNP to leave a chink in their armour,because right now,they are untouchable by the Unionist media. How predictable of Mr Torrance,the man who specialises in Biographies without ever having spoken to the subjects of said biographies. An” expert “,and political commentatorin his mind only.
The more I see the desperate attempts to remove credibility from the SNP the more I rail against those who attempg it. Roll on May.
Put up the barrage balloons we,re under attack fae the Paper plains ( ah waste of ink) ur you ok up there Jackie lol.
Today I cancelled my ‘online’ Herald subscription. It had been taken out a few months ago to follow a once a week column from France. Paying the full price for hard copy had become too painful as the paper headed downhill in integrity. The time has come for me to stop handing over money for lies to be printed in a once excellent paper. The only weapon we have is to stop buying a product that has moved so far away from that we enjoyed and were grateful for among the dross.
43 years of support have now ceased.
Scottish Labour …damned if they do; damned if they don’t.
They want to be the voice of Scotland, and yet, their mother party votes with the Tories in almost everything.
They have a leader in Corbyn, who though his ideals may be in the right place, is untested, seems to waver which leads to a caving in of his principles, and has no control over those who have no interest in him, let alone want to be led by him.
Scottish Labour can point all they want at stats, costs, and whatever else comes the SNP’s way, but while their mother party acts against the interests of the Scottish people, then they are just whistling in the wind.
They cry that the NHS figures are shocking; Further Education places are down; the Bridge is broken; the new Hospital isn’t functioning properly; an MP is under investigation; so is another; the SNP MP’s are ineffective at Westminster …and on, and on, and on it goes
…and yet the polls are predicting a 60% vote for the SNP this coming May.
60%
Cameron and the Tories got to rule the UK with just 30-odd% of the vote.
So, of course, Scottish Labour screech. They’re perplexed. What do they do? It appears almost unfair in their eyes. They aren’t the Tories, nor are they in some aspects, like the main Labour party.
But they are being punished. They are being punished because they stood shoulder to shoulder with the Tories over a year ago, and manipulated the Scottish public into believing that only the UK could protect them; that their pensions, jobs, the EU was safe in UK’s hands. They put the fear into the Pensioners, told us that we were a financial basket case, and that every company was going to leave Scotland.
People will never forgive for that. You would need an absolute overhaul of the party with fresh blood that talked common sense, because 50% of Scotland will never vote for that party again ever, let alone for the people who deceived them.
What bothers Jackie and Scottish Labour, is that each passing week, they are becoming more and more of an irrelevance in Scotland. They do, and achieve, nothing that makes Scotland a better place. And more and more people are becoming aware of that fact.
This is why Jackie, Scottish Labour and their pals, the Scottish media, howl in derision and fury whenever they meet an SNP opponent or someone who now advocates independence …simply because, in their absolute denial …they know that they are lost in Scotland, and that they will never get it back…
I hope Jackie Baillie gets her fat arse handed to her on a plate in May.
@Effijy
Well done Eff! That’ll ward off an attack of the Glums.
(for older listeners only)
PS:
Grand-daughter couldn’t believe it. Is the BBC better in Black and White….NO!
https://archive.is/Z2kBn
I hope that the personnel of every institution which has suffered at the hands of the media and Labour take note.
THIS is all that you are to these people, a political football and a means to an end, with both you and the public trust considered collateral damage.
I wonder what Jackie’s slab would propose to do if she were, god forbid, in charge.
Take heart, yesterday in my local shop lots of Sunday lying rags left on the shelves in local shop. However, only 1 copy of the Sunday Herald left, and even that must be getting to the local unionists because it been had turned round so no one could see the last one in the shop.
Regards the SNP, I hope they have a good strategy for the next five months in how to deal with the
establishment media attacks, but they really are up against a huge lying, desperate monster.
So, how should they go about it? How do they get their message across? Even when they attempt to debunk the unionists lies, their words are twisted around by the compliant, biased media.
