Alert readers will of course be aware that one of this site’s most frequently-recurring themes is “phantom news”, whereby events or unpleasant opinions that newspapers or broadcasters really want to have happened are conveniently brought to life, either by some random nobody on the internet, or an unnamed “source” or “insider”.
So when Nicola Sturgeon did something today that nearly everyone in the Northern Hemisphere knew she was going to do sometime soon, but wasn’t expecting just yet, there wasn’t time to prepare actual real people with the required quotes.
In the modern media world, though, that isn’t a problem.
We saw this exchange on Twitter this morning, involving left-wing Labour activist Eoin Clarke, a reader, and Scottish Labour list MSP Elaine Smith.
Smith professed to find it “unbelievable” and “scary” that the reader thought he’d had Tory governments for most of his lifetime. (We asked him how old he was and he said 34, which means he’s had Tory governments for 62% of his life, so that checks out.)
But it’s a standard Scottish Labour line that there’s no real difference between Scottish and English voters in terms of favouring left-wing politics, so we thought we’d just quickly check the arithmetic on that. The results are unlikely to shock you.
…on Good Morning Scotland yesterday, then we suspect you’re going to love the Lib Dems’ heroically glaikit MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton on the same show today.
We joke, of course. The Spanish government has made this position abundantly plain several times over a number of years, and it still doesn’t stop idiot Yoons (and media pundits who should know better) from spouting it.
But this time, in the flesh, it’s really quite hard to spin a way out of.
We don’t want to fall into the trap of portraying the Liberal Democrats as a party of any political relevance or consequence in Scotland, but for the sheer comedy value alone Willie Rennie’s interview with Gary Robertson on today’s Good Morning Scotland is worth a couple of minutes of your time.
First Minister’s Questions today (featuring stand-in FM John Swinney in a theatrical mood) was one long howl of “TOO WEE AND TOO POOR!”, with both Ruth Davidson and Kezia Dugdale using all of their questions to hark back to oil revenue forecasts from 2013 and insist that an independent Scotland would face economic apocalypse.
It was a dispiriting spectacle, and we found ourselves experiencing (not for the first time) pangs of sympathy for the remaining tiny rump of Scottish Labour voters, who must surely watch in broken despair at the antics of the hapless pack of squawking diddies representing their views in the Parliament.
(As an alert reader wryly noted: “Well, that’s a first. A one party state raises a motion against its own policy and defeats itself.”)
And we thought you’d like to be reminded that the Scottish Parliament was expressly designed from the beginning so that it would always work like that.
They must be pretty chuffed with how it’s turned out.
We haven’t said much about the huge furore whipped up by the Guardian in recent days around spurious allegations of racism/online abuse by supporters of Scottish independence, made first by Sadiq Khan and then by a deranged “Better Together” activist who also thinks all vegans are racist (or something).
Partly that’s because we covered the initial speech by Khan and the fallout from it pretty extensively, and partly because we didn’t want to feed the Guardian’s clickbait.
However, when the activist who was allegedly “hounded off Twitter” in fear for her life – fear caused by supposed comments that nobody has actually seen – miraculously recovered her bravery less than a week later (coincidentally just in time for the launch of her book), we thought it was probably time someone started keeping some records.
Confused on Holiday Relief: “The disabled will be “sorted” when assisted dying comes in. We are all equal in the grave. Equality at the…” Jun 20, 18:37
Andy Ellis on Holiday Relief: “The most obvious reasons are known and accepted by all sane folk tho’ James. Primarily, not enough Scots (whether native…” Jun 20, 18:27
Dan on Holiday Relief: “@ Aidan If the UK is so great then why does it have to import so much stuff and [eople…” Jun 20, 18:16
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “Why would any one argue that a law abiding mostly safe country should follow and back slide to other countries…” Jun 20, 17:35
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: ““Although where there is a will, there is a way” Naw. That’s gullibility reinforced by the lucky accident of having…” Jun 20, 17:11
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
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Sure, Bip. If only we had more cheerleading for poot and more bigging up of the lassie torturing tunnel skulkers…” Jun 20, 15:36
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
George Ferguson on Holiday Relief: “@Alf Baird 10:03am The purpose of being an Independent Candidate is surely that you don’t have a party or organisation…” Jun 20, 13:40
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
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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
James on Holiday Relief: ““Lord! Such a tedious bore.” Aye, yir aw that. Prick.” Jun 20, 08:42
