Alert readers will already be aware that we’re not the biggest fans of prospective Scottish Labour deputy “leader” Kezia Dugdale. Even this site, however, doesn’t think the Lothian list MSP is so inept and slow-witted that she could single-handedly be held responsible for the party losing the next two general elections.
Some of her comrades, however, have less faith.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, scottish politics
The Daily Record, 27 November 2014:
So, IS the Scottish Government budget going to “nearly double”?
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: flat-out liesThe Vow
Category
comment, media, scottish politics
We’ve been watching in some bafflement the continuation of this bizarre non-story from yesterday. (For which, incidentally, the P&J has published a correction today.)
As one in five Scottish children live in poverty and temperatures fall at the beginning of winter with many families facing the choice between heating their homes or buying food, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie apparently arrived at the conclusion that the most important thing he could be doing with his taxpayer-funded time was occupying the Scottish Parliament with a demand to know (for no immediately apparent reason) how often civil servants had accessed Wings Over Scotland in the six months leading up to the referendum.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, culture, idiots, navel-gazing, scottish politics, wtf
We didn’t think we’d ever encounter a greater feat of rapid comprehension than Alistair Darling digesting and analysing the entire 670-page White Paper on independence in under two hours back in 2013, readers. But we’re delighted to reveal a new champion.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
analysis, comment, scottish politics
As we’re talking about surveys, opinion polls and statistics today, it seemed worth mentioning another one that’s come to our attention. Conducted earlier in the year by YouGov but only released today, it’s a vast poll done on behalf of the Co-operative and canvassed over 180,000 people, most of them through the Co-op’s own website.
It’s relevant to us because the Co-operative also runs a political party, which has representatives at both Westminster (31 MPs) and Holyrood (4). They’re little-known because the Co-op never stands in its own right, but in conjunction with Labour, so to all intents and purposes it’s a branch of the Labour Party, funded by Co-op customers.
And it turns out most of them don’t know that, and don’t like it when they find out.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, scottish politics, uk politics
We’ve long known that Labour’s attachment to the Union was founded on the belief – though a statistically erroneous one – that it couldn’t form a secure UK government without the block of MPs (currently 40) that it sends to Westminster from Scotland.
But a fascinating article from YouGov president Peter Kellner on the YG website today suggests that the party’s desperate and eventually successful efforts to secure a No vote could turn out to be the most Pyrrhic victory of all time.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
analysis, psephology, uk politics
There’s a curious column in today’s Scottish Sun on the subject of the Smith Commission. We’re going to have to quote quite a large chunk of it to make our point.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
analysis, comment, media, scottish politics
This really happened today:
Bagpipes! Haggis! Tartan! Whisky! Pretty sure we just got trolled, folks.
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: and finally
Category
comment, culture, uk politics
Here’s Jim Murphy, a self-proclaimed “socialist” and the hot favourite to be the next “leader” of Scottish Labour, interviewed in today’s Mail On Sunday while doubtless still fresh from his regular early-morning run-through of The Red Flag:
To the barricades, comrades!
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, scottish politics
…are closer than they appear, runs a (slightly depressing) inscription that must by law be engraved on the door mirror of cars in the USA.
Objects in the Telegraph, though, follow different rules. (Thanks, we’re here all week.)
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: arithmetic fail
Category
comment, media, scottish politics