Actions speak louder than words. Perhaps letting the corp media lay on the attacks is revealing their lies and people are seeing through it all.
I hope so, especially if you consider how people are seeing that the funding was removed in England for flood defences, and the horrendous consequences. The blame lies totally with the westminster unionist toffs who are taking the piss out of the people.
Media spin can try to twist the truth, but most people can see the facts for themselves and are not being conned anymore, at least in Scotland.
The establishment know that the Labour party in Scotland is their last hope for union, and their media service aim to promote them thru lies and manipulation
‘Scottish’ Labour and ‘Scottish’ Media is the same thing.
The SNP Bad has become obvious
Let me see, now the Labour Party were in power in 1998 were they not, there was no Scottish Parliament so they must have been in control of Health in Scotland, were they not?
10 months to get an appointment to see a specialist at the Skin Clinic in Edinburgh. I know I have priority now due to the fact that after waiting 10 months and then finding I had a Malignant Melanoma I now get seen immediately but I also had an accident in September and I was dealt with efficiently and was seen here in Fife for Physio within a week. I remember waiting weeks in the 90’s for a Physio appointment, in fact my GP suggested going privately which was well out of my reach financially.
So I would say that the NHS here in Scotland is in good hands, never let Labour have a shot, well at least not until I am dead and buried.
I have often thought that some of our “Scottish” media are kept afloat given their dwindling circulation, by oor maisters doon south. A relatively cheap form of scaremongering for them and kind of “hidden”.
apparently we are all wrong
David Leask ?@LeaskyHT · 19m19 minutes ago
@schrod1ngerzkat Facts in e NHS story are not in dispute. Their interpretation – a matter of opinion – is & both sides reflected.
im still not blocked so feel free to reply…
Our nation is under attack. The NHS is an essential part of our society. Fabricated stories are being used to undermine democracy. This is a serious situation.
We are told daily about the threats of ISIS. The need for Trident is justified as protection against rogue states acquiring nukes. We need aircraft carriers to defend us, they also suggest. They take our money to counter such threats.
Here we are and what is the biggest clear and present danger our society faces? What, on this day, is the greatest threat to life and limb? The bloody Labour Party and the Yoonie media undermining the health care we all rely on!
Predictions for May suggest Labour might be left with 25 seats. That is 25 too many!
I think the BritNat media in Scotland has moved on from SNPBaaaad! It’s now ScotlandBaaaad!
So dire have the Labour Party become, so far have they fallen that in the 2016 Scottish General Election, if the SNP don’t win every constituency seat, Labour will claim it as a victory.
“Headlines read “15 operations a day” – and how many hospitals altogether are there? If, across the whole of Scotand, only 15 operations have to be cancelled daily, it looks a remarkably GOOD statistic to me.”
The number of hospitals is irrelevant. What we learn from the stats is that there were about 180,000 operations scheduled in six months, ie roughly 180 days. We can therefore deduce that there are 1,000 operations a day, of which 15 are cancelled.
The other end of their UKOK spectrum is UK.gov toryboy world, getting a completely free UKOK loves toryboys pass on the English floods. Corrupted tae fcuk, the whole BBC led creep show.
History’s greatest perverts at the Heil headline I caught was north of England was a “water world” like the Kevin Costner movie, so cool, bet David Cameron could be just like Kevin Costner too, and all the girls will be in really skimpy tight bikinis and all of them will really fancy the pants off Daily Heil perverts too.
Our very own Chris Cairns did a cartoon re this subject in Feb 2015 titled “stand up and be counted”. It is in fact in his Cairnstoon book.
The accuser at that time was Murphy who claimed more operations were cancelled in Scotland than in England.
It was rubbish then as it is now.
They are reduced to recycling this nonsense such is their desperation.
Our NHS are f-ing marvels and I can’t praise them high enough.
If I was a member of the NHS and I had a labour MSP, infact any member of the labour party, I would contact them and tell them to get to fuck off our NHS’s back.
