Johnson putting his dick in anything that moves is pretty good practice for a catholic, no?

Yet another example of the control that the SNP wields in government. They set up an 'independent' enquiry into the Care Homes Scandal, something which was government policy. However Public Health Scotland, who are carrying out the enquiry are not allowed to publish any scientific papers or data which would cause "sustained or widespread criticism of the Scottish Government" and "ministers being pressed to make a statement in parliament". Anything that would lead to front page headlines is also considered high risk and shouldn't be published.
It's the sort of thing you expect from a banana republic, but it's pretty standard now up here.



This also follows on from another recent story where the National Records of Scotland were found to be witholding the care home death rates. Yet more government secrecy

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp...e-home-deaths/

Nicola Sturgeon has insisted her administration remains committed to “proper scrutiny and accountability”, after a government agency was criticised for trying to withhold care home death rates.

The first minister vowed to continue to “learn every possible lesson” from the pandemic amid a row over an attempt by National Records of Scotland (NRS) to block the publication of data on fatalities at individual facilities across the nation.

Opposition parties seized on a ruling by the Scottish Information Commissioner, which was made following a joint appeal by the DC Thomson newspaper titles, The Scotsman, The Herald and STV.

The commissioner concluded that the Scottish Government agency engaged in arguments that were “speculative in nature” in its attempts to block the publication of the statistics following a freedom of information request from the media organisations.

And it was found that disclosure of the data would be important to “ensure that older people and their relatives have the necessary information to make an informed decision when choosing a care home or care home provider”

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar described the episode as “utterly shameful”.

He added: “The SNP government breached legislation and kept the scale of care home deaths secret for eight months.

“This is another devastating blow for the care home residents and families who have been denied justice.

“Those responsible must be held accountable and lessons must be learned.

“We need a Scottish public inquiry without delay.”

There was blatantly an attempt to sweep the true scale of the scandal under the carpet.”

Scottish Conservative social care spokesman Craig Hoy said: “This latest revelation will appal the thousands of families grieving the loss of a loved one who died in Scotland’s care homes.

“There was blatantly an attempt to sweep the true scale of the scandal under the carpet.

“It is truly shocking that an SNP government agency believed it was appropriate to try to stop the full picture surrounding care home deaths being made public.”

“The Scottish Conservatives have repeatedly called for an immediate public inquiry on care homes.

“This unlawful cover-up only makes the case for that urgent inquiry stronger.

“The SNP must investigate why this shocking act of secrecy happened and explain it before parliament as soon as possible.”

Asked about the issue at her coronavirus briefing on Friday, Ms Sturgeon insisted there had been “no masking of the scale” of the overall death numbers at care homes.

“National Records of Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government, which means that it operates in these kind of decisions independently of ministers,” she said.

“They have to make assessments of freedom of information requests and respond appropriately, or as they consider to be appropriate, but they also have to respond to decisions of the freedom of information commissioner, and I would expect that National Records of Scotland will do that.”

The first minister added: “There is an absolute determination on the part of me, everybody in the government, and I think all of us, to learn every possible lesson from what we’ve been through in the past 14 months, so that we can have proper scrutiny and accountability, but more fundamentally so that we can learn the right lessons.

That transparency and scrutiny is really important for all sorts of different reasons.”

“That’s why I want to see a public inquiry get under way as quickly as possibly, but it’s also why we will continue to learn the lessons as we go through the data, and that includes in care homes.

“And many of the lessons that have been painfully learned over the past year have led to a material change in the situation in care homes during the second wave of this virus, to that which pertained to the first.

“So that transparency and scrutiny is really important for all sorts of different reasons.”

An NRS spokesman has said: “Following review by the Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC) of a FOI request to release data on individual care homes, NRS will make this data available in line with the original FOI request and the timeframe set out by the SIC.”

SNP bad

They are. You're free to try to defend them

twitter.com/gbnewsfails

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...stunning-upset

Brexit, Boris and cronyism rejected at the ballot box. The worm is turning.

Or it could be people saying enough is enough with all the Covid bollocks

I had my second jab yesterday. It was very surprising how quiet it was - took me 4 mins in and out.

WRT "Covid bollocks", I think the delay is justified. Cases and hospital admissions are rising and while long-term that is probably something we will have to live with, it might just be enough to encourage reluctant vaccers to get it while they can.

Everyone over the age of 18 now has the offer of a jab, so I would strongly oppose any further delays (i.e., beyond the 19th July) in opening up. After that, the anti-vaccers can get their immunity the hard way.

This is bad analysis. The Tories are doing better than they ever have in my lifetime.

However, one interesting thing about the cyclical nature of politics is that as they make more inroads into working-class leave areas up north (pay close attention to Batley and Spen by-election in two weeks and the recent one in Hartlepool), it comes at the expense of middle class, remain-voting seats like Amersham & Chesham.

The interesting question is whether the Lib Dems can actually capitalise on the few dozen Southern/West Country Tory seats like this that are actually vulnerable. Last few elections suggests that this is not the case, and I'd be inclined to think this is just an outlier (the Lib Dems often tend to do well in by-elections).

That's an incredible turnaround. It looks like almost the entire Labour vote switched to the Lib Dems as well to get them over the line.

Local issues such as the impact of HS2 on the area seem to have played a part.

wasnt HS2 the big issue?

Beyiond that it's always nice to see the tories lose but I'd much rather the lib dems were still too left wing to win a seat like this

my hS2 is slow

Sorry for projecting my own views on to the people of 2 places I've never heard of.

Apology accepted.

The LDs have a long track record of holding affluent middle England seats. They have won Guildford before.

The irony here is that if LD didn't enter into a coalition with the toryscum then the tories would have had to enact a referendum on a PR voting system - instead of the joke AV referendum - and they (and the whole country) would have got a better electoral system for all eternity.

This may well be true, but it doesn't measure up with people voting for a party that is in favour of HS2

Seems their local candidate is against it though and is looking to fight for the locals in that regard. I have no horse in this battle but it's refreshing to see a candidate elected for their views rather than just the usual votes along party lines. Would love to see more of that up here but unfortunately the neverending constituional nonsense means it never happens.

While not disagreeing that the AV referendum was a joke (where, like the situation right now, both major parties are lying about everything to do with it, especially the costs), as someone who finds party politics *as a concept* abhorrent, the parties that we have to choose from disgusting with all of the Tories/Labour/LDs on my do not vote ever list, and who is generally at the stage where I'll vote for an independent or spoil my ballot, the idea of PR is horrifying to me. At the very least it needs to be done on the German system where it's 50/50 FPTP/party list.

I also do not know how PR would handle the regional nature of our politics

We have a system that has partial PR in Scotland and the party who loses most from it, ironically, is the Lib Dems.

A lot of people stayed at home. No doubt some of them share your views on covid.

Some of those will even have switched as a protest vote - I'm not sure most protest voters care too much about the stance of the party they end up voting for. Do the lib dems or their candidate even agree with you on covid?

How do you figure? Surely the SNP is the party that loses the most?

SNP are 2.5 seats above what they should have under a straight PR system.
Lib Dems got 187,816 constituency votes and got 4 seats, the Greens got 34,990 constituency votes and got 8 seats.

The main issue is the use of the Regional vote and how it can be used to 'game' the system.

It actually leads to the ridiculous system where the Greens, with 1.2% of the constituency vote, are discussing forming a coalition with the SNP and could end up with ministerial positions etc.