Political Debates: What's On Near You?

[jester]

Our group is hosting speaker Bill Dale on 23rd May in Airdrie.

Might be of interest to (some of) you.

https://airdrieforindependence.wordpress.com/

 

[Ameliya]

I think I am late on this.

[MacDuffman]

Hopefully she get a lot of abuse.

https://event.bookitbee.com/17052/ruth-davidson-public-lecture

 

[jester]

Airdrie for Independence are delighted to announce that our next guest speaker will be Dublin based Scottish journalist Jason Michael McCann, writer for iScot magazine, host of the Random Public Journal blog and known to the social media political world as @Jeggit.

Jason will be touring a number of Scottish Independence groups in the lead up to the Brexit deadline, and we are delighted that he will be stopping off in Airdrie to address us, where he will be calling on the Yes movement to create the environment where Scot’s demand their independence, and to encourage the SNP to seize the day and call Indyref2.

The event will take place on Wednesday 30th January at 7pm prompt in the One Wellwynd Centre, Airdrie, ML6 0BN. Admission is free and unticketed. Arrive early to guarantee seating.

[BawWatchin]

Hope the windows are boarded up lads.

[Cerberus]

Airdrie for Independence are delighted to announce that our next guest speaker will be Dublin based Scottish journalist Jason Michael McCann, writer for iScot magazine, host of the Random Public Journal blog and known to the social media political world as @Jeggit.

Jason will be touring a number of Scottish Independence groups in the lead up to the Brexit deadline, and we are delighted that he will be stopping off in Airdrie to address us, where he will be calling on the Yes movement to create the environment where Scot’s demand their independence, and to encourage the SNP to seize the day and call Indyref2.

The event will take place on Wednesday 30th January at 7pm prompt in the One Wellwynd Centre, Airdrie, ML6 0BN. Admission is free and unticketed. Arrive early to guarantee seating.

He looks excited about the prospect.

[jester]

Defending Scotland

Stuart Crawford was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Tank Regiment, leaving the military to become a defence spokesman for the SNP, before becoming a Defence Consultant. He has published a number of papers on defence for iScotland, and will be publishing a new work as part of Common Weal’s “Indyref at 5” series.

Stuart will be addressing our group to discuss what the defence options are for an independent Scotland, and answering your questions on this topic. From what size the armed forces will be to what roles they will perform, how they will be equipped, and whether our armed forces should be in or out of NATO, we hope to cover a broad spectrum with Stuart giving us the benefit of his vast experience of the subject.

 

We will also be joined by Cliff Purvis of Veterans for Independence, who will be telling us about the work of his group and about the role veterans play in the campaign for independence.

The evening takes place on Wednesday 2nd October 2019 in the One Wellwynd Centre, 35 Wellwynd, Airdrie, and starts at 1900hrs prompt. That’s 7pm sharp, civilian time.

Admission is free and unreserved, early arrival is advised to guarantee seats. Tea & coffee is available free of charge. You can indicate if you are going on our FACEBOOK EVENT page.
The venue is wheelchair accessible, and free parking is available in the adjacent car park.

[jester]

Professor John Robertson has been instrumental in documenting and exposing the bias in BBC Scotland’s coverage of all things independence in the lead up to the 2014 independence referendum. Since then Professor Robertson has continued to monitor, document and reveal the tricks used by BBC Scotland to manipulate news coverage to misinform and misdirect Scottish viewers.

On Sunday 3rd November Professor Robertson will be our special guest for a talk entitled “Distorting Scotland” where he will examine the BBC’s own coverage to show how its coverage of Scottish NHS issues is being used to wage a proxy war on the Scottish Government and Scottish independence. This will be followed by an audience question and answer session where you can put your questions directly to Professor Robertson.

The talk will take place in the One Wellwynd Centre, 35 Wellwynd, Airdrie, ML6 0BN from 12.30pm until 2.30pm. Admission is free, although donations towards the costs of the hall are welcome. There is car parking and disabled access available.

