THEY MUST BE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT...DESPITE THE UNIONIST PRESS'S CONSTANT CRITICISM

In an email to Munguin from the first minister I noticed the following two paragraphs.

I was both delighted and humbled this week to see that people of Scotland continue to place their trust in the Scottish Government to listen to them and act in their best interests.

The latest social attitudes survey found that 73 per cent of people in Scotland trust the Scottish Government, the highest level since 1999, compared with 23 per cent who trust the UK Government.

Now all we usually hear from the Press and the BBC is "SNP bad" But Holyrood Magazine's poll shows that the Scottish public doesn't actually agree with them.

And it is interesting that 76% of the poll of 1,288 people thought that the Scottish government should have control over most of what happens in Scotland.

We've long believed that the Press had much less influence over the public's opinion than it thinks it has. For example the D C Thomson press in Dundee produces the ultra conservative Dundee Courier, Evening Telegraph, and the once ubiquitous Sunday Post. 

Once upon a time one of these papers, maybe more (and the now-defunct People's Journal) went through the letter boxes of the vast majority of Dundee homes, and yet they stubbornly voted Labour at every election, until very recently, when they have solidly voted SNP.

Any you have to ask yourself how many people who read the Sun actually vote Tory.

The Press and Journal were running a story earlier saying that the Scottish government is the most trusted in Europe, but it has mysteriously disappeared. 

I wonder why.

THE JOYS OF ISLAND LIFE...

There’s a really funny story in the paper copy of today’s 'Press and Journal' concerning a school on the Shetland island of Papa Stour which is to reopen after 5 years to accommodate a family coming from England to live on one of the crofts.

Shetland Council agreed to appoint a teacher, a relief teacher, and a part time clerical assistant for the tiny school which serves the island with a population of just 12, after a request from the local councillor requested it. The English family’s coming was dependent upon there being educational facilities available for their two children. He said that a price could not be put on the rebirth of a community on the edge of extinction. (There is only one remaining native “Stourian” left on the island.)

In fact the law requires that adequate provision be made for education, so the authorities were advised that there was no alternative to re-opening the school.

It was closed in 2005 after Jane Walker, the mother of the only children in it, withdrew her two offspring after a “difference of opinion” with the teacher. It seems that this teacher Simon Calvin had given a statement to the police after her (Mrs Walker’s) husband had emptied a bucket of dog dirt over the head of a local minister. Mr Walker was subsequently fined £600 at Lerwick Sheriff Court after pleading guilty to assault on the Rev Adrian Glover.

The story does not relate what the poor minister had done to deserve such treatment, what happened to the poor teacher who was left with 100% withdrawal of his pupils, or if the Walkers remained on the island after such reprehensible behaviour.

And you probably thought that life on a tiny island was hard but idyllic.

Huh!

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