Song For The Fiscal Framework 86
Posted on
February 23, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Watch the devolution committee live from 8.30am here.
Author Archive
More repeats 297
Posted on
February 21, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The slow news year in Scottish politics continues. These are all from today:
Sound familiar?
The Taffy Tories 120
Posted on
February 20, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers can’t have failed to notice a desperate Scottish Labour dusting off the old “Tartan Tories” attack on the SNP recently, over the Nats’ unwillingness to join in with Kezia Dugdale’s kerrazy kaper of hiking up income tax.
So after today we can only assume they’ll be looking for some similarly pithy zingers for their colleagues in Wales. They can have this one for free.
We agree with Michael Gove 143
Posted on
February 20, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The drained pool 219
Posted on
February 19, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s curious that as the Scotland Bill negotiations deadlock drags on, well beyond its original deadline of 12 February and now hurtling headlong towards the extended 23 February one with no sign of progress on the horizon, that nobody is remarking on one of the most striking facets of the new devolution proposals.
Remember “pooling and sharing”, readers? Whatever happened to that?
Toadies Of Toad Hall 243
Posted on
February 18, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Last night, MP Natalie McGarry made another heavily-qualified semi-apology to the popular abusive-tweeter enthusiast JK Rowling, because that’s how bullying works. (As far as we know McGarry has still refused Rowling’s demand that she make a sizeable donation to Rowling’s charity under threat of legal action.)
One of George Orwell’s most-quoted lines is “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
We wonder who was trying to silence the torrent of drivel below, then.
Making numbers dance 86
Posted on
February 18, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Without a doubt our new favourite Unionist website is this one:
And it’s not just for the snazzy badges.
The SNPBAD Files 318
Posted on
February 17, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Since the astonishing election of 56 SNP MPs to the UK Parliament last May, the Unionist media – suddenly deprived of a whole contacts book full of friendly Scottish Labour bench-warmers ready to feed it cosy stories over a boozy expenses lunch in Whitehall – has raked through every bin and gutter in the land looking for anything (however pathetic) that it can try to puff up, distort, and rope into service as “dirt” on each of the Nat members, in an attempt to discredit them and the party.
So let’s just have a little look in here and – YIKES!
This could take some time.
Nationalism in reverse 234
Posted on
February 16, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We saw a very interesting article on the London School of Economics website today.
It notes that in 2006, the year before the SNP came to power, 65% of Scots identified themselves as “Scottish not British” or “more Scottish than British”, but by 2014 – the year of the independence referendum – that number had fallen to just 49%.
It concludes, correctly, that just as we noted on Sunday, support for independence is fundamentally political in nature, not nationalist. But that only tells half the story.
Good-news Monday 218
Posted on
February 15, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Herald’s lead politics story this morning:
So Scotland currently has no debt? No responsibility for any share of the enormous £1.5 trillion burden run up by the UK? We’ll take that deal. Where do we sign?
Stats Against Humanity 213
Posted on
February 14, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Barely a week – indeed, barely a day – has gone by over the last year or so without some angry, confused and hurt-sounding Unionist pundit or politician churning out yet another article on the theme of “WHY AREN’T YOU GRATEFUL THAT WE SAVED YOU FROM INDEPENDENCE, YOU APPALLING PLEBS?”
As far as the No side are concerned, the oil-price slump is a slam-dunk game-ender which finally conclusively proves that Scotland is too wee and too poor to run its own affairs, and their uncomprehending bewilderment as support for a Yes vote not only fails to disintegrate but keeps increasing even as the oil price sinks lower and lower has been quite a phenomenon to behold.
So we were interested to see today’s Sunday Times report a YouGov poll done for the comedy grumpy-old-white-guys support group (and spectacularly unsuccessful tactical voting enthusiasts) Scotland In Union, and somewhat miss the point of the results.
A bold interpretation 333
Posted on
February 11, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
There’s nothing unusual about reading something in the Scottish media that makes your eyes widen. But a piece we saw in the Courier earlier today stretched ours out to Clockwork Orange-like proportions.
Now that’s a pretty intriguing opening (as the bishop said to the actress). At first we took it to mean that an independent Scotland could effectively take over Britain’s EU membership in the event of a Leave vote, ending any debate about whether and when it would be admitted on its own.
But then the punchline arrived.