You can read some of Professor Robertson’s work at the following links:

Fairness in the First Year

Inform Scotland

Talking-Up Scotland

Twitter: @ProfJWR

[welshbairn]

[/url]

Professor John Robertson has been instrumental in documenting and exposing the bias in BBC Scotland’s coverage of all things independence in the lead up to the 2014 independence referendum. Since then Professor Robertson has continued to monitor, document and reveal the tricks used by BBC Scotland to manipulate news coverage to misinform and misdirect Scottish viewers.

On Sunday 3rd November Professor Robertson will be our special guest for a talk entitled “Distorting Scotland” where he will examine the BBC’s own coverage to show how its coverage of Scottish NHS issues is being used to wage a proxy war on the Scottish Government and Scottish independence. This will be followed by an audience question and answer session where you can put your questions directly to Professor Robertson.

The talk will take place in the One Wellwynd Centre, 35 Wellwynd, Airdrie, ML6 0BN from 12.30pm until 2.30pm. Admission is free, although donations towards the costs of the hall are welcome. There is car parking and disabled access available.

You can read some of Professor Robertson’s work at the following links:

Fairness in the First Year

Inform Scotland

Talking-Up Scotland

Twitter: @ProfJWR

I'd ask anyone who attends to ask him if BBC FOI requests to English health authorities are any different or less frequent than those to Scottish ones, and if they've published fewer per rata stories, positive or negative, from the results.

[jester]

21 hours ago, welshbairn said:

I'd ask anyone who attends to ask him if BBC FOI requests to English health authorities are any different or less frequent than those to Scottish ones, and if they've published fewer per rata stories, positive or negative, from the results.

That's a great point. I'll certainly ask him.

[jester]

On 12/10/2019 at 16:46, welshbairn said:

I'd ask anyone who attends to ask him if BBC FOI requests to English health authorities are any different or less frequent than those to Scottish ones, and if they've published fewer per rata stories, positive or negative, from the results.

Professor Robertson did say that was a great question, but it's one he hasn't explored. To be honest it would probably take a team of researchers a significant amount of time to gather the data required to come to a conclusion.

Wings has looked at Scottish FOI's in passing: https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-national-enquirers/

[welshbairn]

17 minutes ago, jester said:

Professor Robertson did say that was a great question, but it's one he hasn't explored. To be honest it would probably take a team of researchers a significant amount of time to gather the data required to come to a conclusion.

Wings has looked at Scottish FOI's in passing: https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-national-enquirers/

A brief search through the BBC news site made it pretty apparent to me that the BBC weren't specifically targeting Scottish Health Authorities, there were far more stories about English ones as a result of FOI requests, as you would expect if they were just sending them to every authority in the UK looking for news stories. Had a couple of posts about it at the beginning of the BBC bias thread. I asked on the indyref2.scot site linked on there (now a dead link) about it but no reply. Cheers for asking the question though! 

P.S. I note that Wings just points out an increase in FOI requests in Scotland, nothing about whether it's UK wide or not.

Edited November 8, 2019 by welshbairn

[jester]

3 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

A brief search through the BBC news site made it pretty apparent to me that the BBC weren't specifically targeting Scottish Health Authorities, there were far more stories about English ones as a result of FOI requests, as you would expect if they were just sending them to every authority in the UK looking for news stories. Had a couple of posts about it at the beginning of the BBC bias thread. I asked on the indyref2.scot site linked on there (now a dead link) about it but no reply. Cheers for asking the question though! 

It's not just in Scotland, and it's quite hard to actually put a figure on. In many cases (in fact probably all cases) the BBC researchers (or indeed any other reporters) will submit their requests directly to the Health Boards or Scottish Government and won't use platforms like "What Do They Know". This means that anything revealed in these requests is only made public to the requester, and any "scoop" is kept away from the eyes of their rivals until they are ready to release it themselves.

Some will be general fishing expeditions and others will be directly targeted to legally obtain information which an internal source is aware of but can't directly reveal without putting their identity or employment at risk. They can then ask a more specific question knowing that their FOI will bring a specific result.

So the only way really to ascertain how many FOI requests the BBC submitted would be, well, to ask the BBC!