You might not think it, readers, but even after all this time we’re still capable of a certain degree of innocent, naive trust in Scottish journalism.
When Nicola Sturgeon didn’t just issue a boilerplate condemnation at FMQs yesterday after ludicrously overblown allegations of Twitter “trolling” by an SNP candidate, but went on the counter-attack over Labour’s grotesquely abusive Ian Smart, we foolishly thought that might make both sides of the story newsworthy.
And then we opened the papers.
We don’t expect the media to be impartial. But let there today officially be an end to even the slightest pretence that it’s at least fair, professional and honest.
A few days ago, a constituency poll by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft found that the SNP were leading narrowly in Edinburgh South – a seat in which they secured a paltry 7.7% of the vote in the 2010 general election. Keep that fact in mind, readers.
Today the Edinburgh Evening News (EEN) published an article by David Maddox, a senior political journalist on the Scotsman, alleging that the SNP candidate for the seat, Neil Hay, had “liken[ed] anti-independence campaigners to Nazi collaborators” in a tweet over two and a half years ago (from a pseudonymous account under the name “Paco McSheepie”), and had also tweeted a series of attacks on pensioners.
Scottish Labour immediately leapt on the article and demanded Mr Hay be sacked as the candidate, less than two weeks before the election. It’s not possible to replace a candidate at such a late stage – some voters may already have voted by post – and such a move would thereby effectively have handed the seat to the Labour candidate and previous MP Ian Murray by default.
The story turned out to be an absurd, massive exaggeration and misrepresentation of the reality. But it also exposed a level of naked, shameless dishonesty and hypocrisy in Scottish Labour, and in particular its deputy leader Kezia Dugdale, that even this site hadn’t previously dared to imagine.
Earlier today we highlighted some of the social-media charm of Labour blogger and BBC pundit Ian Smart, after the Scottish branch office deputy leader Kezia Dugdale demanded that the First Minister should take a more pro-active role in policing the comments of party members on Twitter and Facebook.
Mr Smart’s history of incredibly abusive and offensive comments stretches back many years. But of course, it wouldn’t be reasonable to berate Scottish Labour for its failure to act if it wasn’t aware of them. So we had a trawl through his Twitter followers list just to see if there was anyone who might have noticed and brought it to the leadership’s attention so they could have a quiet word.
At today’s First Minister’s Questions, the Scottish Labour deputy leader Kezia Dugdale launched into an ill-advised attack over an SNP candidate who’d made some foolish (but not especially outrageous) comments on Twitter in 2012. Rather than simply issuing the standard generic condemnation of abusive remarks, Nicola Sturgeon did so but also drew Dugdale’s attention to the beam in her own eye.
Labour activist, blogger, lawyer and regular BBC pundit Ian Smart (he hasn’t been seen on STV since accusing them repeatedly, without any evidence, of letting the SNP pre-approve all interview questions some time ago) is well known to readers of this blog. Bizarrely, however, Dugdale feigned ignorance of his activity.
To help her, we’ve compiled some of Mr Smart’s greatest hits.
We’re just putting this shot of today’s brief Edinburgh gathering (from Isabel Hardman of the Spectator) here for the record, so people can compare it with the footage and images that appear on tonight’s news bulletins and tomorrow’s newspapers.
We’re going to have to check what the CBI’s position on electoral reform was before First Past The Post threatened to elect a load of SNP MPs and became a democratic outrage in the process. We’ll get back to you on that one.
Alert readers were startled yesterday when a former UK Prime Minister who WASN’T Gordon Brown suddenly took it upon himself to lumber out of his crypt and unleash an unsolicited intervention in the general election campaign.
As apparently that’s now the requirement for anyone attempting to influence a vote in Britain, we’re sure Sir John – a man best remembered in the world of politics for cheating on his wife with one of his ministers and instituting the Cones Hotline – will remind us which constituency he’s standing for any minute now.
If you thought the right-wing press was having paroxysms at the weekend, readers, you’re going to love what they had lined up for the day of the SNP manifesto launch.
Let’s have a little tour of the London newsrooms, shall we?
