The smear wars
“Better Together” chairman Alistair Darling is in today’s Telegraph, yet again demanding that people should be prevented from expressing opinions on the internet, unless those opinions are supportive of the Union. In Mr Darling’s world, businessmen should be permitted to try to frighten their employees into voting No with mad, untrue rants and veiled threats that they’d be voting themselves onto the dole, but anyone responding to the threat with “Shut up, grandad” must be censored and silenced.
So far, so ho hum – if Unionist politicians are whining about “cybernats”, there must be a Y in the day, is the general rule. But as we can see above, the former Chancellor wasn’t the only Labour MP bleating about terrible Nat bully boys today.
The tweet above was posted this morning by Ian Murray, the Labour MP for Edinburgh South. Requests by several people to Mr Murray to clarify how he knew that “Yes supporters” were responsible for the alleged vandalism of his office went unanswered.
(In fairness, a tragic fatal accident in the constituency may have occupied his time, although almost two hours went by between the initial tweet, the requests for proof and the news that the female pupil at Liberton High School had died.)
So some of our alert readers who live near his office went round for a look.
The only visible damage appears at first to comprise some indecipherable random graffiti scrawls, but on close examination of the last two pics it seems to be clearly possible to make out the letters “OE” in multiple locations.
(You may have to look quite hard to see them, so we’ve highlighted them below.)
If you do a bit of contextual Googling (say, “OE edinburgh graffiti”) you quickly come up with this Scotsman article from a few years ago:
Probe a little further and you’ll find this in the same paper:
You can also turn up some surprisingly detailed academic research into the gangs.
Now, we don’t profess ourselves experts on the Edinburgh middle-class graffiti scene. But it doesn’t seem to require a particularly great leap of the imagination to posit that the damage done to Mr Murray’s office – located towards the north of his constituency, which encompasses the territory of “DKM”, and which we’ve marked with a wee RAF symbol near top centre on the map below (click to enlarge) – seems rather more likely to have been the result of a “turf war” than a political attack.
We’re sure that when Mr Murray realises his honest error and gets a moment to attend to his Twitter account, he’ll be quick to retract the defamatory, inflammatory allegation that the minor cosmetic damage done to his door was part of a disgraceful campaign of cybernat terror. He has, after all, been Edinburgh South MP for almost four years, and we presume must be aware of such issues.
No, really, we’re all but positive he will.
We are, of course, using that word in its “case for the Union” sense.
Now that is quality debunking!
He is a mouth piece at anytime, guess he might be a bit quieter tonight !
I saw the photos of his front door on his tweet & for the life of me couldn’t figure out what he was complaining about with regard to “cybernat vandalism”.
It just looked like old, faded graffiti one might find on dozens of pub doors for example.
Yes, it’s unacceptable to damage other people’s property & the hooligans, if caught should be dealt with accordingly.
But to claim that this year old vandalism is the work of “evil cybernat’s” is opportunistic if not downright blatant lies.
But then again, a lot of folks connected with Better Together have built up quite the track record of telling fibs.
Unionists caught lying again, nothing changes.
Or perhaps he was just attempting to humorously recognise the date. Great work Stu, it’s what we pay you for.
Looks like a groundless allegation when presented with the evidence.
Owned Ian Murray.
The usual piece of superlative WOS journalism, aided by its nationwide network of grassroots fact inspectors.
What I don’t understand is how he can claim that he thought it was Yes supporters in the first place? I mean, there’s absolutely nothing to suggest it was. And I’m almost certain he didn’t really think it was.
Perhaps K Milligan in the shop next door (phone no. on window)would know just how old the graffiti was, it certainly doesn’t look fresh.
It all just shows how low unionists like Flipper Darling, the Torygraph etc are willing to stoop and how much they hate free speech which is quite creepy too.
Excellent
Most likely to be Virtual Cybernats as the real ones never venture out of their gloomy bedsits.
The police would probably know the date the graffiti appeared on Iain Murray’s office doors. So would the property owners and of course the locals. Let’s pin down a date.
At first I thought that it said QE and that it might be the work of Mr Darling.
The man has no shame. Some little scroat tags his office doors and he turns it into a slur against his political foes. What a charmer. Westminster style democracy in action.
It’s good that Mr Murray says “I can take personal abuse”.
Having tried to frame members of the upstanding Cybernat community with charges of out-of-control door-scratching, he has rather set himself up as a target.
Just sayin’
Maybe he could do with booking himself a holiday.
Are any firms out there looking for business these days?
There is also a good chance this could be football related.Ian Murray is chairman of the FOH whom are trying to bye Heart of Midlothian and take them out of administration.On sunday Heart of Midlothian beat there local rivals Hibs,whom where not best pleased and funny enough a large amount of the Hibs fan base is from the Niddre area
My take on this – Dr Robert Langdon of Da Vinci Code fame has been called in
link to logicsrock.blogspot.co.uk
Perhaps a generous assessment may be that after voting for Tory benefit caps, Murray just assumes everyone in Edinburgh South is now a Yes supporter?
Yes, well, the SNP do ‘own Edinburgh’ these days, or at least all but one of the Holyrood constituencies, so you can see where he’s coming from…
He should be thoroughly ashamed of the state of that letterbox.
The vandalism is linked to a computer game.
Many cybernats play computer games
Almost all cyvernats have a computer
The Operational Controller of the Cybernats was a video-game journalist.
QED this vandalism was done at the behest if Cybernat Central Control
Over Egging?
That OE stuff is artless keich is it not? Banksie need not consider retirement yet.
Murray is a disgrace though. I think we may have questioned the veracity of his statements before.
OE, YOUTS, MATE and NSA are all tags used by multiple users in Edinburgh.
There is one I’m sure, is a Nat though.
Goes by the name of WINSTON…
Aye, no wonder they call us “cybernats”, it’s out of shear fury and anger that ” they” can NO LONGER get away with the lies and distortion ,where there was no one to hold them to account.
Now “we” have the likes of the Rev and followers to debunk their distortions.
Yet strangely it was Ruth Davidson who said of Alex Salmond
“If he was caught spraying graffiti, he’d blame the wall.”
yea great bit of debunking the lies now what about PUTIN and all the bombs and bullets hes supplying to kill the hungry women and children of Syria? when are we going to see the proof of that?
They just invent this stuff in their heads and work themselves up into a frenzy.Only the gullible and impressionable join in.
Here’s something odd. Look at these doors on Google Maps, image dated August 2012.
link to maps.google.co.uk,,3,4.1
I went looking simply because Stu’s little RAF symbol isn’t in quite the right place – I drive past there quite often and I knew the office was on the A701. Corner of West Mayfield and Minto Street.
When I found the right corner, the state of the doors looked rather familiar. If these aren’t the same graffiti, they’re a very close copy. I think G. H. Graham above is right. That’s old damage, poorly painted over with paint that has itself faded a bit.
What Stu has pictured has been there for over 18 months, probably longer. It’s not something that happened yesterday.
simple deflection.. no have had a bad week so let’s turn the argument back to the nasty cybernats. If they’d just be honest and come out and say we have nothing to offer but more of the same..
What about the vandalism the blue and red Tories have and will continue to inflict on society?
Which raises two questions.
First, if he’s so unconcerned about scrawls all over his door that he leaves the damage unrepaired for over 18 months (remember the whole broken windows thing in New York), then why is he so upset about something that allegedly happened yesterday?
Second, since these marks weren’t made yesterday, where is this alleged “Yes supporters” damage?
you see i think if you want to be a political site and you want to dabble in other countrys politics you should deal in FACTS,i thought you were here to enlighten us no slag off other goverments who are being over run by mercaneries paid for by a criminal cabal.
Annie – I quite agree and just look at those weeds round the edge of the building, a disgrace.
Morag
Excellent stuff. Oh dear!
“OE”= Over Exaggerated.
Don’t think Hibs fans would damage green doors!
Labour nobodies like Murray never apologise for smears.
Maybe he is trying to generate a self fulfilling prophecy. There is no Yes vandalism so someone might provide some so he can say say see there is some.
I would ignore him myself.
RogueCoder
Hope you saw my admission of temporary drooling-nes the other night.
It also gives the lie to any claim that the Yes vandalism was repaired super-quick. There’s damage visible there that’s very old. Doesn’t seem likely he would leave that, but rush out and invisibly repair something that happened yesterday.
So where is the damage that happened yesterday?
Perhaps this alleged “new” graffiti is actually OLD graffiti that he is using to try and deflect attention away from his membership of Labour’s Dirty Thirty. Labour’s Dirty Thirty being of course the 30 Labour M.P.’s who voted hand in hand with the Tories to set a Benefit cap last week. It just so happens that he has some graffiti on his office door, an upcoming independence referendum and was caught with his hands in the Tory cookie jar last week. So quite naturally he will seek to deflect whatever blame he can from himself for letting down the poor of his constituency and push the blame onto YES for the graffiti. The man is a disgrace!
Superb piece of detective work, Rev Stu. You really are amazing, no matter what they throw at us you instantly find a way to debunk or refute it.
