Standard Wales Check
Alert readers will recall that earlier today we conducted one of our regular context checks for statistics misleadingly-incompletely reported in the Scottish press. But while those are like shooting fish in a barrel, there’s one thing that’s an even more reliable open goal for the website editor looking for content in a slow news week.
Ladies and gentlemen, once again we give you… Scottish Labour.
There’s absolutely nothing that happens in Scotland that Scottish Labour are happy with. Day in and day out they can be found putting the bleakest possible spin on any statistic for a dwindling audience of diehard supporters and Scottish journalists.
Something bad happened? SCOTLAND IS TERRIBLE AND IT’S ALL THE SNP’S FAULT. Something good happened? IT WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH AND IT’S ALL THE SNP’S FAULT. And the solution is always the same: let Labour run things.
There’s only one problem with that theory: it’s been tried.
Labour have run the Welsh Government ever since devolution 20 years ago – despite being proportionally elected, the current administration has 12 Labour ministers and deputies out of 14 – and without exception the Assembly in Cardiff has delivered worse (often spectacularly worse) results than its SNP-run counterpart since 2007.
The equivalent Welsh measure for operations cancelled for non-clinical reasons (what Scottish Labour describe as because “hospitals couldn’t cope”) is 75,000 in two years. That’s 37,500 a year, compared to the Scottish figure of 8,311.
And if we adjust those numbers pro-rata to account for Wales being a significantly smaller country than Scotland (with just 58% of the population), we get these figures:
NON-CLINICAL OPERATION CANCELLATIONS (per year)
Scotland: 8,311
Wales: 64,113
The Welsh figures under Labour are a breathtaking 771% worse than Scotland’s. We’re going to say that again in case you think it’s a typo:
Seven hundred and seventy-one percent.
There’s a reason the Scottish public don’t trust Labour to run their public services, even when they’re imperfect. And everyone except Scottish Labour knows what it is.
Question time random selection working well again we all see
Michael Forsyth’s not only a liar but he’s a really bad liar
Hugo Rifkind finding ways of avoiding saying things
Labour woman had the intellect of a 12 year old
I really liked the honest black Scottish woman
If the SNP feel they must have someone to appear on behalf of the real Scotland they really need to pick someone who’s not as nice and pleasant a person as Fiona and use someone who’s capable of being an attack dog, or perhaps the originator of the VOW, Murray Foote could represent the reason why as the once editor of the paper they all read the Daily Record now supports Independence, because I bet you good money many ordinary folk won’t know that because the media didn’t exactly make the big deal of it they should have, for obvious reasons of course
I don’t like Fiona Bruce and never have because she has no personality whatsoever and performs like a manufactured robot somebody made using parts from what they thought were other intelligent women then slapped a permanent smile on its face…….Weird and strange
@mike cassidy
“I couldn’t bring myself to read on to see if the comments continue to the actual broadcast.”
Neither could I, the first few were enough.
@Liz
It was definitely the pubs fault, or maybe he ate a bad pie, or somebody slipped him a mickey, he could’ve just tripped into other peoples trousers, all of these things are possible in the bad pubs coz when he goes to all the other good pubs nothing like this ever happens…..mostly sometimes not
But the stress the stress, we all understand don’t we?
Just wish it was pointed out by Fiona Hislop that not all the people who want independence are members of the SNP and I think it would make a bigger impact if the SNP would officially boycott the bbc not that I think stv is any better
What you must know is that N.Lanarkshire Council area of which Motherwell is a part voted Yes in 2014. That was not reflected in the audience tonight.
is it not the case that one of the QT organisers had links to the right wing.
I expect the relevant Holyrood committee to ask direct questions of the bbc
To the best of my knowledge it is illegal to serve somebody who is drunk so what the hell are they doing in that cesspit of depravity.
I didn’t even watch Question Time, but I cannot tell you how pissed off I am from the tweets I am reading on twitter about it.
If we don’t vote Yes soon then we are definitely fucked.
Dr Jim says:
8 February, 2019 at 12:25 am
Question time …
Labour woman had the intellect of a 12 year old
That is out of order and quite insulting!! Most 12 year-olds are much smarter than that.
To all of you who think boycotting BBBC is a good idea what kind of spin would those miscreants put on it?
We would hear that they had been invited but refused while implying they had something to hide – let’s face it the BBBC are practised in the art of misleading and downright lying.
I wonder if they would answer an FOI request for the number of viewers QT has – I suspect it is an ever dwindling pack.
I would not like to put Mike Russell in the position of the only SNP to appear on shows of this nature but I suspect he would be the best at sookin’ them in and spittin’ them oot in bubbles.
Thanks wingers, for looking for that UK definition thing for me. Still not found it but I will…
Stinky 10.56 pm
From what I could see, there was only one Brexiteer on the panel – Michael Forsyth
Dodds
Hyslop
Rifkind
Ol?
They were all remainers
@ Alan Macintosh – I remember the document you mention. I think it was an official UN document but submitted by the UK on joining the UN. It listed the UK as a member state then described it as containing 2 countries, Scotland and England but added the other provinces, principality and dependencies. That’s why it was posted and circulated on WoS.
I looked at the UN site which linked to the UK Gov FCO. The FCO document search was unhelpful. But it said that not every document was migrated to the site after 2010 and the archives might have it. I gave up at that point but may return to it out of curiosity.
So, as everyone else has said, it is very difficult to find it.
It’s possible it has suffered the same 1984 style revisionism as other important texts.
Like you, I have archived stuff from an older computer so will have a quick search there.
One good thing is, because several of us remember this document, it does rather “corroborate” that it existed!
Will post back here if I find it.
O/T
Re today’s story about the CO2 Capture at Drax is the CO2 produced at Peterhead and latterly at Longannet a different kind of CO2 incapable of being captured in an identical way from the flue gases or is it just that it is Scottish CO2?