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Sit back and observe what is happening slow but surely.” Jul 27, 08:41
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I personally think that Scotland might be the one saving grace for England, Ireland, Wales and all the surrounding smaller…” Jul 27, 08:39
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “It has not gone under my personal radar that the monarchy has been officially downsized, two have cancer, although I…” Jul 27, 08:30
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I suspect worrying what Scotland may or may not do sometime in the future might be the least of Englands…” Jul 27, 08:12
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Andy Wiltshire, Rejoin the UK? It would be treason? 1) There would be no UK Country or State to re-join.…” Jul 27, 08:05
Mark Beggan on Safety First: “Here’s some of the Anti-Trump comments from protesters: 1.” I despise him. He has no right to be here, Iam…” Jul 27, 02:38
willie on Safety First: “I don’t think anyone thinks what has been attempted on Nurse Peggie is a laugh. our government is a laugh,…” Jul 26, 22:15
willie on Safety First: “Oh and one last thing before I retire I was thinking about intimidation which as we know in the good…” Jul 26, 22:01
agent x on Safety First: “Sandie Peggie, the claimant, is an A&E nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy with 30 years’ experience at NHS Fife.…” Jul 26, 21:57
willie on Safety First: “Ah Hatey c’mon now you’ve probably rumbled Dr Theodore Upton’s future business plans. There is as been noted thems that…” Jul 26, 21:39
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Alf Baird says @ 26 July, 6:20 pm – « We may perhaps reasonably conclude that nothing a colonial administration…” Jul 26, 20:13
agent x on Safety First: “Earlier this month, Swinney said, “it is in the interests of the country that he meets US President as he…” Jul 26, 20:00
Xaracen on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Your turn, Aidan. Where’s your formal evidence that the C-24 ‘rejected outright’ Scotland’s Petition, to the extent that it will…” Jul 26, 19:47
Insider on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Eh ????? Since when have Sturgeon, the “greens” and all the other gender woo woo trans activists been considered “right…” Jul 26, 19:44
Hatey McHateface on Safety First: “Ah, c’moan noo, Stuart. If nobody is getting their bits chopped, where are the people who want extra bits gonna…” Jul 26, 19:21
Hatey McHateface on Safety First: “Ah, c’moan noo, Stuart. If nobody is getting their bits chopped, where are the people who want extra bits gonna…” Jul 26, 19:21
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Very depressing that so much of the money for the renewables infrastructure is going to foreign-based companies whose governments have…” Jul 26, 19:17
Dan on Safety First: “I’ve yet to establish if Dr Oetker has connections to the genderwoowoo and pharmaceutical industry, but have long questioned where…” Jul 26, 19:16
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Alf, Would you care to give us an example or two of your perceived “ongoing discrimination against the Scots language”?…” Jul 26, 19:09
Dan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Other stuff going on in Scotland aside from genderwoowoo and dung beetle battles. https://www.isp.scot/july-19th-july-25th-2025/” Jul 26, 18:56
Stuart on Safety First: “What’s more amazing is that If genitals do not determine gender, then why do they have to be removed to…” Jul 26, 18:54
Alexander Gavin on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “It always amazes me, and makes me laugh, at how obsessed with sex or sexuality the right wing are!” Jul 26, 18:36
Alf Baird on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “We may perhaps reasonably conclude that nothing a colonial administration promotes is in the best interest of the colonized, the…” Jul 26, 18:20
Hatey McHateface on Safety First: “Dinna grudge her a new dress or two. Politics is, after all, show biz for ugly people. If we have…” Jul 26, 18:04
Hatey McHateface on Safety First: ““Trump, himself, may not have yet acquired political diplomatic skills” Yet even his most pathologically hating detractors, Guardianistas for example,…” Jul 26, 18:01
Nae Need! on Safety First: “I couldn’t agree more, GM. Sadistic tendencies. I’ve not found much about any of the TRA shite, laughable. Far too…” Jul 26, 17:54
agent x on Safety First: “The National front page 25 Jul “CONVICTED US FELON TO ARRIVE IN SCOTLAND Republican leader, who was found liable for…” Jul 26, 17:41
