Voices of the people 157
Posted on
August 26, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Things you’ll never hear a Scottish interviewer say.
Author Archive
Safe in their hands 375
Posted on
August 25, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alistair Darling was angry last week, as he was awake. In a tetchy interview with the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland he insisted that “there is no political party in the United Kingdom at the moment that could get away with destroying the NHS”.
He went on to rubbish the idea that the English service was being privatised by the Conservative-led government, and accused the SNP of scaremongering over the issue for opportunistic political gain. So we thought we’d see if we could find anyone else who thought the NHS was in danger of privatisation and destruction.
Alistair Darling Lie Bingo 138
Posted on
August 25, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve been so busy with the Wee Blue Book for the past week or so that we only just got round to listening to last Tuesday’s interview with Alistair Darling on Good Morning Scotland in time, before it vanished from the iPlayer. The former Chancellor gets a quite uncomfortable ride from presenter Gary Robertson, and flaps angrily for much of the ten-and-a-half minutes trying to turn every question into one on currency.
Mr Darling also makes some startlingly and empirically false statements throughout the interview, and we thought it’d be worth noting a few of them and seeing if they crop up on tonight’s BBC1 debate with the First Minister.
Kezia Dugdale is a liar 147
Posted on
August 25, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
There’s some interesting footage circulating today of a referendum debate for women that took place last week. Many people have focused on No-campaign representative Cat Headley admitting that a “Better Together” leaflet made some highly misleading claims about an independent Scotland’s ranking among the world’s wealthiest countries, but we covered that back in May so we won’t go over it again.
The bit of the meeting that caught our eye is at 1m 36 in the clip above.
The wrong direction 183
Posted on
August 24, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Stand by, readers. We’re about to post some porn for stat nerds.
Yeah, you like that, don’t you? What’s a bit less sexy, though, is what the table above means for the “safety and security” of the UK, and the cost of your mortgage.
Why Ed Balls is an idiot 115
Posted on
August 24, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Labour’s shadow Chancellor quoted in today’s Observer:
This won’t take very long at all.
The ordinary people 390
Posted on
August 23, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The startling lack of “grassroots” support in the No campaign has been a recurring theme on this site. Time and again, people presented as typical members of the public turn out to be dedicated political activists with a vested interest in the status quo.
The “Better Together” website has a long-running series of blog posts under the banner “Why I’m saying No Thanks”. All of the people featured in it are introduced with no mention of any involvment in politics. Out of idle curiosity we thought we’d see if we could find out a little more about them.
Strong medicine 237
Posted on
August 22, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
When we came up with this flyer idea last January, we decided that on balance it was perhaps edging a wee bit on the aggressive side. But in the light of today’s comments from Eddie Bone and the deputy leader of UKIP, and the findings of the recent Future Of England survey, it seems suddenly more appropriate. What do we think, folks?
Gordon Brown is a liar 450
Posted on
August 21, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This is what goes on behind the closed doors of invitation-only events run by the No campaign. Here, the former PM and self-proclaimed “ex-politician” lies through his teeth (again) to a Fife audience in June, presumably hoping they’ve by now forgotten his incompetent reign as Chancellor – the massive pensions raid, the cut-price sell-off of the nation’s gold, the ending of the 10p tax rate and all the rest, and the calamitous economic crisis he bequeathed to the nation:
Apparently oil revenues will be the sole source of money for an independent Scotland. No taxes at all. Apparently they’re only “£3 billion a year”, even though they’ve in fact NEVER been as low as £3bn since the Scottish Parliament existed and most sensible projections put receipts for the next few years at an average of at least twice that.
The lost treasure of the deep 310
Posted on
August 21, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Sir Ian Wood quoted in the Scotsman late last year:
Unfortunately, since then there’s been a cataclysm.
The other one’s got bells on 216
Posted on
August 20, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
An alert reader drew our attention to a piece in the Telegraph on Monday.
Lordy, where to start?