Its nothing but cheap shots from labour and our useless media to use an organisation that can’t fight back.
Time for the SNP to go full bore and defend the NHS to the hilt.
2017 Headline:
“Scandal as operating theatres lie idle as planned operations reduced by 15 per day.”
What do they want?
It is actually the Scottish Health Service. It was renamed NHS Scotland by Michael Forsyth for political reasons when he was Colonial Governor of Scotland. We met him once, he was a small man then, I don’t expect he will be any bigger now. Why should we use his naming convention?
I recently had two minor operations. Both were rescheduled twice because the surgeon was off ill for the first time in his career – turned out he had pneumonia. I was delayed for a total of two weeks, which is pretty incredible considering the circumstances.
When I was in the day surgery unit I spoke to the staff about the unrelenting attacks from the BBC and MSM. To say they are unhappy about it is an understatement. The media are busy converting SHS staff to an independent mind-set.
Time for folk to challenge Labour to promise to deliver 98.6% or better. Bet they won’t.
Graeme@12:18
Unfortunately she is on the Labour list for West Scotland, and is one of the few you may ever have heard of, so she could well be high up on the final list. So even if she is booted out on fptp, like a weeble she will wobble back into Holyrood.
On the plus side Magrit, Wee Dougie and Skeletor are not on any of the lists, so hopefully we have seen the back of them.
Ian Brotherhood @ 11.42 am.
Ian, the S.N.P Scottish Government could issue press releases every few minutes debunking this nonsense, and they still wouldn’t be reported in the M.S.M.
At the risk of repeating myself, in the last three months of talking to people on their doorsteps, nobody has mentioned any, and I mean any, of the attempted smears. And this in a former Labour supporting area. I wont reveal the exact support we are experiencing at the moment, but if we only get 60% on May, 6th, we’ll be disappointed.
Found this while raking through the old turkey carcase and leftover sprouts, looks like Slim Pickins for labour not even a wishbone.
https://archive.is/36uUb
PS:
Slim was a cowboy too! 🙂
… and back to the NHS.
SLab have a very small list of grievances do they.
NHS SNPbad didn’t work last time. Or the time before that. Or the time before that. But this time, surely.
Police next, then schools again.
SLab MPs get paid top dollar for this shite. Beats working.
First, thank you for not posting a pic of Jackie Baillie this morning.
As others have said , just recycled bullshit brought out to save journalists having to go outside and do any real reporting.
Talking about recycled bullshit, have a look at this from 27 Dec 2013.
http://video.news.sky.com/h264/vod/700/2013/12/271213-weather-cameron-online.mp4
Fed up to the back teeth paying yer BBC Poll Tax?
Get yer BBC Scotchland, including Reporting Scotchland in Black and White——it’s cheaper.
Pleased to be of assistance to anyone still paying the Tax. 🙂
https://archive.is/tVfUW
@Cyril Mitchell @12.51pm
You have a point. It’s the only logical explanation for the editor’s continuing to allow the same garbage day after day, whilst watching sales decline at an almost inversely proportionate rate to the incerease in SNP support.
These products are haemorraging money at a rate no company would normally accommodate in the current economic climate, and yet they continue unabashed. I imagine that they are receiving financial support or have been promised membership of the exclusive club.
Dear Stu…please stop posting these mock up front pages purporting to show the next level of idiocy about to be inflicted on the Scottish population.
Oh……oh dear.
Found this while raking through the old turkey carcase and leftover sprouts, looks like Slim Pickins for labour not even a wishbone.
“It would, I think, be a mistake for members to move against Dugdale. She is the party’s finest asset right now, and the inevitable defeat in May will not be a reflection on her but simply more evidence of the breakdown in the relationship between Labour and Scottish voters.”
Its so nice of the far right Euan McColm at the hootsman to boost a Labour leader, wait what?!
Why don’t UKOK meeja delights like this just pick one of their own and stand for list election?
