Janey Godley apologises over ‘deeply hurtful’ tweets as it emerges she’s being paid £12k by taxpayers for Covid campaign – The Sun

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AN SNP-backing comic has made a grovelling apology over highly offensive tweets as it emerged she’s being paid £12,000 by taxpayers for a Covid social media campaign.

Janey Godley apologised for Twitter jokes using terms with language that mocks disabled people – including “spazzy” – after her lucrative deal with the Scottish Government sparked anger online.

The use of Ms Godley to front a pandemic health push also prompted controversy as she is seen as a “divisive” figure due to being a strident pro-indy political activist who has been involved in multiple online spats.

Critics also pointed to past tweets from Ms Godley where she made jokes using the word “mongo” and used “Chernobyl” repeatedly as an insult.

After her agent was approached by The Scottish Sun about the criticism, Ms Godley issued a statement on Wednesday – also posted online – where she apologised for past comments, but insisted some were faked.

The Scottish Government said Ms Godley was being paid £10,000 plus VAT for her work on a “multi-channel campaign” urging people to “stop the spike”.

In one 30-second ad posted on the Scottish Government’s official Twitter with the hashtag #StopTheSpike, Ms Godley appeals to Scots to do twice-weekly lateral flow tests.

The comedian says: “That’s Covid cases rising again, and we cannae just let this virus run riot like your gran in the supermarket reduced section.

To see how Scotland has changed under the SNP, click here: https://www.scotlandmatters.co.uk/category/scotland-under-the-snp/

Scotland’s swamped contact tracers told to stop ringing people with Covid if two calls ring out amid virus surge – The Sun

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SWAMPED contact tracers are being told to stop chasing Covid-positive Scots if two calls ring out in four hours.

Backlogs caused by the recent virus spike, coupled with staff shortages, are pushing Scotland’s Test and Protect system to breaking point, according to one insider.

The whistleblower says the system is overwhelmed by surging infection rates, adding: “Cases are closed after two attempts.”

They say staff are now only able to do the “bare minimum” by ringing people with the bug twice before giving up and moving on.

And they told how — with new cases topping 7,000 last Sunday — flowcharts and scripts used by call handlers had been changed to get through jobs faster.

The insider claimed most positive cases in their late teens or early 20s who were successfully reached had been in a nightclub since venues reopened on August 9.

And they revealed “burnt out” workers are increasingly frustrated with the Scottish Government’s handling of the crisis.

Critics have demanded an overhaul of the contact tracing system amid claims it is “running on fumes”.

Alarm as one in eight Scots teachers in temporary jobs, according to new figures – The Sun

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ONE in eight Scots teachers is now in temporary posts, new figures reveal.

Some 6,259 out of 52,672 teachers were not on full-time contracts in 2020, as the 12 per cent tally was up from eight per cent reported in 2006.

Ministers faced calls to end the “damaging overuse” of “zero-hours” supply contracts after the stats emerged in a parly written question by Tory MSP Stephen Kerr.

He said: “It’s vital that young people have permanent teachers.

“We should not be asking teachers to plug gaps in our system by taking temporary jobs, leaving them unable to plan long term or get a mortgage.

Humza Yousaf’s claim A&E not in crisis is latest sign of underachieving SNP being able to ride out failures – The Sun

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Alba’s Kenny MacAskill calls on cops to intervene if LNER doesn’t observe Scottish social distancing rules – The Sun

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Nearly two-thirds of Covid self-isolation support grant applications by Scots rejected – The Sun

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