Chip Butty
boosted
Shocked I am, shocked
An article in The Times corrects some of the misapprehensions (promoted by England and Parliament)
Needless to say it did not go down well with readers.
#BelieveInScotland #ScottishIndependence #LiesDamnedLies #TooWeeTooPoorTooStupid
A segment from the article, text reads
However, the very idea that Scotland could ever be anything other than an irredeemable basket case is so pervasive and insidious, that when evidence or assertion to the contrary emerges it is often greeted with disdain or disbelief.
Some little moments are worth recounting on this front. One concerns a House of Commons select committee meeting in early 2022. Westminster’s health and social care committee was quizzing a group of international experts on the issue of patient safety in hospital settings, hoping to gain some insight on best practice for NHS England to follow.
• How the Scottish economy performed last year — in charts
Was there, wondered a Leicestershire MP, any such example of best practice from anywhere in the world in this area? Was there, he asked, one country at “the very top of the pillar”?
Yes, replied a top Swedish doctor — Scotland. Professing himself “very impressed” by NHS Scotland’s patient safety record, which has massively reduced occurrences of cardiac arrest, sepsis and other risks in hospital, the Scandinavian doctor went on to say it was something the Nordic countries, among others, could learn from.
From the linked article, text reads Scotland isn’t perfect but nothing like the grim vision peddled by so many
new
The staple view that our public services are woeful does not match the experiences of those who actually use them, nor a visiting Scandinavia health expert
Stuart Nicolson
Wednesday November 05 2025, 4.15pm GMT, The Times
Imagine a vision of a country so utterly at odds with the reality that it causes even some of those who live there to question things they thought they already knew for certain; a description so divorced from the lived experience that, for all its wild distortions, it starts to gain currency and credence to the point where even the most absurd caricatures are held by some as solid truths.
This land, in the floridly recounted fantasy version, is a nightmarish place where order is collapsing, where nothing works and where no one would ever wish to visit, far less live in.