That was dreadful news about the Liberton school girl, the wee soul was only 12. Her poor family will be devastated.
He must’ve known about this for ages – it looks like very old graffiti – and none of it says anything remotely YES orientated – I’ll not be holding my breath waiting on an apology though – or details of this to come out on the news!
This obvious and disgusting smear is a truthful expression of the bettertogether campaigns political philosophy. And they clearly think its a winner. That is why they are so brazen about, and why they think, they’ll never be hostages to fortune because of it.
Its clear that the utter lack of any credible, reasonable and honest message in defence of the union, enables this sort of wretched dishonesty.
There is just no way their Union can survive the hatchet job they’ve inflicted. They even parrot the utter nonsense from Osborne, that paints Scotland as a subsidy junky, that’s been living off the fruits of the Hard working UK for the last 300 years. What they are campaigning for in the end, is the sense of entitlement they have to this UK bounty, never for one minute caring what this casual dishonesty has sown in the minds of the other half of this union: England. The have cheerfully painted us as a nation of dependants and skivers, knowing that it is a lie.
I have lost all respect for this campaign and the those who run it. It’s just bullshit, utter bullshit.
These idiots think their shit don’t stink. They really think they have nothing to answer for. They think they pissing in the well of public debate. What they’re really doing is pissing on their own Union.
But here is the real mind-twister in all this. When they lose, these same two-faced liars, will present themselves for high office in an independent Scotland, as if the last 3 years never happened. I am tired of these liars pretending to be something they’re not.
But… those look like sellotape marks on the doors – maybe someone stuck a poster on the door and ruined the graffiti of which he’s rather fond?
The damage appears at first to comprise some indecipherable random scrawls
Marks of the bloody devil more like. Abandon all hope ye who enter here…
fairiefromtheearth
I’ve been through the same learning curve (no dig meant). I won’t even approach certain subjects as I know, although relevant, my comment will not be accepted. Best remember, you’ve been there, and mind no scare the horses.
Murray bought that office from Nige Griffiths. Who used an inheritance from his father to buy it outright while continuing to claim rent allowance expenses. Why he is not in prison is anybodies (bent unionist labour mafia) guess.
Murray is a lying pig and the sooner he is removed from anything to do with HMFC the better!
When does supposition become lying for political gain? If he has deliberately lied, e.g. because the graffiti was there for yonks or there was no proof it was yes supporters, he should resign.
Morag, excellent stuff, it looks the same to me, and MUST have been a while ago for to be on Google maps, which are not current.
Brilliant piece of work Rev, highly impressed…
This is precisely why WoS is such a valuable site.
So when/if this story gets spread, we can debunk it with evidence.
If this guy tries to continue with this claim we can call him what he is – a liar.
What a jerk! And on that subject …
Let me tell you, the graffiti is as nothing to the oodles of dog poo and urine deposited at his doors and windows, daily, none from intoxicated or incontinent cybernats.
Dogs have a pronounced sense of smell for acrid odour.
Ian Murray, MP, can only add to it –
– squirrel!
@Morag – well spotted.
Zooming in, there is “copyright Google 2013” watermark on the image, in fact there are many.
They are getting so bad, I can just visualise McDougal pulling on a balaclava and lifting his tin of yellow paint, very late at night of course!
chris says:
When does supposition become lying for political gain? If he has deliberately lied, e.g. because the graffiti was there for yonks or there was no proof it was yes supporters, he should resign.
He should chris but remember he is a LABOUR M.P. and Labour M.P.’s have no idea what the word resign means. Other people resign but Labour M.P.’s are in it till they are kicked out by the electorate which in certain areas will never happen unfortunately.
Oh Dear – standards in graffiti are dropping…
TONGS YA BASS
Paula, what I think you’re calling “sellotape marks” are also visible on the Google Streetview image.
It’s fairly clear that the door was vandalised some considerable time ago, and the damage roughly and inexpertly painted over with an inadequate coat of paint that wasn’t the right shade of green. The only change between the Google view and today’s photos is that the overpainting has faded further, leaving the graffiti more visible than they were in 2012.
This doesn’t speak to an MP with pride in his “shop front” or his neighbourhood. And since there’s no sign in today’s photos of any fresh damage, it also speaks of an MP who may be telling porkie pies.
Just looked on Google street view – same old grafitti can be seen – street view pic could’ve been years ago.
I wonder if he is submitting an insurance claim? He should be covered for criminal damage and have an incident number.
Important to get the date correct – you know what these insurance companies are like.
O/T Latest betting odds.
55% and over outcome in the referendum is now down to 11/2.
I put £100 on at 6/1 in Ladbrokes today but it has went down again to 11/2.
Thought I would let you know just in case you were going to have a flutter on the 55% and over bet.
On Sunday, you were getting 7/1 for the same bet.
KABOOM!
haha… bang to rights!
I’ve just noticed from image 1 the cybernats have also panned in a few windows in the upper storey, and also vandalised the pavement which has needed traffic cones to alert the public to the dangerous consequences of YES splittist behaviour.
Or am I reading too much into things?
“QED this vandalism was done at the behest if Cybernat Central Control”
By a guy called Erchie, O!?
Well done, Stu, another lying and pathetic Better Together-ist’s smear eviscerated and hung out to dry.
(By the way, do not be surprised if some faction of Better Together takes this article and twists it, using the tragic death of the schoolgirl in Murray’s constituency, and gets their friends in the media to cite evidence of cybernats being evil, or whatever the term de jour is. It’s the kind of thing they do, after all.)
Xander, on my computer the view of his door carries the caption “image date August 2012” in clear at the bottom left-hand corner.
So where’s “last night’s” damage?
@Morag, more excellent detective work, how riveting. The most recent culprit must have written their YES graffiti with yoghurt as it was cleaned away so quickly and easily without damaging the existing graffiti. It is the only explanation.
Why would you tweet about vandalism that supposedly happened “last night” when there’s no such vandalism visible but there is evidence of very old vandalism you’ve never bothered to have properly fixed?
Surely he can’t have been intending to pretend the “OE” graffiti were something that only just happened?
Did he make an allegation to the police. If so and he’s lied then he can be charged at the least with wwasting police time but also this could amount to attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Good job it wisnae Kezia or she would have been pictured in the Heil outside the door wae her face like a constipated kipper pointing at the graffiti saying evil cybernats did this to me..sob sob
@john king
Not for me to identify CyberControl!
I don’t want the control implants to detonate!
@Morag – is you surname Marple by ony chance?
People like Murray are beneath contempt. he’s an out and out liar.I so hope he gets his jotters on the 18th September which is what really frightens them.
I hope he hasn’t wasted police time. And if he didn’t report it, why not?
Ladbrokes now down to 11/2 for over 55%.
Looks like they were taking some money at 7/1.
Morag, Indeed, where is the new damage?
I wasn’t disputing your date btw, but for some reason I can’t see the image date on my pc, but I could see the watermark in the image itself. As I said, well spotted.
So I take it he phoned the police last night who caught the culprits in the act? They must have been wearing yes vests and carrying yes bags as an MP wouldn’t tweet blatant lies. Oh, wait, it’s a Labour MP
Elementary dear Morag.
I think I’ve worked out who the graffiti artist is.. it’s none other than our (legally elected by majority) first minister, ye know.. ‘Oor Eck’ out doing a bit of advertisational overtime for Scotland.
What’s your next smear Better Together, because every spin ball that you now throw at Scotland is just gonna get hit-for-six out of the park. You see, we can see the ball coming before you launch it at us.
Howsabout RUKOK / FUKOK (these may be followed by a ? or ! or both).
@James Morton (8.30 pm)
Terrific comment there, James. I could feel your anger as I read it.
Its clear that the utter lack of any credible, reasonable and honest message in defence of the union, enables this sort of wretched dishonesty.
Correct – absolutely and totally!
If you look at the Yahoo maps and Google Earth photos there are 2 CCTV cameras fixed to the building. Perhaps Mr Murray would be kind and let us see the CCTV footage for the past week?
rab_the_doubter says:
Did he make an allegation to the police. If so and he’s lied then he can be charged at the least with wasting police time but also this could amount to attempting to pervert the course of justice.
More to the point rab, if he did NOT make a complaint to the police then why NOT?
Surely if his *ahem* claim is to be taken seriously then he must have reported it to the police.If not then why not, after all he seems deeply concerned about it in his twitter account doesn’t he?
I’m assuming he did NOT report this “crime” because, like us, he knows it is OLD graffiti and he’d be laughed out the police station.
Once a LIAR always a LIAR!
Morag
Well done. Excellent detective work.
Shows Murray up as a shameless liar.
There may be bigger Gleiwitz incidents to come…
link to en.wikipedia.org
Xander, I see the watermark now. My observations in respect of other images on Google Streetview suggest that these “image date” notations are right. I think the 2013 bit is an old copyright mark that has perhaps been superseded by the subscript which says (c) 2014 Google as well as Image Date August 2012.