My Slovene girlfriend is and may god have mercy on our vile separatist airses
Adam Tomkins Retweeted
Chris Deerin ?@chrisdeerin Dec 26
Chris Deerin Retweeted sunday herald
an arrogant buffoon speaks Chris Deerin added,
sunday herald @newsundayherald
Exclusive interview with Alex Salmond tomorrow after the SNP delegation to Iran: ‘Scotland can outmanoeuvre Westminster on foreign policy’
45 retweets 42 likes
Couple of toryboy terms in Holyrood, into the Law Lords trough, arise Baron Tomkins of Mayfair, is the word in academia, what he’s putting around.
98.5% seems pretty good to me given what we are talking about and all that could go wrong.
Less than 2 patients out of 100 have their elective operation cancelled.
If it was >5% or was getting worse over time then yes that would be a headline story.
But not 1.5%. This is a non story.
Next June the 22nd they will be reporting that the nights are getting longer under SNP assuming they get in which on this sort of record is a pretty safe bet.
When I see headlines like this I am reminded of the boy who cried wolf fable. We just ignore MSM and they only have themselves to blame.
The Scottish NHS issued a “politicians please don’t use us as a political football” statement the last time the media were doing this
Maybe they might be persuaded to issue another one but start actually naming the culprits
The media won’t print it and the BBC won’t report it, but STV are a bunch of wee clypes so they will
Bill Dale says:
“It is actually the Scottish Health Service. It was renamed NHS Scotland by Michael Forsyth for political reasons when he was Colonial Governor of Scotland.”
I didn’t know that!
I have often thought, and posted on WoS several times, that the SNP should have changed the name at the same time as Executive to Government.
If our health service had been called SHS during the referendum, it would have helped with the confusion where half of Scots thought the NHS was a UK wide institution. As such, many NO voters thought it was under threat! Presumable some of those might have become YES voters because they thought their own SHS was under threat.
Never too late!
I’ve said it before, the Unionist press are now the unofficial opposition to the SNP in Scotland.
The Herald: SNP accused… Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! What, of not being bad enough…?
Take a long stroll off a short pier, Gardham. Actually, Gardham, if you, your ‘news’paper, your ‘friends at the papers’, and the rest of the conspirators-in-SNPbadness, in what laughingly calls itself ‘a free and fair press’, were to fall into the ocean of pish and bile of your own making to drown like the rats you are, no-one in Scotland would give two fucks. In fact, they might well celebrate. GIRFUYz!
Any Scottish NHS employee who plans to vote for this dire northern branch should be sectioned. The health staff must be sick to death of all the fabricated bull shite and plain lies. Fatso Baillie and That rag are a disgrace & both require not be of any importance in a 21st century Scotland. Vote SNP x 2 in May. Jabba Baillies next load of lies will be its he SNPs fault that i can only wear a tent and loafers as I eat to much and the lock on my fridge is broken due to metal fatigue and the SNP wont send an engineer round to repair it ! They and especially her get right on my man tits , grrr she gets me so-so angry.
From the Hootsman:
“…for a [Labour] party that, less than a decade ago, was believed to have Scotland all wrapped up.”
That’ll be the time Scotland was a one-(Labour)-party state then? Why wasn’t the CorpMedia/Diddy Press all over SLabour for that crime against democracy?
Oh – it’s only a one-party state when the people decide to vote against SLabour and en-masse for the SNP? Check. Got it.
They must think we were all born yesterday and that this new fangled interweb thingy doesn’t exist.
Asswipes.
Half time, two Scottish managers fight it out daun Sarf! 0-0
Anyhoo!
In the Guardian:
SNP’s transformative year: ‘I think we acquitted ourselves well’
https://archive.is/hEvUM
As somebody else stated above the SCUM and the likes of gorgeous Pouting Jackie Baillie should remember that The Scottish NHS employs 10s of thousands and they all have votes.
