We must admit we’re quite jealous of National Collective’s media management. We told Ian Taylor’s lawyers to sod off over a week ago and nobody put US all over the news. But in amongst all the brouhaha around the site’s welcome return, one aspect of the coverage stood out rather startlingly.
“Better Together campaign director Jackie Baillie MSP said she did not have a problem accepting Mr Taylor’s money. […] Ms Baillie also pointed out that Mr Taylor had made important investments in the Harris tweed industry on the Western Isles.
‘Is the first minister equally suggesting that Mr Taylor should disinvest from Harris tweed?’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’s said that today.'”
After a week of stonewall silence, it seems the No camp has finally come up with its defence line (the Tories, Lib Dems and various tame columnists have also been faithfully parroting it all day): there’s no difference between Ian Taylor investing his doubtless-legally-obtained wealth in Harris Tweed and investing it in “Better Together”.
Except there rather obviously is, isn’t there?
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Category
analysis, comment, media, scottish politics, uk politics
Yesterday saw the release of the latest unemployment figures. They showed Scottish unemployment falling by 11,000 to its lowest level in four years – dropping below the 200,000 barrier for the first time since 2009, after five successive months of falls – with the number of people in work showing its biggest increase for almost 13 years.
The figures came against a backdrop of continuing increases in UK joblessness, leaving the Scottish unemployment rate significantly below that of the rest of the country. The Scottish economy also grew by 0.5% over the most recent measured period, while that of the UK continued to shrink.
We know what you’re thinking – this is GOOD news, right?
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Tags: misinformation
Category
analysis, football, media, scottish politics, stats
We doff our hats to the people of former mining village Goldthorpe in South Yorkshire today. This afternoon they marked the passing of Baroness Thatcher according to their own experience of her, and it didn’t cost the taxpayer a single penny.
Full picture gallery courtesy of BBC reporter James Vincent here, story here.
Category
pictures, uk politics
This is from an article in today’s edition of north-Scotland regional paper the Press & Journal about a poll they’ve just conducted among residents of Orkney and Shetland.
Flying in the face of Tavish Scott’s most recent attempts to bang on his battered old drum of how the Northern Isles might want to form their own independent nation/s if Scotland left the UK, the citizens of the two island groups delivered a crushing “No” to the notion, voting by a margin of almost 8:1 to stay part of Scotland.
Why, then, has the P&J chosen to illustrate the “No” section of its pie charts (meaning “No, we shouldn’t be separate from Scotland”) with the Union Jack of the UK, and the “Yes” section (meaning “Yes, we should be separate from Scotland”) with the Saltire? We’ve dropped them a line to ask.
Category
disturbing, media, scottish politics, stats
The oil industry: volatile, unreliable, risky, bad.
“Oil & Gas UK believes around 470m barrels of oil and gas will be extracted from the area in 2013, a fivefold increase on the average over the past three years. Two million barrels of oil a day are set to come on stream by 2017, up from 1.5m this year.”
The nuclear industry: stable, predictable, good.
“they might be committing all of us to pay more for that electricity than is justified – and not just for a few weeks or months, but till 2060.”
Independence: we just can’t afford to take the chance.
Category
comment
We don’t really need to write anything today. If you want to know why you have to vote Yes in 2014, just turn on your TV.
Tags: britnats
Category
media, uk politics
Labour MP John Mann has now given his account of yesterday’s goings-on around a misattributed quote in the Sunday Times and Herald. You can read it on his website, or look at this conveniently-located screenshot (click to supersize) instead:
Speaking as writers we’re especially impressed by the fifth paragraph’s use of no fewer than SIX exclamation marks after a single word. But it’s the next bit, and in particular the section we’ve highlighted in the image above, that’s rather more concerning.
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Tags: smears
Category
comment, scottish politics, uk politics
We were dismayed to hear this morning that the Scottish Parliament had wussed out on holding a debate on Margaret Thatcher’s legacy which had been scheduled for the day of her funeral (though not during it). But we were immediately cheered up again by this indirectly-related reader comment:
“By the way did I hear correctly that the funeral is supposed to have a Falklands theme? Would it therefore be bad taste to suggest putting Thatcher into a General Belgrano-shaped coffin and have it sunk into the grave by a hearse disguised as HMS Conqueror?”
Now THAT we’d pay money for.
Tags: light-hearted banter
Category
comment
It’s gone midnight and we don’t normally do speculation, but as it’s already showing up in our incoming searches we’ve spent the last little while trying to work out what’s gone on between SNP MP Angus Robertson, Labour MP John Mann and the Herald in the last 24 hours. So first let’s establish the known facts, then have the attempted deduction, and hopefully by the morning read the official clarifications.
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Tags: squirrels
Category
analysis, media, scottish politics
We’ve received another letter from Ian Taylor’s lawyers. You can read it below.
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Category
admin, navel-gazing, scottish politics
We recently received the same letter from the Radio Times as many other people did, in response to our complaint about the magazine’s misrepresentation of respected Scottish historian Dr Fiona Watson last month. The problem related to an article about the film “Braveheart”, which made some deeply unpleasant implications easily read as saying the SNP were xenophobic racists encouraging anti-English violence.
The reply didn’t address the very specific issues we’d raised about what Dr Watson did or didn’t say, so we wrote back to the mag’s editor Ben Preston seeking clarification on a couple of important points. His reply is below.
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Tags: braveheart klaxonmisinformationsmearssnp accused
Category
analysis, disturbing, media