I always knew the corresponding image of my house was taken in March 2009, but it’s only recently that (correct) date has appeared in the subscript.
Maybe it depends on your browser?
Awesome detective work by all concerned. Should make for a nice campaign leaflet at the next by election…
Surely he would have reported it to the police, so you would expect a police report regarding the damage…what it wasn’t reported. Next!
O/T
Just read this on BBC ’10 April fools that look like pranks but arent’. link to bbc.com
Seems Morris Dancing is also a Scottish Folk Dance:
“A man lost over 14st (196lb, 90kg) using morris dancing. Richard Landon had reached a weight of 28st 2lb thanks to excess pies and alcohol. But his rapid weight loss coincided with taking up traditional British folk dancing.”
Personally, I think its the biggest insult of the day.
If OE have been on the go for a few years you’d think they’d be a bit better at graffiti by now.I don’t think these examples of their work will make thousands at auction anytime soon.
Or maybe Mr Murray thinks OE stands for Old Etonian and his strong links with the Tories have caused anger among the natives.
Maybe it wasn’t the graffiti?
On google maps (nice one Morag Poirot!), the window on the east face next to the grey door has lots of leaflets or whatever posted on the inside of it. In the photo’s posted here, it’s totally clear. Maybe new glass?
Also, there are traffic cones in front of it. Some torn. Used to smash a window? Or maybe they were put there to stop people approaching the broken window glass / repairs and have since been moved / knocked over by cars? I see no sign of roadworks although maybe the pavement is damaged a little? Why 4 cones anyway…
Even if that was the case – i.e. a broken window – no indication it was anything other than some common or garden vandals.
Not that I am endorsing grafiti but a street gang from Dundee, called the Hill Town Huns (for the non-Scots readers
), managed to tage the entrance to King’s Cross underground (pre-fire), expressing sentiments similar to those offered by Dr JM Mackintosh.
I wonder if anyone saw it?
Erchie says
“I don’t want the control implants to detonate!”
OOH MESSY
Note that there appear to be cctv cameras covering both windows,no doubt those dastardly no good yesers will soon be apprehended.
Mind you in the asence of knowing what form said vandalisation took it COULD be something easily washed off or internal even.
Is this the start of the false flag ops?
I fear that the level of BT BS is only going to get deeper. Lets make sure all these incidents are catalogued, would make a really good handout to undecideds in the final weeks along the lines of ‘They’ve lied about these events’ why would you trust them to tell the truth about our future?
Mibbe Mr Murray has left the graffiti so long that he has grown used to it… and completely forgotten about it’s existence. He’s mibbe doing one over a 3 cm diameter yes badge or some such trifle that has been peeled off this morning whilst forgetting that his office has put up with some dickhead’s tags for 2+ years.
If he had any proof whatsoever it was Yes supporters he would surely have tweeted a picture, no? Unless it was something so trivial as to be laughable on a building showing obvious signs of vandalism.
What a crock of shite. Retraction please!
Re: the poor wee girl, Keane Grace Wallis-Bennett, who was killed this morning by a falling wall at Liberton High School; whilst it’s too early to say what happened, I will personally bet they’ll find that the wall in question was single brick held together with little more than sand.
When I was at school some 25 years ago I spent a summer labouring on a building site where the first thing I was taught was how to properly mix aggregates for cement, concrete, plaster etc. The ratios are important for the chemical reaction that takes place between the cement and particulates (that’s sand and gravel) when the mortar starts to “go off” (cure) and bonds into a solid structure.
When I returned to school I noticed that the walls in the changing rooms for our gym were held together by mortar so week you could push your finger through it. The cheap green paint on the outside was more structural than the mortar! One shody builder? Maybe, but as I was on the rugby team and visited a lot of schools in the Borders and Edinburgh I noticed that almost all the gym changing rooms had the same flawed construction.
Why? Because sand is much, much cheaper than cement.
It’s even cheaper if you scrape it off Portobollo beach, which accounts for why our school changing room walls leached salt after a couple of months, further weakening the structure.
Common brick wall mortar (as I recall) should have a ratio of about 5:1 – that is, five parts sand/particulates to 1 part cement. I actually watched some guys working on my school and worked out they were using about 30 to 1.
What it boiled down to – I believe – was that they had taken the cheapest quote that they could get. I don’t know if it was the same contractor, but it appeared to be common practice.
This appears to have been a common problem with schools build in the 60’s to 80’s in Scotland. The schools were built by large contractors to exacting (if ugly) standards, but frequent remodeling of facilities like changing rooms and toilets was carried out by local low cost firms. The dividing walls in changing rooms and showers were not considered to be load bearing, so they probably didn’t bother about structural strength.
At the time I complained to the headmaster and got a clip round the ear and told not to be “so stupid” for my trouble. I even sought out my local councilor, and got a standard fob-off reply in response.
In my opinion, this was a tragedy waiting to happen.
My heart goes out to wee Keane’s family. They have my deepest sympathies.
We need to ensure that our schools are properly funded so that the facilities are properly and safely maintained. No parent should ever be afraid to send their child to school, and no child should ever be put at risk by penny-pinching.
So this is OLD graffiti.
What does that say about Ian Murray?
Mealer
You try expressing emotion with a Yale key.
Well done Stu! Well done Morag! Murray has been rumbled by Google street view. BT are getting accustomed to being caught out lying. I suppose it’s expecting too much that any of our “mainstream” media should take an interest in this extraordinaryily hamfisted attempt to slander the Yes campaign?
First class bit of debunking there.
Nothing like having a few pics to help things along.
Scottish Skier, there’s no indication that window has been recently replaced. The display in the 2012 image seems to be pictures of councillors, maybe related to the local elections earlier that year. No reason it would still be there in 2014.
There are traffic cones there, but they look as if they might be related to a damaged pavement surface. They look damaged themselves, as if even they have been there for some time.
I will be driving down that road tomorrow evening about half past seven, on my way to choir practice. If I remember I’ll try to see whether there’s any sign of recent damage or a recent repair.
Apropos of nothing…
The best ‘graffiti’ I have seen in Edinburgh was on the bypass after 0-1 Scotland in the Stade de Paris, 2007.
‘McFadden for PM’ I believe it was, on the bridge over the bypass at Baberton
OE = ‘ooh-er!’
RogueCoder
I once worked on a prominent publicly accessible building and poured a supporting beam that was structurally unsound, IMO. We had not been provided with an electric winch, so all the concrete had to be lifted manually. As you might image, the mix was blown before we had finished. As a result, the supposedly reinforced concrete was full of air hols. The Clerk of Works did do his best to fill these with rags before giving his nod of approval.
Grrrr.
Wonder if there’s any CCTV footage on the green door?
Well done, Stu and Morag. Of course there won’t be any retraction from Murray. How many times has a unionist politician been caught lying? It comes naturally to them.
First stages of False Flag perhaps?
There’s an old SLab MP and he’s talking shite behind the green doooooor..copyright Shaky
Over-egged.
Scottish Skier, there’s no indication that window has been recently replaced.
I agree. Would be obvious up close if it is new glass. The window is the only one not frosted which made me think it was designed for posting stuff up on for people to read when passing. The ‘main’ street being chosen for this.
I’m not doubting Murray is smearing BTW. I’m just astounded that someone might completely make up an act of vandalism or use a years old one for a smear (graffiti). I first wondered if someone had posted a turd through the letterbox then saw your google map link and thought ‘window?’.
Agreed on the traffic cones and damage suggesting they’ve more likely been there for some time. However, cones can be damaged minutes after being placed. It’s just the probability of damage grows with time. The pavement is slabbed. One or two broken slabs requires 4 cones? Maybe with the council…
Anyway, presumably the police have been informed and Murray has told them who he believed has carried out this mysterious act of heinous vandalism that people can’t actually see.
FAO scottish_skier: I also walked past Murray’s office after reading his claim. The traffic-cones are doing nothing other than guarding a long-standing council-pavement botch job. And if a window had been put in we’d have heard all about it – cybernat kristallnacht no less. So the questions remain…
a) the door graffiti is now proven to be old – so that can’t be the basis of Murrays claim
b) the graffiti itself is gang culture stuff – again that doesn’t support Murrays “Yes” claim
c) there is no description, verbal or photographic, from Murray as to the nature of the “vandalism” – why not ?
d) has he reported this vandalism to the police – and if not, why not ?
The only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence presented, is that his claim simply isn’t true. All we do know is that its an area where the “OE” crew has been active, and that they’re responsible for the only visible damage to the fabric of Murray’s office. We await Murrays apology for talking shite and retraction of false accusations. Don’t lets hold our breath on that score.
Is it not possible it was something else they cleared up?
I did see that tweet earlier on and wondered why he didn’t attach a photo to prove his point. (These Labour people should have clocked by now that they need to back up claims with evidence).
However, the poor sowl might have had a bad day – a local tragedy at Liberton and his beloved Hearts nearing extinction.
I’m positive he’ll come clean.