Given the fact that the SCUM seem to be trying their utmost to commit collective suicide as their circulations fall off a cliff I have suspected for a long time, as is also suggested above, that they are in receipt of financial support from some Westminster slush fund.
Could Rev. Stu perhaps gently remind readers, without the application of hammers, of the proper meaning of ‘decimate’ As regards today’s combined ops by SCUM over cancelled operations far fror decimating their efforts Rev Stu annihilated them. Bring back Latin in schools.
Stu says:
“… In reality, it’s a huge improvement on when Labour were last in charge of healthcare in Scotland – in 2005 the number of cancelled ops was almost three times as high, at a time when fewer operations in total were being carried out – and also 50% better than this February, when the Herald blared that 30 operations were being cancelled every day, rather than the current 15.”
Is that one of those ‘propaganda by omission of facts’ things that you definitely will not see in the Unionist SNPbad-press…? 😉
I am now almost immune to this Untreated Sewage spewed out on an daily basis,thanks to WoS and others.
My daily visit here protects me from any potential health hazards from these environmental polluters,thanks Rev.
Interesting to note that they all use the same Li-Fi server that is SLiebor,glad to see their anti Scotland signal is getter weaker,but not completely gone as yet.
Keep up the good work wingers,our beautiful country needs to be kept clean 😉
Re Iain Hamilton @ 11:55
I concur , I had two operations one of around 5-1/2 hrs and a second of around 7 hours in the new Southern in June. My life was saved by an amazing Iraqi Surgeon, (that’s just in case anybody seen the Torygraph front page today which was saying that the NHS had more foreign doctors than anywhere else in Europe) Now whether they were talking about thevEnglish NHS or Scots one I don’t care, I’m very glad that my Surgeon came here as it’s unlikely I would have survived with anybody else doing the job.
The staff and the facilities were exceptional and I have been told by a relative who works in NHS that if I was anywhere else it’s unlikely I would have survived. The rancid and bbc are scum.
Has Jackie Baillie been given permission to cross the Forth road bridge yet? Or are the strengthening works & repairs deemed yet insufficient?
And has Greggs been able to restock its pie shelves during the lightly staffed holidays after her Xmas lunch order was larger than usual?
Finally, when will the Daily Record, the Scotsman & The Herald coordinate a published account of these important newsworthy details?
An enquiry should be opened as to why there are more than 15 fewer copies of newspapers sold each day in Scotland.
We are not listening any more. The circulation figures and the Labour votes are shouting to them SNP BAD is not working.
I can only guess that those at the top of the party and those who own the papers and tv are looking for a reward personally for sacrificing their party and businesses? I frequently hear people saying Dame Jackie Baillie or something close to that.
There are approximately 165,000 NHS staff in Scotland. If we (conservatively) associate an average of 1.5 other people with each one, to include family and friends of NHS employees, That’s almost half a million voters that these people are going to alienate with their misrepresentation of the facts.
Seems to me like an odd way to make friends and influence people!
Scotland’s NHS remains nationalised ,the health minister is ultimately responsible.Who is responsible for NHS England?- the CEOs of several profit making companies who would see many of NHS Scotland’s patients as a risky profitable enterprise and not economically viable.
And who gave permission for the ideological fault lines to be so far apart on the functions of social protection north and south of the border?A fundamental building block of the welfare state NHS England profoundly eroded without the knowledge of the voting electorate.The Tories are finishing the job that’s taken 30 years but UK Labour / the coalition government also bear responsibility.State assets belong to the citizens – they are not for lining the pockets of the few.
It is no coincidence that UKOK citizens are using foodbanks, that families are destitute.
There is no money for ensuring the health and welfare of its citizens but there is plenty of money to engage in warfare, fund a redundant nuclear weapons system and an unelected upper chamber of parliament that upholds the demise of the state.
NHS Scotland faces the same pressures as any other health care system and it is right that the electorate should be engaged in the debate on how services are best delivered supported by all those who take responsibility for developing health. Clearly it will not take place in the printed headlines or soundbites of our deficient MSM.
