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Picking up the gauntlet 116

Posted on July 21, 2017 by

We’ll be honest with you here, readers – even though it’s only July, when it comes to sheer ham-fisted, tin-eared, clown-shoed, foot-shooting idiocy we didn’t think anything in Scottish politics in 2017 could possibly top the SNP’s decision that the surefire way to win back voters after a poor election result was literally mutilating puppies.

After all, that’s the sort of thing you say as a self-evidently ludicrous and hyperbolic joke: “Ha ha, the SNP are so dominant in Scotland these days that the only way they could lose an election would be if Nicola Sturgeon went on telly and started hacking the tails off week-old puppy-dogs without anaesthetic! LOL!!!!!”

It couldn’t even be defended as a grotesque but cynically cunning attempt to win votes from the rural hunting-and-fishing lobby – they did it right AFTER the election, when all those people had just gone out and voted Tory anyway.

But bless their hearts, Scottish Labour never once saw a low bar that they didn’t try to slither under, and today they pulled off the seemingly impossible.

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The Pollyanna Problem 69

Posted on July 21, 2017 by

Broadly speaking, the psychological phenomenon known as the Pollyanna Principle is a tendency to neurotically see the most positive possible view of a situation. It’s not generally widely found in newspapers – for whom bad news as a rule sells much better than good news – but for some reason the Scottish press makes a uniform exception when it comes to military shipbuilding.

This, for example, is today’s Herald:

Now, in itself that headline is – unusually – true, so far as it goes. But it only takes until the first sentence of the article text before things start to fall apart.

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Friendly Help For Jeremy 110

Posted on July 21, 2017 by

From today’s Daily Record:

Have you spotted Kindly Uncle Jez’s mistake, readers?

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The second-class licence fee 301

Posted on July 19, 2017 by

Today the BBC finally officially revealed what everyone already knew.

So now Scottish viewers definitely know where we stand.

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The proof of the pudden 125

Posted on July 18, 2017 by

Here’s Kezia Dugdale in the Daily Record today:

If only there was somewhere that Labour DID already run the NHS so that we could judge the truth of that claim, eh readers?

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The Victim 452

Posted on July 16, 2017 by

Deep in the summer news desert, the papers today are struggling for material again. The Sunday Herald has a shock-horror front-page exposé about some photos from an Orange Lodge party that turn out to be from 2010 and 2013, while the Scottish Mail On Sunday reaches all the way back to 1940 to fill a couple of pages.

But the Sunday Mail’s timing is even weirder.

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Glass house heavily stoned 117

Posted on July 14, 2017 by

And no, we’re not talking about Ruth Davidson living it up at Fingers Piano Bar. Kezia Dugdale tweeted this today:

Which would be a little bit like us gloating that Andy Murray was rubbish at tennis on the grounds that he was knocked out of Wimbledon this week.

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Mundell’s Law 75

Posted on July 14, 2017 by

We already knew what David Mundell’s guarantees were worth, of course. So it’s not like we can exactly feign surprise at this.

The best we can say is that at least this time it took four months for the Secretary Of State’s promise to completely and utterly collapse, not 48 hours.

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Good news is no news 97

Posted on July 13, 2017 by

In a month of positive statistics for Scotland – including unexpectedly high economic growth figures, continuing to lead the UK and hitting its own tough targets for hospital waiting times (which drew an incredibly petty and insulting response from Scottish Labour), and huge progress in rail punctuality (now also the best anywhere in the country) – perhaps the most welcome of all was the release yesterday of the lowest unemployment figures for quarter of a century.

(Again the best in the UK, and in fact the best in Scotland of all time, since separate Scottish records only started to be kept in 1992.)

The Scotsman commendably gave the glad tidings top billing on its front page.

But despite it being slow news season, the rest of the media was a little less excited.

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To last throughout the years 319

Posted on July 12, 2017 by

We’re not often genuinely shocked, readers.

But then we switched on BBC1 Northern Ireland today.

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Towers of hate 159

Posted on July 12, 2017 by

It’s a sleepy Wednesday in July, so let’s celebrate some proud British culture!

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The problem of memory 135

Posted on July 11, 2017 by

So this is a thing that happened yesterday:

Because, as ever, Scottish Labour are absolutely certain that voters are morons.