Serendipity. If Stu hadn’t got the “RAF symbol” slightly too far to the south-west, I probably wouldn’t have thought of looking. I checked Google Streetview to check my memory that the office was actually on a corner of the A701 (the red road to the east of where Stu placed his marker). I wasn’t looking to see if I could see the graffiti.
But once I’d found it, I zoomed in on the doors, and there it was! Old damage. Very old damage I think. I’ll have a snoop tomorrow and see if there’s any sign of any recent repair.
Paul MI also walked past Murray’s office after reading his claim.
Thanks.
All I have are the photos and google. Jeez, at least a smashed windae would be something you could shout about (and try to imply someone was responsible for).
I’m obviously too logical to get into the mind of unionist Labour MPs.
Rev, wee typo. The link for Darlings Telegraph story goes to Twitter as well.
@Morag,
and Stu
Another labour liar found out.
Brilliant.
It just shows how much respect this botton has for his constituents – even if he paid a decent decorator to strip those old doors and give them a lick of good quality paint, he’d be able to claim it all back as expenses, right?
Announcing it was vandalism by local hooray Henries offers no perceived status.
Claiming it an attack perpetrated by cybernats implies you are a person of political importance.
Ian Murray should apologise right now. This type of behaviour is about as low as you can go.
What type of person would sink to this level of press manipulation to further a political cause.
Seems Mr Murray should have taken up the offer on his window and popped in for some ” advice sessions every Monday & Friday ” on “Lying, Bullshitting and how to get away with it “
An so it comes.
1 Hour ago in the DT
Cybernats ‘shame Scotland’ and must be stopped, Alistair Darling says
link to archive.is
They don’t like it up them Captain!
Well spotted, Morag. Updated: Mulder and Scully have now been called in to help Dr Robert Langdon
link to logicsrock.blogspot.co.uk
Surely it’s the non-matching window rather than the years-old graffiti?
The ‘it was yes supporters’ accusation is pretty serious and demands attention, but let’s not jump to conclusions about what’s actually being alleged.
Citizen journalism showing the MSM up in all of its naked bias.
Kind of what I was thinking. He could give a bit of work to a local tradesman. And he would be doing his bit for the self-respect of the neighbourhood. Like they showed in New York, repairing vandalism damage ASAP helps to prevent more from happening.
But no, he leaves graffiti scrawls on his door, roughly and inadequately painted over, for maybe two years (the damage isn’t fresh even in the 2012 images).
@Roddy Macdonald says:
Well spotted, Morag. Updated: Mulder and Scully have now been called in to help Dr Robert Langdon
What no Eliot Ness!
Firstly, my heart goes out to the parents and friends of the wee girl tragically killed at Liberton. It’s just too sad.
As for this story, I think all I’d say is, that if what appears is correct, then we have an elected public figure (a Labour MP) clearly shown to be lying about a crime, and in addition making an intentionally and false inflammatory statement.
Is this really the standard of ‘Better together’? I do hope not.
Surely it’s the non-matching window rather than the years-old graffiti?
There’s no non-matching window. That window doesn’t have the frosted lower part seen in the other windows even in the 2012 image. Apart from the photies of cooncillors on display in the 2012 image, they’re identical.
@Morag: Well done on the google stuff. Caught him out right enough.
@Croompenstein
‘Green Door’ Frankie Vaughan 1956. Shaky was better though.
I wont post u-tube clips.
From looking at the pictures premises I am mystified as to how he can seriously assert that the vandalism was recent and that was carried out by Yes supporters. We should call his bluff and offer to crowdfund the cost of the repairs upon receipt of evidence that the vandalism was of a pro-yes nature and carried out by rogue yes activists.
Ian Murray is also a high profile Hearts supporter and given the weekend’s result it could easily been some Hibs casuals but that wouldn’t suit his smear tactics.
A couple of years ago When I visited Edinburgh near Newington Ian Murray’s office front doors had been vandalised and they look exactly the same except to-day for the “EO” markings as he obviously couldn’t be bothered tidying up and giving his door a fresh lick of paint.
Ian Murray must be struggling to pay for this on his £66,396 a year salary and according to the Edinburgh Evening News on 6th November he claimed the highest amount of any Lothian MP for his energy bill of over £747. Good to see taxpayers paying for an early energy freeze for MPs when many are struggling to heat their homes this winter.
The Edinburgh South Labour MP claimed a total of £181,840 in expenses, on top of his salary, including the third highest amount in the UK for his Constituency Office at £26,593 which is crazy as since Devolution Scottish MPs have fewer responsibilities than English MPs. (Office rented from the former disgraced MP Nigel Griffiths)
His Office expenses don’t include staff salaries amounting to £121,430 which also provided extra household income by employing his partner as a secretary.
No wonder these Westminster MPs are so hostile to Scottish self determination as it will end their London gravy train.
Darling bringing the fight to the evildoers who want to run their own country, secure in the knowledge that no Unionist has ever abused anyone online.
Between vandalising Ian Murray’s office and abusing benign Tory businessmen these cybernats must find very little time to watch reruns of Braveheart.
We don’t actually know what he was referring to. It’s conceivable there was other damage that was miraculously fixed within the day, without leaving any clear trace of the repair.
I have to say though, that leaving the door like that for so long isn’t the act of someone who would be leaping to have an invisible mending job done on a different bit of damage.
My diagnosis is that he’s another one of these Labour hacks who thinks he has magic powers. The magic power of the Word, in that for him, saying makes it so. He did have some vandalism to his office years ago, and his brain tells him to say it was yesterday and done by Yes supporters (not OE graffiti merchants). He says it, and it miraculously becomes factual.
I grew out of that before I was seven.
Have just been contacted by a friend of Wings who’s interested in livestreaming the Friday night Counting House gig.
Personally? doesn’t bother me. I’m not sure how the pub might react and won’t jeopardise the night by asking them. More importantly, how do those attending feel about it?
Any thoughts/objections? Please post them in ‘Off-topic’ thread asap.
He’s a damn LIAR. That’s the trouble with this lot, they can make up all the ***** they like and get away with it. It’s a damned disgrace. I go past that door several times a day, I’m pretty sure that’s not new damage.
@Morag ah I hadn’t seen your google streetview link, nicely done. OK, the window was always non-matching.
Still though, I think the article is a bit hasty in calling the guy a liar before hearing what he claims happened and why he made such an accusation.
It would be staggering to just make it up based on the old graffiti!
If one is going to lie, it’s probably best to make sure there’s absolutely no photographic evidence to the contrary.
Oops.
link to tinyurl.com
Kalmar, he posted photos of the graffiti on Twitter, claiming it was done by YES supporters last night.
Only two problems …
1. The graffiti is almost illegible but none of it even hints of specific abuse at him or by YES
2. The graffiti has been there since last year
Ian, I said I was coming Friday, but we had to rearrange the work rota and now I have to work Saturday morning. Glasgow on Friday evening isn’t really on now.
Here is the image of the door that others have spoken about, from Google Maps circa August 2012.
link to i.imgur.com
@Morag –
Sorry to hear that. Had you down as a ‘strong possible’ (as opposed to, say, a ‘cautious undecided’) but thanks for letting me know.
There are no photos in his timeline. As far as I can see, he simply asserted it.
I have long believed that a certain type of authority figure, and Labour MPs and MSPs in particular, simply say things they perceive as conferring advantage in the moment, and from then on they believe them to be true. In the beginning was the Word, and all that.
It’s a behaviour pattern more typical of small children, who haven’t achieved the sophistication of “the dog ate my homework”. I gave it up as a bad job when I was about seven.
When you just come back from Westminster having seen fit to waddle into the government lobbies in support of a cap on benefits spending in a direct attack on the poorest in your constituency, what better way to divert attention from your actions than portray yourself as a victim. I’m only surprised Willie Bain, Anas Sarwar or Margaret Curran didn’t hit on this wheeze first. Given the disgusting levels of child poverty in their constituencies, they badly need to divert attention from their endorsement of and support for George Osborne and Iran Duncan Smith.
policeman–sir. do you think your office was vandalised ?
Murray–YES
I hav an idea
There is a vile accusation about Ian Murray written on the building implying he’s an MP.
I have made many a plea to those tempted to answer the appalling orraquine ,westheadbanger and the rest not to mention the journalists, to resist the temptation and refuse to be drawn into the ridiculous ” debate” they offer.
Conan , I’m talking to you!
@Ian Brotherhood says:
Have just been contacted by a friend of Wings who’s interested in livestreaming the Friday night Counting House gig.
Tell Blair McDougall he can just come along if he wants to.
O/ T But here’s a real criminal act.
More PFI lasting legacy from the Labour / Lib Dem Scottish ececutive.
TAXPAYERS have been left with a bill totalling almost £1 billion to pay for privately-run Addiewell Prison in West Lothian.
SNP politicians accused their Holyrood opponents of “sheer incompetence” after it emerged that Scots are paying £3 million a month over 25 years for the private prison – more than ten times its £80m value.
