Kezia Dugdale spoke for almost exactly 45 minutes to the Scottish Labour conference in Perth today. But we know you’re busy people who don’t want to sit through all of that, and that you trust us to endure it on your behalf so that we can sift through it and present you with only the important bits.
We’re big fans of socialism ourselves, so when a number of delegates at the Scottish Labour conference today, including UK leader Jeremy Corbyn, revived an old Keir Hardie line we were quite excited.
Asking the question is the easy bit: “If the all-new, super-autonomous Scottish Labour decides to oppose the renewal of Trident, and UK Labour continues to support it, which way do Scottish Labour MPs at Westminster vote on it?”
The answer, unsurprisingly, was a lot more difficult to ascertain.
There’s an extraordinary article in the Daily Record today. Here’s a bit of it:
Alert readers might feel that a few lines have gone missing somewhere between paragraphs four and five. And the fact that they have has nothing to do with dead football clubs, and everything to do with the dying Scottish media.
As we observed last night, the BBC’s Andrew Neil has reacted with rather poor grace to his chiding at the hands of respected statisticians Jim and Margaret Cuthbert. Neil embarked on a Twitter blocking spree and tried to rewrite history, claiming that he’d “simply offered” the blunt claim that there had been no cuts to the Scottish budget in the last five years “as one measure” of the money available to Holyrood.
The problem for Neil is that we recorded video of his Sunday interview with the SNP’s Angus Robertson, and anyone can see for themselves that Neil made an unequivocal assertion with no suggestion whatsoever that there were any alternative measures.
“In real terms there’s been – no – cut”, said Neil, spitting out the last three words with dramatic pauses between them for emphasis, in a statement whose stark absence of ambiguity unfortunately left him no wiggle room when the Cuthberts politely but firmly pointed out that it was “ridiculous” to argue that there hadn’t been any cuts, and that the budget “clearly has gone down”.
But Neil’s embarrassment is illustrative of a much wider delusion.
We’ve had no answer from the BBC’s Andrew Neil to the question we asked him at the weekend. There has, however, been an interesting development in the debate over whether there have been severe real-terms cuts to the Scottish Government’s budget since the Conservatives came to power in 2010.
The extremely highly-respected economic analysts Jim and Margaret Cuthbert (the former of whom was Chief Statistician for the Scotland Office) have today written an article for Bella Caledonia seeking to establish the truth of the argument between Mr Neil and ourselves. Their conclusions are expert, detailed and very clear.
We were excited to find out what they were, because we’re sure this time they’ve definitely happened, not like all the times when they said they had but were joking.
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “Breastplate, Aye At what point does a censorship country make a regime change to a dictatorship country. Although where there…” Jun 20, 16:15
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Somebody had better check the small print. It could well be that at ScotGov, a “disabled” person is somebody trapped…” Jun 20, 15:40
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agent x on Holiday Relief: ““THE Scottish Government has launched a “milestone” report which aims to put disabled people’s experiences and concerns at the centre…” Jun 20, 14:00
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James on Holiday Relief: “Alongside a toon cooncil franchise and 24/7 interference by a foreign media system….” Jun 20, 13:38
Breastplate on Holiday Relief: “There’s a sign that hangs on the wall of the retirement home in The Simpsons. It says “Thank you for…” Jun 20, 13:13
lothianlad on Holiday Relief: “The 2014 referendunm was rigged.” Jun 20, 12:17
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “There were many reasons why the Scottish referendum did not work out for the scottish people in that year, some…” Jun 20, 11:54
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “I hope you can fit the story line together, it had to be done this way, because it kept getting…” Jun 20, 11:48
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “Mr johnstone admmited that their friends had interfered in stuff they had no business being connected too back in 2014…” Jun 20, 11:42
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “However the intelligence committee did a investigation around these new ruskelene friends and found they were not so friendly because…” Jun 20, 11:38
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “Perhaps given the initial info some here may be encouraged to do some research on the group mentioned” Jun 20, 11:31
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “They were a contented and happily connected bunch of party goers at that table, many conversations and ideas were shared…” Jun 20, 11:27
Aidan on Holiday Relief: “I’m not sure what kind of reset you have in mind, but in general jobs in the UK’s professional services…” Jun 20, 11:23
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “There were many interesting people in the Westminter ruskelene forum such as mr rifkind, caroline nokes. Mr Straw, and other…” Jun 20, 11:18
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “I am going to have to make this comments in separate posts, and you are going to have to glue…” Jun 20, 11:01
Hatey McHateface on What We Don’t Know Now: “An excellent post. I would add that recent moves to make it easier to eliminate “unproductives” from society are, as…” Jun 20, 10:46
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Lots of sound ideas in Dan’s latest post. We should be using our local resources to make our own steel…” Jun 20, 10:35
robertkknight on Holiday Relief: “Another case of “I didn’t leave the SNP… the SNP left me!”” Jun 20, 10:17
Jontoscot21 on What We Don’t Know Now: “David I am with you. Alba were my last hope but they have proven useless. I find with the exception…” Jun 20, 10:07
Alf Baird on Holiday Relief: “Its taken him long enough (since 2015!) to figure out the SNP leadership has been co-opted by the colonial /…” Jun 20, 10:03
Dan on Holiday Relief: “@ Aidan Hmm, so you’re unable or unwilling to even consider looking at things through anything other than the current…” Jun 20, 09:34
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Cleanup on aisle 1. Now please! His mammie’s hame at 10.” Jun 20, 09:17
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socratesmacsporran on Holiday Relief: “When Fergus Ewing is bailing out of the SNP, why, other than being brainwashed in the cult, is anyone else…” Jun 20, 08:23
George Ferguson on Holiday Relief: “Tenruh Fergus Ewing should become the 4th Independent elected to Holyrood since 1999. His is the sort of profile needed.…” Jun 20, 08:16
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Here’s a quote from something I read this morning on the subject of assisted suicide: “some might argue that the…” Jun 20, 08:07
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Tenruh on Holiday Relief: “Fergus Ewing stands as independent candidate in 2026” Jun 20, 07:07