Jackie Bailey must have mega shares in BUPA. Is running down the NHS a tactic towards privatisation ? Maybe she is no say daft.
@galamcennalath
“If our health service had been called SHS during the referendum, it would have helped with the confusion where half of Scots thought the NHS was a UK wide institution. As such, many NO voters thought it was under threat!”
——
I completely agree.
Plus whenever there is a crisis in the English NHS, the Scottish NHS gets tarred with the same brush, due to people simply calling it ‘The NHS’.
It needs to be clearer they are 2 different services with different funding, policies and accountabilities.
A wee quatrain poem ,
Haters gonna hate
Labours gonna lie
Hacks gonna hack
And dogs are gonna bark.
They’re a shower of bastards. End.
Yet another brilliant expose of the anti-SNP Government smear tactics by “Porkies” Baillie and her Unionist press and BBC allies. I hope this incompetent purveyor of skewed statistics and blatant lies gets booted out by the voters next May.
Unfortunately she’ll then sneak back into Holyrood via the regional list vote, but surely that humiliation will ensure her malign political influence will be diminished for her current admirers in the columnists of the Rectum and Hootsmon.
@gus1940 at 1:47 pm
“I have suspected for a long time, as is also suggested above, that they are in receipt of financial support from some Westminster slush fund.”
Yes, that could well be the case.
It is quite intriguing to speculate about the behaviour of the MSM/BUM/SCUM in Scotland. The rUK is a different case, but here in Scotland it seems that they have either chosen to: a) go all-out on a blitz of SNPbadness in the hope that enough of the electorate will actually take in what they say and not vote for the SNP in May, or b) know that the SNP are odds-on for an overwhelming win and hope to reduce that majority with whatever it takes, or c) give up on any pretence of any balance, fairness, impariality and non-bias, and just go full-fat propaganda promoters.
Whatever it is, their existance is doomed. And, let’s be honest here, even the pro-Scottish independence Sunday Herald and National are doomed in the long run.
Newspapers will eventually die out – all off them. It will just be a matter of which one will get the kudos for being the last man standing. Society has moved into the digital era where news can now be had instantaneously via social media, where lies and misinformation can be debunked within minutes. Newspapers are already seen as being from another generation, a past time.
Therefore, and especially, one can only speculate at the Unionist media’s mindset; to stick, or twist; to continue as they are with sales falling off a cliff, or, somehow, try to arrest their decline by some kind of revamp.
Yet, in the mind of at least half of the Scottish population, they are already ‘gone’. And with that as the reality, no matter what the Unionist media do, don’t do, or even try, their business is untenable.
These lies are starting to become tiresome, and really should be repudiated by the national.
Is that it? Is that all these ukok desperados can conjour up against S——-d?
Compare with the ebc text news points;
english flood defences shambles
southern train service a joke
nhs falling apart
250,000 illegally foxhunting on boxing day
young home ownership at all-time low
thousands of prisoners released by mistake
etc, etc
Smug is a horrible word, but I’m happy.
No National in my local Morrisons today; complaint duly sent, final warning issued!
I had a wee dose of the runs last night. If I go online and blame the SNP, can I claim a £5 reward from the Daily Record?
That’s what a lot of journalists are effectively doing. By making up shite about the SNP and printing it, they receive their money, (30 pieces of Silver?) from their masters.
They must enjoy writing shite for pay or they wouldn’t sleep at night.
Stephen Roney.
50% of hemorrhoids according to a recent survey caused by Jackie Bailey MSP as it has been proved that she is a massive pain in the arse. George Foulkes responsible for the other 50% for the same reason.
Stephen Roney.
Heard this headline on radio this morning. My first thought was had I heard the newsreader correctly? Had he really said 15 ops cancelled a day or had I misheard and was it 50? 15 cancelled ops per day in the whole of Scotland sounded pretty good stats to me so couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Then I heard Jackie Baillie’s name mentioned. Enough said, I switched off. Hope more and more people are doing the same.