The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal, approved by Labour and Liberal Democrat ministers in 2006, will eventually cost around £900m.
Nationalist MSP Sandra White said: “These are staggering sums of money taxpayers are being forced to pay month after month.
“They are the damaging legacy of the previous Labour and Lib Dem administration in 2006.”
link to edinburghnews.scotsman.com
call me dave
Already in the rumpus room.
Ian, I offered someone a lift back to Edinburgh if necessary and said I wouldn’t see her stuck, but if I’m not going that’s kind of off the table. I can’t remember who it was though!
The Brit media with unionist MPs behind it are attacking the Cybernats, they have a huge problem with us because there is not a cyberbrit community, except for a few eccentric Unionist MPs who have carte Blanche and a dozen different user names in the likes of the Scotsman.
The beating up of an old man handing out Yes leaflets doesn’t merit a mention, but poor Susan Calman, that shy comedian, made great play of being cyber abused!
Alan Rodent of the Dugdaily Mail is now tweeting that “The office doors and windows had Yes stickers on them this morning.”
Well done Rev Stu :
I love it when Balloons like this are exposed for the fatuous unprincipled politicians they really are.
Scotsman ? In a Jacket like that
(Like to see him wear that in the East end of Glasgow at at night, for the C Games if he’s such a British fan)
And of course I can’t go onto Twitter to ask if he is going to retract his accusation because doing so will make me a “vile Cybernat”. I sense a latin phrase should be appropriate here.
The man is clearly a moron, as so many of his bedfellows would seem to be. We must rid ourselves of these wasters of our time & money. We must vote Yes.
Well what do you know. Another day another dollar or in this case another £1 million to a good friend of the Labour party!
Is it any wonder that this country is being run into the ground when we have Muppets making decisions like this one for prisons that are worth £80 Million but by the time we have finished paying for it, will we EVER finish paying for this I wonder, will have cost the taxpayer £900 Million.
I wonder if the top executives are listed as donors and benefactors to the Labour party by any chance?
A Labour spokesperson apparently *ahem* ‘claimed’:
“We also transferred the high running and maintenance costs away from the taxpayer.”
So the running and maintenance costs have been transferred away from the taxpayer have they Mr Labour spokesperson?
The average yearly cost of running a Scottish prison is £22m, but Addiewell, run by private operator Sodexo, is costing £36m a year.
I think not baby puppy, methinks you’re telling little white ones again or are they just out and out great big whopping huge ones?
If the top picture was taken to-day then it is possible that the window was smashed as the scruffy pictures of local councillors are missing.
However I trust he will produce evidence that it was Yes supporters or issue a public apology for his smears.
OMG – stickers, worse than we feared, we better start that crowd fund Betsy.
So here we go on the arse-covering climbdown by Murray on the “vandalism” claim. With The Scottish Daily Mail (SLAB’s new best friends these days) providing him with support. And yet … neither Murray – nor the journalists who now apparently knew about it – took any photo’s of this (ahem) sticker outrage ?
The No campaign death-spiral is accelerating. This kind of stuff is pathetic !
Alex Salmond released him from the Matrix,taught him Kung-fu.
‘We need stickers,lots of stickers.’
@Bugger (the Panda)
Thanks for the link. “Mr Munro was compared to Robert Mugabe, the controversial President of Zimbabwe”
Ha ha. Paxman and Salmond springs to mind.
Even if these stickers really existed (pardon me for remaining sceptical) we don’t even know how many. Two? Three?
In any case, all trace of them has gone already. Hardly a cause for outrage. The real outrage should be against an MP who leaves real graffiti vandalism to his office doors unrepaired for probably a couple of years. This sort of thing drags a neighbourhood down and attracts further damage.
OT,slightly.
If you want smear and a labour manifesto then look no further than the BBC Ten O’Clock News.Quite the most disgusting piece on the NHS I have ever seen.They are now blaming us for getting old?
A commons committee took evidence recently which stated that unless the retirement age was abolished then any Westminster Government promising a “triple lock” would be lying.They went further and said that the present promises on paying pensions was fantasy.
All economists are now agreed,any promise of pensions to future generations is a lie and any promise to pay present pension agreements to recipients is not sustainable.
So there you have it folks!You can retire if you have money{not a paid in pension]Or you can send your arthritic,demented Granny out to work instead your kids.
“Your smear results are in… there’s nothing to worry about; it appears to a mild case of BTBS.”
Another fine piece of investigative police work involving the Flying Squad from Wings over Scotland Yard!
Wonder if he had to pull the sticker off himself, shouldn’t he be at Westminster.
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it but he has 2 CCTV cameras outside the office, one on west Mayfield and pointing to the traffic lights / office door. Should be easy for him to provide footage to substantiate his claim. Assuming of course they are real
What are the elements of a defamation claim?
The elements that must be proved to establish defamation are:
a publication to one other than the person defamed;
a false statement of fact;
that is understood as
a. being of and concerning the plaintiff; and
b. tending to harm the reputation of plaintiff.
If the plaintiff is a public figure, he or she must also prove actual malice.
Easy folks, Scottish MSM journalists assure us that Murray’s office was vandalised by Yes supporters.
So it must be true.
The shop next door is a goldsmiths and jewellery workshop so is bound to have CCTV, hopefully covering the shop front. The footage from that source should be impartial, not that I believe Mr Murray would adulterate any footage from his cameras ????.
Mary Bruce:
He’s getting steamed up about some YES stickers? I hope he never gets into a political debate or goes to a football match or his fragile sensitivities are in for a serious shock!
You can see why I cautioned against getting stickers of the Wings advert SPT banned and sticking them on the subway, though. I think I called that vandalism. The Better No lot and their tame journos would certainly have called it vandalism.
Stu did exactly the right thing with the Metro ads.
For God’s sake, people, think before you suggest stunts like that.
If it turns out to be Yes stickers he is going to look pretty pathetic.
Morag 10.55 Spot on xxx completely lowers the tone.
This is becoming hilarious.
If any of the MSM usual suspects have been foolish enough to try and ‘stage’ evidence of vandalism by putting some stickers on those minging doors and taking quick snaps of them without having read this thread, they’ll also be complicit in the lie.
You could not make this stuff up.
Ian – oh yes you could, the UKOKs do it on a daily basis!!!
Do the words ‘open mouth , insert foot’ not immediately spring to mind ?
Hi Morag, I’m the one you kindly offered a lift home. Shame you can’t make it, but I’ll get train home, as I think there may be others from Edinburgh going on Friday and traveling back by train – Scaredy Cat + Conan maybe?
Great sleuthing Morag! But I think we all know this is just one more lie bettertogether will use like it actually happened.
Come on folks get a grip. I’ve had a wee think about this *ahem* vandalism and I think I have solved the ‘vandalism’ issue. Check the date folks, April 1st. This is just Ian Murray playing a wee April Fool, right?
or maybe not!
Certainly a fool.
goldenayr
The blue and red Tories are both reading from the Big Book of Genetic Purity. They are the same, a beast with many heads. ;(
Really sorry TJenny, but I now have an early start on the Saturday. I hope you all have a fabulous time.
This abuse has to stop.
It’s time Cybernats Unionised and elected a spokesman.
Surely he reported it to Police Scotland who should able to check their CCTV cameras in this busy student area of Edinburgh? I feel sorry for these guys because their party politics have them cornered, they’ll have egg on their face in the event of a YES vote. Vote for an Independent – Vote for Independence! No more 2 horse races, Labour to Tory back to Labour, with a mix of Lib Dem to give the illusion of choice. They had their chance and they’ve mucked it up. Keep the heid folks.
Yes stickers …. OMG ……time to call in Scotland Yard, Special Branch, MI5 and PC Murdoch.
Sorry I’m O’T Stu but just been alerted to this over on Twitter. I’ve just found out, having watched this that Cochrane is a former nationalist, apparently and that he now considers nationalists as reacists. Well at least some as he adds. The piece runs from 16 minutes.
link to tinyurl.com
@M4rkyboy says:
This abuse has to stop.
It’s time Cybernats Unionised and elected a spokesman.
We can have the election (with live-streaming) at the Counting House on Friday.
I nominate Peter Bell.
cam b
Is the broadband speed in Lochgilphead still that slow?
Arb, Brian Wilson was in the SNP once, and was apparently a bit of an extremist. What is it with these guys?
I nominate the one with the flickeriest screen …
Arbroath 1320
I’m not on unlimited internet service so I’ll not watch, but you do get all sorts of idiots in a broad church.
If it was stickers, then his tea boy has done an excellent job of getting them off without a trace.
It does show though that they’ll use any opportunity to have a pop at us. I bet I can guess which stickers they were – the “End London Rule” or “Scotland 2014” ones that are going about – in which case it’s pretty obvious that it was pro-indy folk (or BritNat black ops…) We’ve got to be a bit smarter than that though, and besides, sticking a sticker on an MP’s office isn’t exactly going to win us the referendum.
