These Islands is a forum for debate standing unabashedly for the view that more unites the people of the United Kingdom than divides them.
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These Islands retweeted
Sturgeon would be hopelessly out of her depth. But can you imagine McAllan, Flynn, or Gilruth trying to grapple with these issues? It doesn’t bear thinking about. But voters would think about it. Which is why independence is not inevitable, and certainly not imminent.
Hopefully Sky will produce a follow up, in which Nicola Sturgeon plays the First Minister of an independent Scotland who discovers what the bond market thinks of trying to borrow more than 10% of GDP annually, whilst also grappling with a run on a newly issued currency.
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These Islands retweeted
Hopefully Sky will produce a follow up, in which Nicola Sturgeon plays the First Minister of an independent Scotland who discovers what the bond market thinks of trying to borrow more than 10% of GDP annually, whilst also grappling with a run on a newly issued currency.
Why Nicola Sturgeon now thinks differently about defence
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These Islands retweeted
Ironically, moments before Kate Campbell witlessly parroted SNP misinformation on the PISA results, she was stressing the importance of “critical thinking” to avoid online misinformation and disinformation.
Kate Campbell thinks she knows better than the experts when it comes to explaining Scotland’s “success” in closing the PISA score attainment gap. She is, of course, very wrong. The gap has closed largely because pupils from wealthier families now do far worse than they used to.
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Kate Campbell thinks she knows better than the experts when it comes to explaining Scotland’s “success” in closing the PISA score attainment gap. She is, of course, very wrong. The gap has closed largely because pupils from wealthier families now do far worse than they used to.
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Speaking in August 2014, John Swinney explains that GERS is crucial to understanding why an independent Scotland would be able to spend more on public services. Curiously, he talks very little about what GERS tells us today…
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These Islands retweeted
John Swinney was adamant in 2014 that there wasn’t going to be another referendum if Scotland voted no.
Sam Taylor
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Collette Stevenson’s now notorious question is not just an amusing gaffe. At last week’s Transport Committee she asked a question which hinted at her confusion. She has participated in hours of these meetings without understanding much, if anything, of what was going on.
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These Islands retweeted
Stephen Gethins gamely attempts to stick up for the hapless Collette Stevenson, but is not particularly convincing.
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Màiri McAllan was not properly challenged on this following her statement this afternoon at Holyrood.
One MSP did quote the figures, but then failed to ask the obvious question: why does squashing the performance of more affluent pupils count as a success?
Just not good enough.
1/ Màiri McAllan *must* be challenged with this data on mean PISA reading scores by socio-economic quartile:
2018
Poorest = 472
Richest = 544
2025
Poorest = 470
Richest = 520
Narrowing of the attainment gap is *entirely* explained by weaker performance of the richest quartile.
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These Islands retweeted
SNP MSP @GeorgeAdam says something which simply isn’t true. The UCL academic cited by Adam subsequently changed his position after I shared my analysis with him. The biases in English and Scottish PISA data are similar, but Scotland has a *more* significant upward bias.
SNP MSP @GeorgeAdam says independent analysis of England's Pisa scores suggests they are "inflated" due to dropout rates among "lower-attaining schools".
He says comparing the education systems of England and Scotland is like comparing "apples with oranges".
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A brief and presumably accidental outbreak of honesty from Màiri McAllan, who looked up from her script this afternoon and said:
“Whilst I was assessing that downward trajectory that PISA demonstrated to me…”
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These Islands retweeted
The SNP opposed zonal pricing because it would have dealt a severe blow to Scottish renewables. Independence (or devolving energy powers) is zonal pricing without the safety net of continued GB-wide socialisation of CfD & grid costs. A disastrous outcome for Scottish bill payers.
Energy-rich Scotland has some of the highest energy prices in Europe - and they are set to rise again this winter.
If the UK Government won’t cut energy bills as they promised, they should get out of the way for a Scottish Government that will.
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These Islands retweeted
A genuinely disgraceful statement from Màiri McAllan, who celebrates squashing the reading performance of more affluent pupils as a success. And not one MSP challenged her on this point. Pathetic stuff.
1/ Màiri McAllan *must* be challenged with this data on mean PISA reading scores by socio-economic quartile:
2018
Poorest = 472
Richest = 544
2025
Poorest = 470
Richest = 520
Narrowing of the attainment gap is *entirely* explained by weaker performance of the richest quartile.
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These Islands retweeted
At FMQs today, John Swinney repeatedly cited the SNP’s election win as a justification for dismissing questions from parties who didn’t win the election. We might as well just shut down the parliament if questions from the opposition are batted away with this nonsense.
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These Islands retweeted
1/ Màiri McAllan *must* be challenged with this data on mean PISA reading scores by socio-economic quartile:
2018
Poorest = 472
Richest = 544
2025
Poorest = 470
Richest = 520
Narrowing of the attainment gap is *entirely* explained by weaker performance of the richest quartile.
And here is Màiri McAllan flatly denying the reality that Lindsay Paterson identified (see quoted tweet). She pivots to exam results when the question was about PISA scores. She either doesn’t know what’s going on, or doesn’t care.
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Astonishing. The SNP’s Collette Stevenson has been an MSP since 2021, and had already sat through two hours of this morning’s Transport Committee meeting, when she asked a jaw-dropping question:
“I take it Transport Scotland is a registered charity?”
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1/ In June 2025, Ivan McKee said that to help close the looming £5bn black hole in the public finances, the devolved civil service would shrink by 4-5% per year until 2030.
Today, Scot Gov published the figures for June 2026, and headcount was *up* 1.0% compared to June 2025.
Ivan McKee says civil service workforce will shrink by 4-5% per year until 2030 and Perm Secretary “talked about the specifics on that” on Tuesday. But the Perm Secretary told the Finance committee there were no specifics. Does this government actually know what it’s doing?
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These Islands retweeted
This, from @jackiekemp for @bellacaledonia misrepresents our exchange. She implies my remark came after she readily accepted the mistake. In fact, it came after she tweeted increasingly ludicrous attempts to salvage the faulty analysis. You can read the exchange via quoted tweet.
You clearly don’t understand statistics. Step away from your keyboard and stop embarrassing yourself.
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These Islands retweeted
A grudging acknowledgment from @bellacaledonia that its rubbishing of the English PISA results was based on faulty statistics. Surprised to learn that unpicking the errors makes me “a hydra head of the populist right.”
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