Gordon Bickerton at 12.16
Beat you to it by four months.
Some years ago I started a “Herald Watch” and recorded daily huge imbalance against the SNP in its columns. These I transmitted to the heads of Gannett (which owns Newsquest)in the US. I got an interested response. At that point their chair (and the two previous chairs)had Scottish antecedents. Shortly afterwards a team from the US parent company visited the Herald. Better balance happened.
Might be time again for a nationwide petition to the owners of the Herald
Credit where it’s due…
STV News this evening ran with this NHS crisis story as first item.
BBC Scotland didn’t even mention it, likely as it’s not newsworthy.
@Andrew says: 28 December, 2015 at 2:19 pm:
” … I frequently hear people saying Dame Jackie Baillie or something close to that.”
Yeah! Andrew, but isn’t it usual for it to be your own party that puts you up for an Honour?
My take on it.
So this 1.5%, regardless of reasons for the operation being cancelled, amounts to 15 operations a day does it ?
Let us say it does for a few seconds.
Does Jackie Baillie know how many NHS hospitals there actually are in Scotland ?
287 is the latest count.
OK, some may not perform operations, but even allowing for say, around half not performing operations and there are still only 15 daily cancellations between about 150 operation performing hospitals.
So, being extremely generous to Jackie Baillie’s figures, 1 operation is cancelled from every 10 hospitals daily.
It’s a damn disgrace right enough !!.???
I never thought that I would say this but credit to BBC Scotland for ignoring this ridiculous Labour Party stunt which has been shouted from the rooftops by the rest of the SCUM.
The only mention is in the on-line site’s Review of The Papers.
There must be at least one person at PQ with influence who had the common sense to realise how ludicrous Baillie’s latest effort was.
137,511 people are employed by NHS Scotland. That’s 137,511 guaranteed to vote SNP/SNP next May. Thank you, Yoons.
Robert@7.08pm,
The only Dame Jackie Bailey is going to be is a Pantomime Dame. I suggest the two ugly sisters and Widow twankie rolled into one. And her entry tune as she waddles onto stage. Why, none other than, “Roll out the Barrel”, followed by a rendition from the children of, “Who ate all the pies”.
Stephen Roney.
I read the equivalent stats for the English NHS and they were pretty dire
I will try and dig them up
My research indicates Jackie Baillie was born in Macau, a small Portugese colony, near to but not part of Hong Kong. Her father would be Portugese. Many spy movies have been shot on location in Macau due to the very high levels of intrigue emanating from it so this is perhaps where Jackie developed her penchant for stretching the truth of any situation solely to suit her ulterior purposes regardless of the harm she inflicts on people.
In terms of her education she was found a place in an exclusive, all girl (fee paying) school in the north of England and ventured north to Scotland later in life. Hence speaking with a distinctive foreign lilt.
Quite how she ever got herself elected to the Scottish parliament puzzles me since Union members in her constituency loath her.
The trouble is that people of the older generation ( like me )
thought that ” if it’s in the papers it must be true ”
we never knew that it was not a level playing field
At this time of year more and more of us are getting I pads & kindles
so why don’t you pop in to your older friends & relatives , and help them
to get onto Twitter , they can then see for themselves what’s really happening
In Morrisons watched an elderly well to do gent lift an express and carefully place it over the few copies of the National on display.
I looked at him picked up the express and threw it on top of the mail face down and took a National for home consumption. I stared him out and he walked off. Cant help that probably in days gone by I would know my place.
Jackie Baillie really first scunnered me when she claimed luxury cars were being “lavished” on NHS managers. She didn’t check her facts in that if I drove an Audi, I paid the difference in the cost so no extra cost to the NHS whether I drove a Range Rover or a Corsa. Just a cheap shot at people doing their job ..