The news thread

[Squirrelhumper]

On 9/29/2023 at 6:34 PM, aaid said:

Neil Oliver next?

Can only hope. 

[Och Aye]

We were discussing 'headline readers'. Wonder how many mugs were sucked in by this headline. Rate of inflation NOT food prices (it does explain that in the report). 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66981036

Edited October 3, 2023 by Och Aye

[Och Aye]

And this 🙄

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23829745.itv-claims-removal-scotrail-peak-rail-fares-funded-uk-government/?ref=fbm#comments-anchor

[Hertsscot]

There's a lot of trash in the media. I think it was the other day The Herald had a headline along the lines of 500,000 Scots in extreme poverty. I know I've said it before but you never get headlines like that in England Inserting 'Scots' into the headline gives the impression that it is only Scots specifically who are suffering.  Same with headlines about mortgages or inflation, inserting the word Scots implies that it is only Scots and these problems are not caused by the UK Government or affecting people elsewhere in the UK.

[Ally Bongo]

Birmingham to Manchester section of HS2 to be scrapped

[Hertsscot]

43 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Birmingham to Manchester section of HS2 to be scrapped

The sad thing is as much as a fiasco that HS2 undoubtedly is, the UK could do with a high speed rail line running north to south, linking to the Continent and we still won't have one! What a mess!

[Och Aye]

Bring back Dr Beecham

[vanderark14]

 

[vanderark14]

 

[PapofGlencoe]

15 hours ago, Hertsscot said:

There's a lot of trash in the media. I think it was the other day The Herald had a headline along the lines of 500,000 Scots in extreme poverty. I know I've said it before but you never get headlines like that in England Inserting 'Scots' into the headline gives the impression that it is only Scots specifically who are suffering.  Same with headlines about mortgages or inflation, inserting the word Scots implies that it is only Scots and these problems are not caused by the UK Government or affecting people elsewhere in the UK.

I don't agree here, to be honest.  They're a Scottish paper reporting on Scottish poverty.  Some of our greatest political minds have highlighted Scots' poverty when they needn't be like Maxton, Lee, Hardie and Salmond.  

It's a legitimate story and if a Scottish paper isn't going to highlight it, who is?

 

[Hertsscot]

23 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

 

I see Bowie's been peddling nonsense about 15 minute towns. Spreading conspiracy theories should be a stackable offence.

[aaid]

27 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

 

Good to see the BBC finally calling it out for what it is, lies. 

[Hertsscot]

1 minute ago, PapofGlencoe said:

I don't agree here, to be honest.  They're a Scottish paper reporting on Scottish poverty.  Some of our greatest political minds have highlighted Scots' poverty when they needn't be like Maxton, Lee, Hardie and Salmond.  

It's a legitimate story and if a Scottish paper isn't going to highlight it, who is?

 

I agree it is legitimate but it's the use of the word 'Scots' that is deliberate. If there's a hike in mortgage rates for instance it sounds like it's only Scots who are affected and not other people in the UK. The implication is that Scots are somehow getting worse treatment and the underlying assumption many have is it's the fault of the Scottish Government. It's the framing of UK wide problems as particularly Scottish.

[vanderark14]

4 minutes ago, Hertsscot said:

I see Bowie's been peddling nonsense about 15 minute towns. Spreading conspiracy theories should be a stackable offence.

They're taking plays straight out of trumps play book now

[PapofGlencoe]

11 minutes ago, Hertsscot said:

I agree it is legitimate but it's the use of the word 'Scots' that is deliberate. If there's a hike in mortgage rates for instance it sounds like it's only Scots who are affected and not other people in the UK. The implication is that Scots are somehow getting worse treatment and the underlying assumption many have is it's the fault of the Scottish Government. It's the framing of UK wide problems as particularly Scottish.

How else do you say 500,000 people are in relative poverty Scotland though?

[aaid]

19 minutes ago, PapofGlencoe said:

How else do you say 500,000 people are in relative poverty Scotland though?

Fewer than 10% of the population and with a definition of what relative poverty is, which is a household which has less the half the median income, which for Scotland is circa £28k.

So suddenly the story becomes fewer than 10% of the population of Scotland have household incomes of less than £14k, which is a very different story.

 

[PapofGlencoe]

14 minutes ago, aaid said:

Fewer than 10% of the population and with a definition of what relative poverty is, which is a household which has less the half the median income, which for Scotland is circa £28k.

So suddenly the story becomes fewer than 10% of the population of Scotland have household incomes of less than £14k, which is a very different story.

 

Sure but the point was about a newspaper headline and its use of "Scots".  Not an abstract from a dissertation on what relative poverty is, though.

Just for awareness, I don't think it's half for relative poverty.  It's two thirds.  Half is extreme poverty or some other baromoter.

Also I still think it's pretty crappy 1 in 10 are in this extreme poverty and more in relative.  It's a legit story.  In fact the 14k makes it worse as it's not Swiss levels of average pay we're talking about.. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66982168

edited in figures from BBC.  It's 500,000 in "very deep" poverty.. a la the 14k..that's appalling by the way if that figure is correct.. it's a fifth in relative poverty (1m).  And the 500k has gone up 300k in a year.

Edited October 4, 2023 by PapofGlencoe

[vanderark14]

The Backham documentary is headline news down in englandshire 🤮🤮.

