By NMRN End of the SNP agreement with the Scottish Green party…. Cue Mr Harvie & Ms Slater …..when chased down by the media for their reactions. Mr Harvie was asked “whether the Scottish Greens would be as co-operative with the government over things like the budget, he replied: “Do you think the current government will still be in place for the next budget?”…. Ms Slater “described the ending of the Bute House agreement as an “act of political cowardice by the SNP” and accused the party of “selling out future generations”. The media’s reaction….glee.…the SNP voters reaction could ..read more

I know, this is not a credible sample upon which to base any confident conclusions but it’s still, in its limited way, interesting as it reinforces my gut feelings and those of everyone I’ve spoken to today. First off, I have a lot of respect for the Greens, particularly Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater. I agree with many Green policies, often to the left of the SNP, with me, on social and economic affairs, and I was in favour of the power sharing, but the media have exploited the fault lines between the two parties and the at times naive ..read more

By Professor John Robertson In the Guardian today, there’s some pretty bad news in the above graph regarding England’s 15 year-old girls, with a sharp increase from 2018 in the percentage having smoked. There’s some but far less so for Scotland, as our 15 year-old boys and girls, reveal a slight fall to stay significantly below the average in this WHO survey of 280 000 children in 48 countries . For alcohol consumption by 13 year-old boys, the picture in Scotland is very positive with a significant fall from 2018 in the percentage having drunk alcohol. For girls there is ..read more

By Professor John Robertson In the National today: SCOTLAND’S annual net migration from the rest of the UK has continued to grow, with more people coming in to the country than leaving, figures show. The latest figures from National Records Scotland (NRS) show that since 2010, Scotland’s annual net migration from the rest of the UK increased from 2909 to 8914. In 2021, inflow from the rest of the UK was 14,400 higher (+34%) than the previous year, while 8900 more people moved to Scotland from the rest of the UK than left. https://www.thenational.scot/news/24006417.scot ..read more

By Professor John Robertson From the Scottish Government today and, of course, utterly ignored by ‘your’ media in Scotland: A Scottish Government-backed deep-water terminal which will support future renewable energy developments and cruise ship opportunities on the Western Isles has been officially handed over to operators by Deputy First Minister Shona Robison.  Ms Robison toured the new Stornoway deep-water terminal to mark the end of the construction phase. It has delivered a new terminal with a cruise ship berthing facility capable of accommodating vessels more than 1,000 feet long (3 ..read more

No exploitative baby photos required, just facts: While BBC Scotland, uniquely among BBC England, Wales and Northern Ireland, concentrate on a Leeds University report on food insecurity, utterly blind to the facts about much lower child poverty in Scotland and SNP initiatives such as the world-leading Child Payment, from the Scottish Government today, but widely ignored: A toolkit for people working with families with infants at risk of food insecurity is promoting cash first responses to allow them to safely, responsively and appropriately feed their babies and helping towards reducing the ne ..read more

By Professor John Robertson From the Guardian today, the above, and: The deployment of the government’s childcare scheme to tens of thousands more families is facing “significant uncertainties” and may struggle to meet its own targets, according to a report by Whitehall’s spending watchdog. The National Audit Office revealed the Department for Education (DfE) had assessed the likelihood of being able to deliver the funded childcare places it promised for September 2024 and 2025 as “amber/red problematic”. Even if the government managed to successfully navigate the multiple difficulti ..read more

So, new research out from Leeds University on BBC Reporting Scotland, to tell us First, all about the struggles of the above North Ayrshire mother. Why North Ayrshire? This: According to a new study, North Ayrshire is the area of Scotland where people are most likely to need help to put food on the table. BBC analysis of research from Leeds University and the consumer group Which? looked at 363 councils across the UK, assessing neighbourhoods on measures such as distance to large supermarkets, the number of families on free school meals and households in food poverty. The study found ..read more

By Professor John Robertson From Public Health Scotland today: During 2023/24 Quarter 2 (1 July 2023 to 30 September 2023): At the end of 2023/24 Quarter 2, the ‘reach’ of the NNP (percentage of people at risk of opioid overdose who have been supplied with THN) was estimated to be 73.2%, an increase of 1.5 percentage points compared to 2023/24 Quarter 1 (71.7%). https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/national-naloxone-programme-scotland-quarterly-monitoring-bulletin/national-naloxone-programme-scotland-quarterly-monitoring-bulletin-july-to-september-q2-202324/ This positive ne ..read more

From Newsroom NZ today: In the 16 years since it was bought by the government for $690 million, KiwiRail has had several overhauls and turnaround plans worth billions of dollars. Its ambitions as a successful, profitable operator of tourism, freight and ferries have often been derailed by disasters from earthquakes to cyclones, mine explosions and the collapse of key industries like coal mining. Add to that the Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ bombshell decision not to pump another billion dollars into the Interislander mega ferries, sinking the project and leaving a question mark over KiwiRail ..read more