A few weeks ago, I published a post commenting on a leaflet issued by the Labour party pretending to be a personal letter from Richard Watson, part time local GP and full time Labour activist. The leaflet set out Labour’s campaign strategy if a by-election should occur in Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency. Their campaign would be solely based on smears, lies and exaggerations about Margaret Ferrier, the sitting MP, with no indication of any policy or planned activity to benefit the residents of the constituency because, as Labour is an English party, policy is made in London and is rarely designed to benefit anyone in Scotland. In fact, Labour policy is now indistinguishable from that of the Tories, so they definitely would want to hide it from Scots voters. Do you think it’s a good idea to elect a man whose party is based in another country?
In the post, I commented on the exaggeration (some would call it lies) in the leaflet of the current stage of the pandemic and, specifically, how many people were affected at the time of Margaret’s travel to London. Remember, at the time, there were no restrictions on travel to work and as Westminster rules prevented MPs participating in debates remotely, if Margaret wanted to take part in the debate, she had no choice but travel to London.
In the leaflet, Watson claimed that at the time of Margaret’s journey to London on parliamentary business, on 28th September 2020, Scottish hospitals were full and the virus was spreading faster in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK, a bold claim considering the much greater incidence of the disease in England.
Do the statistics justify the claims?
Were Scottish hospitals full? Based on Scottish Government figures, the number of patients in hospital with suspected or confirmed Covid were as follows. I have compared the 28th September figures with those on 21st January to show how close to full the September figures were.
| Date | Number in Hospital | Number in ICU | New admissions |
| 28th September, 2020 | 123 | 12 | 26 |
| 21st January, 2021 | 2,053 | 156 | 179 |
Was the disease spreading faster in Scotland than in any other part of the UK. Based on NHS England, here are the comparative figures for England on 28th September, 2020. For context, the English population in 2020 was 10.3 times that of Scotland, so, if the virus was spreading at a faster rate in Scotland, you would expect the English figures to be less than 10.3 times the Scottish figures.
| Date | Number in hospital | Number in ICU | New admissions |
| 28th September, 2020 | 1,955 | 245 | 308 |
| 15.9 | 20.4 | 11.8 |
For those who think that this is petty point-scoring, that the actual numbers don’t really matter, just consider. Labour didn’t have to make these statements. But they did. So, if Labour are prepared to lie about the Covid situation at the time of Margaret’s journey to London to get their own way, what else would they be prepared to lie about.
Of course, the Labour Party have a bit of a history of lying to us Scots. Remember Labour canvassers in the run-up to the independence referendum telling pensioners that a Yes vote would mean they would lose their pension? Labour thought it was an acceptable campaign tactic to terrify vulnerable Scots pensioners so they could get their own way. Not much has changed.
Do you really think it’s a good idea to elect a man whose party believes that lying is a reasonable campaign tactic?
As the quote at the top says, once you’ve been shown to have told a lie, everything else must be suspect. Labour’s whole argument against Margaret Ferrier is riddled with lies. Can we believe anything they are telling us?
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SALVO
The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.
LIBERATION.SCOT
We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.
Angry Weegie 