It would be interesting to see if anyone has photographic evidence of this so-called vandalism, mind. You can just imagine Alan Rodent and the likes rushing over to Murray’s office, hoping to get a photo of a big “QUISLING!!!” sprayed all over his windows, only to find a couple of daft wee stickers. “Fuck’s sake Ian, is this it? Even we can see it would be ridiculous to call that vandalism. Get us something better, pal.”
goldenayr
Crossed wires?
Morag – no worries, just a shame you wont be there as I’m sure it’ll be a great night.
Maybe we could have a WoS night next month (on 4May?) somewhere in Edinburgh.
That would be good!
I can only assume Morag that Scottish Nationalism never really went as far to the right or left as they wanted it to go. That plus I guess no one wanted to vote for them as leader of the Scottish Nationalism might have something to do with it.
Oh my Gawd. Here we are discussing a certain politician complaining anout those nasty cybernats doing inexplicable things to his beautifully maintained office. Meanwhile I have a repeat of today’s Daily Politics running in the background, BBC Parliament channel, and lo and behold look who is on…Ian Murray discussing the pro’s or is the con’s of Royal Mail privatisation…Da Da!
Sorry to hear you don’t have unlimited broadband Cameron.
Arbroath 1320
Cost me a bloody fortune finding all those tunes.
Dorothy, the Telegraph has been my guilty pleasure ever since the Scotsman became a playground for trolls.
Lies have to be countered, otherwise what is the point of sites like WoS? Those folk you mentioned are people too, I’d rather engage with them in a friendly way if I can; honey v. vinegar remember.
There are others though: the vile ‘The_Answer’, the patronising ‘mcbill’ with his pathetic wee unloved website and the hordes of UKIP/BNP drones, most with a very limited history.
Nae mercy.
Talking on here is a pleasure, but I do like an argument…
OT, I’m afraid I can’t make the do on Friday, I have a hospital appointment that day, only found out Monday.
CameronB says:
Arbroath 1320
Cost me a bloody fortune finding all those tunes.
Oops!
cam b
No,they still talk.
I don’t know if Ian Murray was ever in the SNP proper; but in 1992 he was still at school in Wester Hailes, and he stood in the mock election as the Nationalist candidate.
He won!
Do not be too fast to make the assumption that Ian Murray knew that the graffiti was not new graffiti. He is a Labour MP working in Westminster and the site is his constituency office in Edinburgh. It was probably the first time he was at the office since the graffiti was posted.
goldenayr
I’ve done it now, crossed the wires even more.
I was talking about the policies currently being followed by the blue and red Tories ultimately leading to Auschwitz.
Or something like that.
Arbroath 1320
It was my pleasure.
Sorry folks here I go O/T again. I found this on Twitter.
link to tinyurl.com
Isn’t that nice. Dear old George helps his mate out who just happens to have been his best man. Well I guess they don’t call them best man for nothing these days!
Cameron B, router died last month now getting unlimited plus line rental 22 pounds month from plusnet, check it out. That’s an iv25 post code
James Kay
Then he’s the same as the rest of the Scottish labtory bunch.Started with an ideal and settled for a deal.
I’m wondering how many servants my Labour MP Ian Murray has for all his homes. How Labour. How superior. How ‘let me into those Tory lobbies – I’ve made it’. I work as a cleaner but I wouldn’t clean that shit’s home for all the money in Alistair Darling’s bank accounts.
If you do decide to do a wee bit of best internet shopping Cameron do not consider British Telecom. Apparently they have received the most complaints in the last 12 months. Mind you they do own Plusnet, I’m with them and they do give an excellent service, both companies are still separate. I’m also led to believe that B.T. demand a year’s rental up front plus a month’s rental, or something similar.
Annie
If you’re not a pro[saleswoman].Why are you selling your wares on here?
I’m with BT and have no serious complaints. The Openzone thing is seriously useful too. Just cruise along a street till you find someone with a Home Hub and piggyback spare bandwidth for free. They even supply maps to show you where to go.
I think Margaret Curran might be tweeting something similar to Ian Murray in the days ahead. Keep a sharp look out folks.
link to twitpic.com
Brian Nicolson@12.25. That explains it. Didn’t dawn on me before. Hope he has a nice holiday in ‘the north’. What a privilege for a provincial town like Edinburgh to be visited by a political giant like Ian Murray. Humbling for Edinburgh.
Morag
Really?
Morag:
Stickers – I think/hope the idea of the stickers was to put them in subtle quantities and places (maybe bus shelters, pub toilets, etc.) where they would be noticed but not enough of them to reach nuisance levels. The Metro advert would certainly reach a huge number of people but perhaps stickers could be used to spread information outside the city catchment areas. My attempts to print some out failed miserably, wrong image aspect ratio for my blank stickers, wrong printer as well probably, so it will have to be back to Plan A (word-of-mouth) for the foreseeable future.
Counting House crowd:
Probably best not to elect a spokesperson, the MSM (surely they must be on the verge of putting Andrex out of business) will latch on to him/her as a ringleader. The Rev seems quite capable of coping under the strain, hopefully, so best not to give them another target.
I treated myself to a G4 dongle at the end of the year, on a rolling monthly contract. I get 6GIG budget I think. I wouldn’t have a land line.
Hi guys…….yes you in the shadows.
Arbroath1320@1236. Curran will need to divert attention away from her voting behaviour in the mother of parliaments on the benefits spending cap. Good to see Mad Mags living up to Labour’s socialist ideals by supporting Ian Duncan Smith and Lord Osborne’s plan to put the boot into the poorest. More than 1 child in 3 in her constituency is in poverty already. Is that not enough for her? What percentage is she aiming for – over 50% so she can win some prize? She is disgusting.
Macandroid says:
1 April, 2014 at 10:28 pm
There is a vile accusation about Ian Murray written on the building implying he’s an MP.
rofl so much my sides hurt
Is that 6 Gig a month Cameron?
cam b
amounts to a hill of beans in anyones book.
Yes, really.
Yes a month. Something I have noticed recently. The number and size of anti-virus updates has gone up a bit recently.
Must be those Russians that the PM has been courting recently. Did I say that out loud…..F.
I don’t know how you cope with a limit to your downloads Cameron. We briefly had a dongle but got so frustrated with absolutely slow speed we went down the land line and internet package and must say it was best move we did. One thing we did ensure though was that we went X directory, don’t want any of those pesky David Cameron initiated *ahem* friendly “please don’t leave us” phone calls.
I would imagine your anti virus updates must eat into your 6 Gig limit a bit. I know the anti virus I have on this computer updates every day sometimes twice.
Arbroath,
This G4 dongle is pretty wizzy and has nobody told you yet, the internet is on the point of collapse due to our love of kittens, porn and now anti-virus update.
Nah, surely not!
Now if you were to say it was about to fall apart due to our love of squirrels THEN I’d be getting concerned.
morag
You’re tagged.
Breaking news
BT overheard congratulating themselves on subsuming Newsnet Scotland.
So Ian Murray has clarified it was stickers. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing for him if it turned out that complaints had been made about Better Together supporters stickering the offices of other politicians?
Worth contacting respective Chief Execs of Better Together and Yes Scotland, I would suggest.
Good work Stu and Morag as well. Dont leave them a stone to crawl under no matter how trivial their pathetic lies are.
The devil is in the detail.
The Man in the Jar
You don’t mean the WEE THINGS, do you? That wouldn’t be an APPROPRIATE topic for DEBATE, IMO. I’m ASTONISHED
hey Joanna, ‘cmon baby (let’s do the revolution).
Ian Murray Labour MP office 31 Minto Street
Edinburgh EH9 2BT
Before you make allegations claiming YES Supporters had vandelised the above offices…. I suggest you take a look at Google Maps image of the above offices DATED AUGUST 2012 where it is plain to see the graffiti was in existence back then….Oh Dear….Look A Squirrel!!
New tax powers for Scotland maybe aye or maybe nae?
Could be part of the Tories ‘jam tomorrow’
link to archive.is
O/T: Very interesting wee clip of Tom Harris getting very defensive on the phone to a constituent. link to youtube.com
ca’me dav
Could be part of your fevered imagination that there is a choice.
“Westminster Throws Another Squirrel” would be more accurate.
I think this is an April Fools joke that got away from him. You know what Unionist humour is like. Now of course he can’t back down so he has to try and convince us that stickers are ‘out of control’ vandalism. Numpty.
Brian Nicholson says:
“Do not be too fast to make the assumption that Ian Murray knew that the graffiti was not new graffiti. He is a Labour MP working in Westminster and the site is his constituency office in Edinburgh. It was probably the first time he was at the office since the graffiti was posted.”
The problem for him Brian, is he took personal ownership of the issue when he released a statement saying, @ I Can take personal Abuse’
And then the claim that it was an ‘attack’ by the ‘Yes’ side.
It is his responsibility as an MP to promote the interests all of his constituents.
I don’t think telling lies about these self same constituents , falls into ‘promoting interests of’
Do you?
