Guilt Free Railing 19

[WouldBeGood]

Rail away!

No judgment, no resilience wankery.

Equal opportunity railing 😃

Could this be the last thread..?!

This is my rail trigger today:
SNP ministers tried to censor a report that found Nicola Sturgeon had failed to raise education standards and pressured a watchdog to say there had been “significant” improvement.

Yet another example of the- quite frankly, scary- overeach of this ScotGov.
People really do need to wake up to what’s happening in Scotland. After the St Andrew’s student newspaper piece the other day, the interference over the appointment of Muriel Gray (against Independence) to BBC Chair through to Moray Council discussing Anglophobia as a concern (all that in just one week!) I’m really worried now about where this is all leading.

Maybe this needs an alternative thread for those of us awake to what’s happening, so we can rail on there? where the SNP bots can join us under pseudonyms

The phone rings for so long to get through now it's a half an hour endeavour minimum. That said, my gps are great professionals.

Having gone through the testing process for Covid over the last two days I can really see why people are confused.

Booking the test was the easy bit, but you need a text number or email address to show a QR code on your phone. No sure what people without smartphones do. Test results back in about 14 hours which is very swift.

Then the barrage of texts and emails start. Telling me I should self-isolate until the 24th, no mention of the fact you can get out early if you get negative LFTs. Emails offering me support for my mental health. Email to show to my employer (have already told them I'm self-employed). Email about the isolation grant. Email asking me to tell them about my close contacts, but not all of them, because under 18s don't count. 6 emails and 6 texts today so far.

Now I'm feeling fine and can just roll my eyes at the deluge. But what if you're really not feeling well? It's just all too much.

Most cross that there is nothing in any of the texts about early release if you test negative on day 6 and 7. "As you have tested positive for Covid-19 you should isolate up to and including 24 Mar 2022."

That all sounds jolly irritating for you and a stupid waste of taxpayers' money foxyfoxyloxy

🤞🤞 for you for negative tests on day 6 and 7.

Sounds mist annoying @FoxyFoxyLoxy. Glad you’re not rough though- DD has succumbed after two years of working throughout and is feeling quite crap. 20 and triple jagged, and of course it’s weekend she had lots of exciting things on after years of nothing much. Feel so sorry for her.

On a more positive note, it’s a lovely day and I saw quite a few plane contrails in the blue sky whist on my dog walk, made me think of actual holidays!

"I am 46, Scottish and didn't know what 'Scot's' was when I saw that question on the census."

I thought it was just me!!! I'm 47 and that question really threw me! Is it basically asking if we can speak/understand local dialects? What's the point of it?

It shows how much the SG know about "Scots" if they think it's one language. I'm fluent in Doric but wouldn't understand Shetland words or Glaswegian ones. So the whole thing is a crock of shit like most that issues forth from the SG

Railing at home today was about a mention somewhere about how many more nurses there were under SNP since 2010, conveniently neglecting to mention all the student nurse places Nicola cut as health secretary before 2010...

Paper census form duly ordered, will no doubt rail about that when it comes.

I heard something about 1 in 13 or 14 in Scotland now have covid. I feel like I'm looking over my shoulder to see if it's coming - no-one in our house has had it (that we know of) yet.

@OnceUponAWhine I saw that this morning and I'm completely unsurprised but still furious.

It has now emerged that Scottish ministers wrote to Boyle before the report was published, raising concerns about the “factual accuracy” of his findings. Boyle was told in a letter obtained by The Times after a freedom of information request that his report was inconsistent and had ignored government achievements.

Ministers demanded that the conclusion that progress had been “limited” be replaced with their own claim that there had been “significant” improvement. Boyle was also told to provide evidence to support his “subjective” finding that the gap between rich and poor remained wide. He refused to withdraw his conclusion and it was published in the final report.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ministers-tried-to-cut-criticism-out-of-report-into-education-mjg906jm3 Don't have a Times sub but found the text above on Facebook.

So sick of the lot of them.

Anyone else read that Scotgov have been rebuked for data breaches with the covid app - between 550,000 and 615000 people affected.

I wonder how many people actually had the app in the first place?

Scotgov are so worrying yet we just don't have a strong enough opposition.