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    • Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “Children play games.Mar 16, 18:04
    • Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Northcode @ 17.43. No problem at all, Northy. No one who appreciates Shelley can fail to find a sympathetic reception…Mar 16, 18:04
    • Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “Victories of the past are more palatable than the present self inflicted kick in the teeth.Mar 16, 18:01
    • Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “Independence comes before women! That says it all. The fact that you fail to see the difference!! Your hatred has…Mar 16, 17:56
    • David Holden on Looking up at the stars: “Over 14 days into The Donald’s big Persian Excursion and it is not looking good. Also the chosen people have…Mar 16, 17:54
    • Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Sven, I dunno where you get the idea that the role of “self appointed grammar officer on the site” is…Mar 16, 17:48
    • Northcode on Looking up at the stars: “Seriously, Sven. I’m happy that I misread your comment and that you weren’t siding with Chas and having a go…Mar 16, 17:43
    • Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““the English finally acknowledged they had lost the war” You are President Donald Trump and I claim my bigly, beautiful,…Mar 16, 17:35
    • Northcode on Looking up at the stars: “I see, Sven. In that case… I forgive you. And less of your cheek, ye Gail, ye.Mar 16, 17:31
    • 100%Yes on Looking up at the stars: “Thank you for this. I never knew that.Mar 16, 17:30
    • Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “I’m sorry but that’s a 180 degree inversion, at the moment the U.K. Government has a legal veto over the…Mar 16, 17:21
    • Sven on Looking up at the stars: “I posted nothing relative to Geri, Northy. My remark was addressed to Chas, regarding his use of an incorrect apostrophe…Mar 16, 17:09
    • Northcode on Looking up at the stars: ““Would you care to translate the above phrase into Pictish?” Aye, nae bother: “oor superior Pictish leid”… ther ye go,…Mar 16, 17:03
    • Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: “Fearghas, there are many different Scots words that also correspond to e.g. Norwegian, German, Dutch equivalents, also Latin and French…Mar 16, 16:49
    • Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “Happy anniversary tomorrow of the 1328 Treaty of Northampton- Edinburgh where the English finally acknowledged they had lost the war…Mar 16, 16:38
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    • Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: “A fowk shoud nivver be affrontit wi thair ain langage…. unless that is thay’ve been thoraely colonized by anither langage…Mar 16, 16:10
    • 100%Yes on Looking up at the stars: “Trans is less than 1% of the population this is why the SNP run by the British state made trans…Mar 16, 16:00
    • Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: “Just as the Picts were descended from the neolithic peoples who inhabited Scotland, so Scots speakin fowk must be descended…Mar 16, 15:51
    • sarah on Looking up at the stars: “@ Lorncal: Allan Petrie has joined ISP. I don’t know if you saw my reply to your previous comment where…Mar 16, 15:51
    • Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““the restoration of her people’s sovereignty must come before everything else” Here ye gang, Northy. Fixed it fer ye: “the…Mar 16, 15:29
    • Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Sorry, Rev and commentators: just checked more deeply. Allan is stepping down; but Ash Regan is standing in Edinburgh East,…Mar 16, 15:27
    • Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““Scots will decide. In a vote. After public consultation” After the mobile gas chambers have made at least one pass,…Mar 16, 15:24
    • Sven on Looking up at the stars: ““Any of your deranged scribblings'” seems to me to read, in full, “any of your deranged scribbling is.” , Chas.…Mar 16, 15:23
    • Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Sven/Mark: agreed. I could weep for what these ‘woke’ people have done to my country and my sex. You only…Mar 16, 15:21
    • Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Our devolved HR administration officially recognises 24 genders. It is only Indy that will allow us to enforce equal representation…Mar 16, 15:19
    • Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Exactly MaryBMar 16, 15:13
    • Geri on Looking up at the stars: “It’ll be for Scots to decide after independence. That was Salmonds view too. It’d go to a public consultation. Exactly…Mar 16, 15:11
    • 100%Yes on Looking up at the stars: “Independence has to come first with Independence woman can truly be protected by our laws and not a foreign country’s.…Mar 16, 15:08
    • Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “So, Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, you have the temerity to come on here, denying the veracity of the Declaration Of Arbroath. Either…Mar 16, 15:07
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