Those OE tags have been all over Edinburgh for years. I do have to say though, what those guys lack in artistic skills they make up for with enthusiasm. I’ve seen their tags in some bizarre, seemingly impossible to reach, places and they are really everywhere. Haven’t noticed any new ones in a couple of years though, I suspect they got bored.
If Ian Murray thinks he’s been personally targeted with OE tags he obviously hasn’t been in Edinburgh in a long time. My stairs front door had some OE tags on it for a while, I didn’t take it personally.
O/T The latest BT scare story features the “I’m off if it’s a yes vote” views of ‘Port Glasgow businessman’ Alastair MacMillan. Turns out he was at Eton with David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
Google his LinkedIn profile – it’s public domain.
Don’t see that mentioned on all the media coverage today. Not relevant obviously.
I can confirm that the graffiti on the door has been on that door for several months, as I have passed it daily on my way to work.
I just hit refresh and a comment I’d just seen disapeared.
Is the DDOS back?
yes the TRAITORS that intreduced PFI to Scotland should be held to account its easy follow the monies FFS police do you jobs oh i forgot the police are only their to lie and keep the poor in their place,oh and one of my cousins is a top police woman oh sorry person,but in my experiance 5 times breach of the peace the police lied 5 times to get between £50 £100 fines,their must be a justification in the policepersons mind that commiting perjury is justified,to me if no one is injured or property damaged their is no crime and if you want to take someone to court it should always be a jury trial not a kangaroo court as we have now.
Have you guys no pity, no shame, Ian Murray, the poor man has been ‘stickered’. The trauma, the shock, the anger, the soapy suds and broken nails. It must have taken Murray seconds, nay minutes to remove the offending material from his graffiti laden doors he couldn’t be arsed to repaint in the first place.
Looks like the special branch, MI5 and helicopters will be called in to protect the UKOKs against the savage sticker attacks, that dont exist, is this a manufactured incident to allow a legalised state enforcement of a curfew?
Alastair Darling in The Herald, saying NO Campaign is winning the economic argument.
link to heraldscotland.com
Unite Union warns NO Camp.
link to heraldscotland.com
@ Tom McNaughtan
I read the other day a quote from A Darling when the Barrhead Travel story broke, that he was visiting a Port Glasgow business at the time. Co incidence? Sorry don’t have a link for it.
Another thing on PFI at the start was it not called Public Private Finance Inititive PPFI,strange that the public never got the chance to make 500% on their monies for 25years,the thing is if this happened in a country like Syria they would be screaming about corruption and how EVIL Assad and his children were LOL its a joke.
Caz-m .You’ll have to forgive me for not being convinced that AD would know an economic argument if he fell over it…
BBC news this morning
Voter registration in Scotland is the highest it EVER been
tick tock mr Murray tick tock
RE the PFI stuff, was given the following info last week. There are around 256 schools in Highland. Of that some 26 are recent PFI ones. These 26 account for 40% of the maintenance budget, and this is set to increase to 60% in a few years. Meanwhile the old school stock just falls further behind.
Tom McNaughtan:
Alistair MacMillan of Port Glasgow? Wonder if that is the same Alistair Macmillan small businessman of Port Glasgow who is on Radio 4’s ‘Any Answers’ every other week doing his best Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells impression.
An idle thought – wonder if he is related to CBI’s Iain Macmillan?
Bunter, aye that’s the article in the Herald about Alastair MacMillan, the ‘Port Glasgow businessman’ who’s moving after independence. I’ve tried commenting on the Herald site asking why his attendance at Eton at the same time as Cameron isn’t mentioned. The Herald moderator has knocked the posts back 3 times. Guess that’s not the sort of news they publish.
Caz-m posted the herald link above.
It was probably a disgurntled constituent.
It’s good to hear this morning that voter registrations are at an all time high in Scotland …… but I wonder – what’s the process for ensuring that these registrations are… “accurate” and not padded with false names/addresses etc?
Perish the thought that some unionist parties have form for electoral fraud….
Can’t imagine the Electoral authorities won’t be validating registration lists – imagine the flak if it turned out there was jiggery pokery.
GMS today – I hear there’s a ” British submarine ” in the area where they’re looking for aircraft wreckage south of Australia. Speak about the remnants of Empire and wishful thinking when there may be dozens of American and Chinese ones as well as all the aircraft and ships we see. It beggars belief the MoD could brief this sort of story !
@ Krackerman
Do you mean the not too distant election where the postal vote was oddly more than registered, and later the electorial record disappeared “in transit” when demands were made to check names against postal votes?
Labour took the seat.
Alan Mackintosh are the police on the case? you know the corruption, £800 to change a light bulb you couldent make it up,it is time for the parents of the highlands to complain to the police fekk it council tax payers too no more stealing off the public purse and any that get found guilty take everything they own then put them in a dark hole (jail) for the rest of their gluttanis filled life.
@yerkitbreeks
The British Sub “HMS Tireless” was launched in 1984.
There is no way I would dive a mile under the water in that piece of junk.
The outside shell MUST be near the end of it’s structural life.
Rule Britannia! Bullshit.
Regarding Postal Voting.
Can someone explain why should the YES Campaign be worried what the NO side will be doing when it comes to postal voting.
Can they do things that we can’t?
Genuine question.
Signed confused.
Has anyone asked the whereabouts of sculptor Anthony Gormley as those scribbles look very much like his humanoid style figures, the type he used to work on before he moved into his cube phase.
Art is Truth and all that!
if it was a broken window and was repaired (without the frosted bit) then Murry would have evidence as there is a CCTV camera pointing directly in that direction.
In my experience no glaziers work that quickly. They normally board up the broken window until a new piece of glass can be cut. It doesn’t happen in the same night.
Thanks for reminding me about the Electoral Commission.
I’d been waiting over a year for the following (important) link on their website to go live
link to electoralcommission.org.uk
I mentioned this on here a few weeks ago and somebody somewhere must have been watcing as the link is finally gone live.
link to electoralcommission.org.uk
@caz-m
I laughed Monday Night. London Evening Standard ( huch spit) had a “Match of the Day” piece but it involve Nicola Sturgeon vs Alastair Darling following the Currency Union leak at the weekend from a Minister.
According to the Standard, Sturgeon made a feeble claim about a No campaign bluff while Alastair swatted her nonsense away with hard economic facts and won the contest 2:1.
I just had to laugh. Talk about blind leading the blind.
@ Desimond
I think the graffiti too sophisticated for Gormley.
(But is it art?)
Anyone feel up to doing a FOI request to HoC to ask if any of Ian Murray’s local office expenses were earmarked for external paintwork since 2012?
just noticed something on the google images of the office. The man has ctv cameras installed, which effectively cover the entire office.
I wonder if I, as a concerned citizen, should report this crime to the police on my MP’s behalf. Mr Murray is far too busy looking after my interests to take the time to look after his own. Or maybe I could contact Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher to get them to investigate this heinous atrocity. I don’t want to get done for wasting police time on a low-level false flag attention-seeking stunt.
Info on electoral fraud available here
link to electoralcommission.org.uk
Worth repeating – From Sky Walker
The graffiti has been on that door for several months. I pass it daily on my way to work.
Graffiti in Merchiston belongs to the DKM gang. The DKM gang are all middle-class kids from the local school. Cybernats oppose Merchiston Labour MP’s unionist stance. Therefore, all Merchiston schoolchildren are cybernats.
If its Stickers that Scottish Labour are worried about, perhaps we should order a bulk load of these crackers:
link to rlv.zcache.com
@Desimond
For some reason, the South East of England have this ignorant assumption that the NO camp are a good 20% ahead.
Alastair Carmicheal justifies their thoughts, when, on repeated TV interviews at the weekend, he kept quoting that the YES vote was on 28%.
So they think that if the Secretary of State for Scotland is saying that, then it MUST be true.
I have said this before, that on the 19th of Sept. the people of England are going to wake up and say,
“what the fuck happened there?”
For a man who would plaster himself in such graffiti as he has in that last pic, I really can’t see how he can possibly justify calling fowl on graffiti.
If the cap fits & all that.
Can a request not be put out locally, asking if any knows when the actual graffiti was done.
They could remain anonymous.
Put an Ad in the local paper and tell “OE” to contact the paper.
postal voting is this not about liebour run councils voting for the people they are supposed to be careing for in old folks holmes.
If London evening standard thinks Darling is a top notch politician and Nicola Sturgeon is a lightweight second stringer then two things become patently obvious.
1- Scotland and the English press have totally different objectives and goals. The English press are impressed by lies and bullsh*t from Darling. We are not!
2- The English press are not even on the same page as the Scots, we don’t appreciate losers (darling)! And we don’t appreciate their uninformed misguided opinions. We have zero in common with England if this is their contribution to the debate.
Darling is a clown,
A wee aside. I visited the Yes Scotland office in Hope Street yesterday.
As I approached I noticed a sticker over the Yes in one of the windows.
It was a sort seen often in Glasgow obviously produced by a section of Rangers fans who don’t care that a lot of their brethren will be voting Yes in September.
