It seems that it’s fine to farm important judgments out to mysterious shadowy figures who just make important chunks of them up out of thin air, and then issue them in your own name. Back in your boxes, plebs.
This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.
It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.
My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.
Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.
It’s almost – almost – worth voting SNP in May because of this:
Because it would be at least momentarily absolutely hilarious watching Swinney try to explain why his “100% guaranteed” second indyref didn’t happen if the SNP actually did get a majority on 30% of the vote (which is narrowly feasible on current polling).
This week The National published a poll it commissioned from Find Out Now for this May’s Scottish Parliament election, alongside a seat projection from Sir John Curtice. Here are the list-vote figures from the poll.
The seat projection calculated that the election would result in 59 SNP MSPs (six short of the number John Swinney says is the minimum needed to force a second indyref), 25 for Reform, 13 for the Greens, 12 each for Labour and the Tories and eight for the Lib Dems.
It didn’t specify how many of the seats were constituency ones and how many were list ones, so we dropped Sir John a line and asked him.
Yesterday we noted in passing that independence support now outstrips that of the SNP by more than 20 points, making the party into a gigantic liability as the vehicle for enabling Scots to leave the UK. Put simply, even when voters want independence (as most now do), they’re not willing to vote SNP to get it.
(Not, of course, that they WOULD get it if they voted SNP – the party still having no coherent or credible strategy to achieve it – but more than 40% of would-be Yes voters are no longer prepared to even try giving them the benefit of yet another mandate.)
And since what everyone loves most of all on New Year’s Day is a good old wade in some political stats, we thought we’d take a little more detail on that.
James on A Stitch In Timing: ““….life changing injuries….” Yet more bollocks from the Site Prick. To quote Craig Murray; “The final question was the charge…” Feb 6, 20:45
GM on A Stitch In Timing: “I see that argument quite clearly Lorna when you put it as you just have. There are plenty women in…” Feb 6, 20:15
PC Foster on A Stitch In Timing: “Scottish Executive- correct” Feb 6, 20:03
agentx on A Stitch In Timing: “They chose to be “activatists” let them fund it themselves.” Feb 6, 19:41
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: ““we are reminded here that: “colonialism is based on psychology”” Is that because it’s Friday, Alf? Seems like only Wednesday…” Feb 6, 19:41
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Stitch In Timing: “Or Scottish Executive?” Feb 6, 19:34
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: ““finding none of the activists guilty on any of the charges” Given they committed burglary, assault and grievous bodily harm…” Feb 6, 19:27
agentx on A Stitch In Timing: “We all know that Swinney stayed with Mandelson on his whisky trip to USA in Sep 25. I have done…” Feb 6, 19:17
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “Alf: I know it will take a lot more than that. The point I was trying to make is that…” Feb 6, 18:19
PC Foster on A Stitch In Timing: “It was always known as the Scottish Parliament. However the machinery was called the Scottish Administration until Salmond renamed it…” Feb 6, 18:04
Willie on A Stitch In Timing: “Couldn’t help but reflect on the latest reports about our out beloved Labour party politico one Mr Peter Mandelson. Its…” Feb 6, 17:40
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““try to rehabilitate Scotland before independence” I suspect that’s not generally how decolonization and ‘self-recovery of culture’ works, which is…” Feb 6, 17:18
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Stitch In Timing: “Re Sven. Point taken.” Feb 6, 17:06
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““Not the Crown” ? Hardly. The root of the despicable colonial situation is that elites in Scotland aye tak thair…” Feb 6, 16:48
sarah on A Stitch In Timing: “Scottish court cases are hugely expensive, another obvious impediment to seeking “justice”. The case in the Scottish courts for a…” Feb 6, 16:37
Sven on A Stitch In Timing: “Fearghas Macfhionnlaigh. My own view on that would be that by misnaming a devolved administration as a Parliament a clear…” Feb 6, 15:24
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “With a heavy heart, I have to agree with you, Southernbystander, but not all Scots are anaesthetized by colonialism. Truth…” Feb 6, 15:24
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “I’m not privy, GM, as you might imagine, to what the powers-that-be are up to, but I think that the…” Feb 6, 15:12
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Stitch In Timing: “I would assume that Alex Salmond, and Winnie Ewing (‘The Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on March 25 1707, is hereby…” Feb 6, 14:50
barelybare on A Stitch In Timing: “Thanks for the explanation am firinn. I have a feeling only the initiated are going to truly understand what is…” Feb 6, 14:46
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: “It is surely colonialism that makes a colonized people ‘dependent’. For “without colonialism there would be no colonized people” (Memmi).…” Feb 6, 14:25
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““a devolved administration” That’s what the colonizer calls it. To the colonized it is always a colonial administration.” Feb 6, 13:47
TURABDIN on A Stitch In Timing: “@ALANM. AIDAN, HATEY All true, the political classes, not just in Scotland & England, seem stacked with those who couldn’t…” Feb 6, 13:28
Sven on A Stitch In Timing: “James Cheyne @ 12.59. Only initially renamed a ‘Parliament’ over a weekend owing to the vanity of Mr Salmond, “James”,…” Feb 6, 13:18
James Cheyne on A Stitch In Timing: “If the parliament in Scotland today was a real Scottish parliament it would not have reserved matters restrictions placed on…” Feb 6, 12:59
James Cheyne on A Stitch In Timing: “Define Scottish Government, from…Governance sent to Scotland from the Westminster of England- Ireland parliament since the dissolved parliament of Great…” Feb 6, 12:50
James Cheyne on A Stitch In Timing: “I wonder whom you do blame when Scotland made no 1707 treaty with the parliament of Great Britain nor with…” Feb 6, 12:43
James Cheyne on A Stitch In Timing: “The Westminster parliament ( Scotland ) act 1995 was passed by the Anglo- Irish united kingdom parliament. Which Scotland has…” Feb 6, 12:38