Maybe there needs to be a new Unionist party which takes elements of all the other 3. It’s finding the common ground that would take hard work though.

Yes, they are constantly being ticked off for stuff like that... I haven't seen the issue about the Covid app specifically, but the vaccine passports too, and many others (by 2021 there had been almost 2000 breaches of GDPR apparently). And there's general IT incompetence, nothing to do with data breaches, like the prison release thing and all sorts... It is really worrying that they just seem to brush these things off and carry on.

Which is one of the reasons I'm very, very reluctant to trust them with personal data for me and my family via the census (home and work/ school addresses, employment status, health details etc). I have absolutely no faith that whatever safeguards they say they have to keep it confidential will be effective. It makes me as there's no way of opting out/ not providing it, as we are allowed to do for most things. Its crazy, as I'm not normally particularly sensitive about such data... but I'm annoyed that I have to give it, when they have such disregard for keeping it confidential. I may have made a few non significant and entirely accidental errors on the form so if they come back to me in any format I'll know where the leak came from. I've also been entirely truthful but somewhat vague about employment, addresses etc...

@Whattochoosenow

Maybe there needs to be a new Unionist party which takes elements of all the other 3. It’s finding the common ground that would take hard work though.

I keep thinking this should be done, but it never seems to go well. There have been new parties formed that have aimed to cover certain political "factions" , but then get disbanded pretty quickly afterwards having done less well than they'd hoped... the only one with any success at the polls was farage's shower, but others (change uk, alba, alliance for unity etc) get the odd protest vote (being generous...) but don't impact on the big 3/4/5. And just get accused of splitting the vote, which is reasonable. When parties work together on a single issue (brexit/ better together etc) they then get accused of "working with the toarrrries" or not reflecting different opinions within their own party, or not respecting democracy or whatever. It is all quite depressing...

The SNP are so deluded and obviously believe we are taken in by everything they say and do.

We have never in the past 2 years had so many staff and pupils off with Covid, yet We must continue with mask-wearing.

THEY.DON'T. MAKE.ANY. BLOODY.DIFFERENCE

Paper copy of census form arrived

Put your title as something different to what it should be like Miss Mrs or Mrs . That’ll be a good indication if your data is breached

That's a good idea, but I don't think there is an option for title on the paper forms (or I don't remember... I'd usually spend a while wondering whether to put Ms, Mrs or Dr - and I don't remember having that dilemma!). I just used alternative spellings of things. They're only "wrong" in the sense we don't often tend to spell them in that way... It's still the same word when spoken like scots and that's how I wanted to identify when I filled it in.

Has anyone actually managed to rearrange a children's vaccine appointment? Not sure I actually want one as we've all had in the last couple of weeks.
Can't have it for 12 weeks, no option to rearrange on the letter. Call the number which has more pre recorded guff than anyone would care to listen to.
Finally get through "our bookings don't go that far ahead".
Aghh. They can't even tell me when to call back as couldn't answer how far forward they go.
Given every child I know has had covid in the last month, this system seems a ludicrous waste of everyone's time and a very expensive way to organise it. I imagine vaccination centre attendance i going to be low

I meant no option to rearrange online.

Perhaps this is the secret aim. To say we offered everyone an appointment while making it such a faff most people will give up

When I went for my booster vacc I was asked if I was Scottish or British- what the hell is that all about?

That annoyed the hell out of me too @Whattochoosenow

It's not a rail (so feel free to rail at my possible derailing of railing ) but while there's a bunch of Scottish MNetters in one place, does anyone know St Andrews well and got and suggestions of 'things to do' when visiting with surly teens in the spring?

(I'm being unfair about the teen, he's quite lovely as teens go, just a bit unbearable today!)

I just want a government who leaves me alone as much as possible and tries to make our lives a bit less miserable and who don’t feel the need to make patronising adverts on radio and tv . I don’t remember even noticing much about the Scottish Parliament pre 2007 and I want it to back that way .

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/parents-told-they-can-swap-toddlers-sex-in-scottish-census-5s7mqnnnw
🙄🙄🙄
Apparently it’s on the online guidance but not the paper copy.
The people get what the people vote for at the and of the day…