Anyway I peeled it off, took it in and it went straight in the bin, no fuss, no one cared!
‘Stickergate’ – you know when you have been stickered.
Is Mr Murray due to appear in any public meeting in the near future?
There are a few questions that the public would like answered.
It’s guys like Murray that give you the motivation to put all your energy into this referendum campaign.
We really must get rid of scum like this from our political system.
Mr Murray, we don’t want a lying piece of shit like you in our new forward looking Scotland.
Vote for Scottish Independence, you get rid of WMD and Ian Murray.
I’d never heard of Ian Murray before. Now I have and he is filed in the memory under ‘PATHETIC WEASEL’.
Just another indication of the accelerating collapse of their woeful campaign.
And, well done to WINGS !!!
I was Alex salmond wotdonit:)
….. excellent (collective) work!… But didn’t somebody say ‘A lie will go round the world five times before the truth has got his boots on’?
I still want to know when Roden (the Daily Fail journalist) and/or his mates (he didn’t say “I went” he said “journalists went”) visited Murray’s office, and why. This is interesting.
Were they hanging on Murray’s twitter timeline, and saw the tweet, and immediately dropped everything and rushed round to his office? Had they nothing better to do? (Well I hope they did, two hours later, when there was a fatal accident not far away.)
Or did Murray contact journalists independently? Why didn’t he contact the police? (On balance, I suspect if the journalists really did go to the office, they were responding to the tweet.)
So, if Roden is telling the truth, they got there before the first of the Wings readers did, presumably before their attention was diverted to Liberton. At that time there were still stickers there. Allegedly. So what did they do?
Photograph this appalling vandalism to illustrate the stories they were going to write about it? Did they heck. If it’s even true at all, even they realised they couldn’t make a story about a couple of “Free Scotland” stickers fly. So they went away again.
Never thought about writing a story about the MP who has such a thin skin that he rescriobes a couple of stickers as “vandalism”, but leaves genuine vandalism (of the non-Nat kind) unrepaired on his door for literally years?
Then one of Murray’s staff calmly peels these stickers off leaving no trace that they were ever there. Soon after that, the first of the Wings readers arrives and finds only the two-year-old OE graffiti as evidence that anyone has attacked the building.
There really is a story there, about mendacious MPs (well one of them anyway) and journalists who only want the story if it puts one particular side in a bad light. Not going to see the light of day in the dead-tree press though.
Another stonking read from Mr Bateman just up, in which he refers to this article amongst others things.
Caz-m
If / when there is a Yes vote, after the people in England say WTF, can we get a journalist to ask Our Secretary of State , who has consistently not represented any pro Indy voters to ask him, if he seriously thinks he will be involved in any negotiations, in fact what he thinks his role is ?
I wonder if we can get some permanent eyes on the door lest we can spot Murray frantically smashing his own office up tonight!
@ Bunter
Reverse the position:
Imagine if a Barrhead Travel staff member decided to promote the Yes campaign by using the company’s time and computer to send out copies of his opinion to all staff.
He’d get fired.
Bateman is partially correct in his opinion but he doesn’t understand companies do not have civil rights. It is not merely a matter of them keeping a studied neutrality. It is a matter that a company has NO right to promote a view. Any opinion given is only that of the proprieter or boss. It is a personal opinion.
But even then his opinion does not trump all others in his company. To proffer it to staff is a form of intimidation.
Our democratic process has been so watered we forget what it is we a fighting to protect.
O/T some positive stuff from Manx Radio this morning, which I listen to rather than the BBC. Alan Bell the Manx Chief Minister was being interviewed about a visit to Glasgow yesterday on the new air link between the Isle of Man and Scotland. He was full of praise for Mr Salmond, and then they got talking about the polls, Mr Bell was diplomatic and said that Mr Salmond was quietly confident but the reporter said that YES had the momentum and had moved by over a dozen points since Mr Salmond visited the Isle of Man in the autumn of last year. Its good to see that some people are reporting it as it is.
Pity the BBC does not have the quality journalism of Manx Radio.
Only one small thing I could bring up about the interview, Mr Bell, its the Scottish Government not Executive!!!
O/T
Interesting committee discussion on the economy after the referendum result.
link to bbc.co.uk
O/T
Interesting committee discussion on the economy after the referendum result.
link to bbc.co.uk
Perhaps Ian Murray stickered himself.
Vandalism in law covers ANY damage to property, regardless of how small. So there’s no false claim been made here even if the damage was only stickers. It as this blog post that made it seem like a huge deal instead of one cpmment.
Wings has done a great job (through taking photos of the office which has normal people working inside who shouldn’t have to worry about strangers taking pictures of their workplace for the purpose of writing horrible blog posts) of suggesting that Murray was talking about the graffitti, when his comments never suggest this. This is poor journalism and deliberately makes it seem like Murray was lieing when it now looks like he wasn’t.
The worse thing is though you’ve all seemed to have forgotten that a lassie died yesterday in Murray’s area and so he probably had more on his mind than worrying about your post. You have one little line about that in this post amongst all the complaints that he didnt respond to your questions. You should be ashamed of youself that this is what you care about in the face of such a tragedy. Bbut no – you have one comment saying ‘ok he might be busy because a girl died in a school, but it’s still terrible that he even said this’. That’s disgusting, and shows NO empathy and NO respect and NO idea about timing.
You should be ashamed. I hope you are. And that goes for the writer of this post and every one of you who thinks one comment about vandalism is more important than the life of a wee lassie. Murray at least knows which story is more important which is more than can be said for the rest of you, who don’t care about ANYTHING unless its to do with independence, never mind how petty it is, or how misleading your blog post has to be to turn it into a story.
“Vandalism in law covers ANY damage to property, regardless of how small. So there’s no false claim been made here even if the damage was only stickers.”
Stickers are not “damage”. They peel off. There’s no sign of any residue in any of the pictures, so the building has been fully restored to its previous state.
“This is poor journalism and deliberately makes it seem like Murray was lieing when it now looks like he wasn’t.”
Yes he was. He said his office had been “vandalised” by “Yes supporters”. It wasn’t vandalised, and he has no proof it was by Yes supporters. Anyone could have done it.
“The worse thing is though you’ve all seemed to have forgotten that a lassie died yesterday in Murray’s area”
Nobody’s “forgotten” that. Some of us can hold more than one thought in our heads at a time. Ian Murray doesn’t get a free pass for lying and smearing just because there happened to be a completely unrelated tragic event nearby shortly afterwards. The piece acknowledged that he may have been too busy to reply.
“You should be ashamed. I hope you are.”
Not in the least. Sorry.
he’s looking like a sticky toffee pudding
Surprising that Ian Murray has not repainted his front door given his huge office expenses claims.
See Another Union Dividend post at 9.56 pm last night
My theory on the invisible “vandalism” claimed by Ian Murray to have been carried out on his derelict office by YES supporters? I think it was done by the same non-existent Cybernats who allegedly posted the non-existent death threats on Susan Calman’s website.
Come on Ian that holes not going to fill itself, just take it easy and slowly hand over the spade.
@caz-m
Regarding your question on postal votes.
Im canvassing for YES scotland and we will be getting postal vote packs out to elderly folk very soon.Not sure how postal votes will benefit the NO campaign though,as we will only be giving these to YES voters.
Have seen a single NO cavasser in my area,musselburgh.
Rev, excellent rebuttal.
Mab; if someone dies in your immediate vicinity in a tragic accident, do you then believe that this gives another person the right to lie about you? Because that’s what Murray has done, based on no apparent evidence other than old scratching on his doors, which appears related to local gangs, and Yes stickers which no one else appears to have seen.
There is very certainly a false claim made here, because his tweet stated very clearly that his office had been vandalised by Yes supporters. But there’s no evidence of vandalism save old damage unrepaired, no hint of these Yes stickers which no one has seen bar the person claiming they were there, so there’s no obvious proof that anyone recently targetted his offices, and there’s no obvious proof that Yes supporters were involved except his assertion.
I don’t know about you, but I call making allegations that anyone has acted illegally, without evidence that anything has been done at all, lying.
And given the apparent calling of journalists, (see here link to wingsoverscotland.com ) rather than police as you might expect for vandalism does rather suggest less vandalism and more an attempt to smear Yes Scotland. I would imagine his next step would be to demand someone at Yes Scotland condemns the vandalism; except someone has already called him out on it, so he’s probably stuffed for that tactic now.
I’ve lived in this area of Edinburgh on and off for over 3 decades. That office has been continually used BY different SLAB MPs during that period.
Has the OWNER/LANDLORD made a complaint of vandalism to Police Scotland?
Who owns the property? Is Ian Murray the owner or is he claiming rent expenses to pay a third party?
It is not unknown that rents are paid to party owned properties.
link to telegraph.co.uk
Help is at hand for anyone feeling left out;
link to thescottishscaremonger.blogspot.co.uk
All I want to know is, was Ian Murray the infamous dead pig?
I doubt Cameron was that desperate but maybe the jaiket would do it.