Apparently he cries when talking about the incident where he got sent off at the world cup

 

 

[Hertsscot]

3 minutes ago, PapofGlencoe said:

Sure but the point was about a newspaper headline and its use of "Scots".  Not an abstract from a dissertation on what relative poverty is, though.

Just for awareness, I don't think it's half for relative poverty.  It's two thirds.  Half is extreme poverty or some other baromoter.

Also I still think it's pretty crappy 1 in 10 are in this extreme poverty and more in relative.  It's a legit story.  In fact the 14k makes it worse as it's not Swiss levels of average pay we're talking about.. 

Not disagreeing that it's a legitimate story nor that it's not a pretty crappy situation I also accept sometimes the use of Scots or Scottish in headlines is appropriate. I'm just saying that often the way the headlines are written suggest that some problems are exclusive to Scotland and the implication is it's exclusively the fault of the Scottish Government. By comparison you never get headlines down south saying, 'English families hit by interest rate hike', '3 million English children in poverty'. The word English or England never occurs in headlines down south unless they're reporting on sport. 

[Orraloon]

The term "relative poverty" by definition means that we will always have a sizeable portion of the population living in "relative poverty". That's got nothing to with politics, it's just basic arithmetic.

I would like the news articles to tell me if relative poverty is higher in Scotland than in England? Without looking it up, can anybody posting on here, tell me the answer to that? If not, then it's clear to me that this sort of reporting is obviously biased. 

They should also be forced to include definitions in their reports to tell us what they mean by "poverty". They almost always leave out the word "relative" even though they are usually talking about "relative poverty". They also never tell us if they are including, or excluding, housing costs in their definition. The whole poverty discussion is centred around definitions. A lot of folk who are included in these statistics don't even realise that they have been classified as living in poverty, because they don't feel as if the are poor. 

[PapofGlencoe]

15 minutes ago, Hertsscot said:

Not disagreeing that it's a legitimate story nor that it's not a pretty crappy situation I also accept sometimes the use of Scots or Scottish in headlines is appropriate. I'm just saying that often the way the headlines are written suggest that some problems are exclusive to Scotland and the implication is it's exclusively the fault of the Scottish Government. By comparison you never get headlines down south saying, 'English families hit by interest rate hike', '3 million English children in poverty'. The word English or England never occurs in headlines down south unless they're reporting on sport. 

I know what you're saying but I disagree on this particular one.  I think people can make up their own mind; I don't think people, on the whole, blame the Scottish government in particular any more than they should for that particular problem.

I honestly thought the 500k on our levels of average pay had to be relative rather than deep poverty as it was so high.  That 300k increase in a year is objectively worrying.

When the opposite end of the story comes out.. the Daily Mail's "only 14k people pay a quarter of Scotland's tax" or some other gibberish, I agree with you.  It's to make us look poor collectively in a different light.

[aaid]

1 hour ago, PapofGlencoe said:

Sure but the point was about a newspaper headline and its use of "Scots".  Not an abstract from a dissertation on what relative poverty is, though.

Just for awareness, I don't think it's half for relative poverty.  It's two thirds.  Half is extreme poverty or some other baromoter.

Also I still think it's pretty crappy 1 in 10 are in this extreme poverty and more in relative.  It's a legit story.  In fact the 14k makes it worse as it's not Swiss levels of average pay we're talking about.. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66982168

edited in figures from BBC.  It's 500,000 in "very deep" poverty.. a la the 14k..that's appalling by the way if that figure is correct.. it's a fifth in relative poverty (1m).  And the 500k has gone up 300k in a year.

What’s the definition of “very deep poverty” then?  

Relative poverty is 50%

Quote

Relative poverty is when households receive 50% less than average household incomes. So they do have some money but still not enough money to afford anything above the basics. This type of poverty is, on the other hand, changeable depending on the economic growth of the country.

Anyone that’s not the point, the point is that depending on your viewpoint it’s entirely possible to write the same story from either a positive or a negative perspective depending on the language used.   Scottish journalists, and Tom Gordon in particular always take the negative view. 

[PapofGlencoe]

1 hour ago, aaid said:

What’s the definition of “very deep poverty” then?  

Relative poverty is 50%

Anyone that’s not the point, the point is that depending on your viewpoint it’s entirely possible to write the same story from either a positive or a negative perspective depending on the language used.   Scottish journalists, and Tom Gordon in particular always take the negative view. 

Never heard of it being half, must be a new definition by some organisations- government use 60%.  It's in the bbc link in my previous post - it's 500k in the worse cohort of 40% of median income.  1m in relative.  Seem to use 60, 50 and 40 in the report.

My point was it was legitimate headline as is the BBC's.

  

Edited October 4, 2023 by PapofGlencoe

[Orraloon]

1 hour ago, aaid said:

Relative poverty is 50%

 

I think the SG use 60% of UK median income for the most recent year for most of their reporting. 

Absolute poverty is defined as below 60% of 2010 income.

I've no idea why they pick these seemingly arbitrary numbers.

It's much easier to be "poor" nowadays than it was few decades ago.  😉 🤣

Edited October 4, 2023 by Orraloon

[PapofGlencoe]

13 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

I think the SG use 60% of UK median income for the most recent year for most of their reporting. 

Absolute poverty is defined as below 60% of 2010 income.

I've no idea why they pick these seemingly arbitrary numbers.

It's much easier to be "poor" nowadays than it was few decades ago.  😉 🤣

i take it your on 60% of the median income? "easy" is it?