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Category errors 108

Posted on January 21, 2014 by

Veteran readers will be aware that there are basically two types of misinformation perpetrated by the Scottish media. The rarer type is the flat-out lie, where things that are simply demonstrably untrue are presented as facts – a common example being the regular assertion by journalists that all three Unionist parties are committed to giving Holyrood new additional powers after a No vote, which was neatly skewered by Andrew Nicoll in yesterday’s Sun (image link, no paywall).

category

The subtler variety is when newspapers and broadcasters report true information in a misleading way, sometimes so drastically that it comes out meaning the exact opposite of what it actually means. A story today is a case in point.

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Category analysis, media, scottish politics

108 Days Later 108

Posted on January 20, 2014 by

The Herald, 4 October 2013:

salmondballs1

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Category scottish politics, uk politics

Claimed in full 54

Posted on January 20, 2014 by

Much gratitude tonight to alert reader “Albamac”, who’s not only compiled the whole of “The Claim Of Scotland” into a single very small (1MB), easy-download PDF file but has converted it in the process into one with cut-and-pasteable text for quotability. We’ve uploaded it to the Repository, and you can also download it from this direct link.

claimed

Big love once again too to Wilma Watts who made our serialisation possible in the first place, and to the sadly-deceased Herbert James Paton for writing a book that for the most part could have been released yesterday. We highly recommend it as a starting point for any undecideds you know who might not want to jump straight into the debate with something as openly partisan as this site. Having read it, we suspect they’ll be hungry for more truth, and then you can send them our way.

Tags:
Category culture, history, scottish politics

When it’s horrible being right 59

Posted on January 20, 2014 by

Me, writing in April 2010, before there was a Wings Over Scotland:

“Brown doesn’t have a pig in a sausage factory’s chance of still being PM in a month’s time. So all he’s doing with this disgusting, desperate attempt to grab a few Mail-reader votes in marginals is setting a tone of contempt for the poor that the Tories will seize on, and thereby triangulate their own position to somewhere even more loathsome. God help the poor if Cameron gets in.”

Once in a while it’d be nice to get it completely wrong.

Tags:
Category uk politics

Good morning, Britain 68

Posted on January 20, 2014 by

Welcome to another glorious new dawn in the Union.

benefits4

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Category comment, culture, disturbing, uk politics

Something to look forward to 32

Posted on January 19, 2014 by

ftgap

#ukok #bettertogether

Category uk politics

Fairness In The First Year 88

Posted on January 19, 2014 by

For those of you wanting to look at the report on broadcasting bias from the University of the West of Scotland, we’ve uploaded it to the Repository, and you can also grab it directly from this link. Thanks to the alert readers who sent it in.

Category analysis, media, scottish politics

Subsidy junkies 101

Posted on January 19, 2014 by

We can’t be the only people, surely, to find the latest “Better Together” gambit one of their strangest yet. Never mind the made-up figures or the spurious assertions or their usual habit of having headline amounts which use cumulative sums over many years to make numbers sound bigger. Just look at the barely-concealed subtext here:

subsidyjunkies1

“Don’t leave the UK, or you’ll have to give your money to the English! Eurgh!”

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Category analysis, comment, europe, scottish politics, uk politics

Has the lovebombing started yet? 181

Posted on January 18, 2014 by

Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail, just discovered:

“It’s such a pity that nobody knows any history, or it would be quite obvious what so-called Scottish ‘Independence’ is about. Our continental enemies sought for centuries to detach Scotland from England, to weaken us. Now they’re doing it again. 

If Scotland breaks away from England, it won’t be run from Edinburgh, but from Brussels and Frankfurt, and Scots will discover what it’s really like to be someone else’s subject province. I’m sure they’ll have more sense.”

God DAMN it! Who knew we were just the unwitting dupes of the Belgians all along?

Category comment, europe, idiots

The classic double whammy 145

Posted on January 18, 2014 by

Step 1: Write an offensive, provocative piece of trollbait for the Daily Mail, describing your opponents as “kilted bum-barers who bellow ‘freedom’ whenever an English person hoves into view” and suggesting that a Yes vote is an abdication of morality.

(If you can then somehow get the Guardian to reprint it, bonus!)

deerinisatwat

Step 2: Whine like a baby when you get the response you wanted all along.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics

Panic stations 115

Posted on January 18, 2014 by

When we started the week with news of the UK government’s statement on debt, we wondered aloud whether it would be a game-changing moment. Judging by the No camp’s reaction since then, shrieking and flailing and lashing out blindly in all directions simultaneously, our question’s been answered.

paniczombies1

It’s been hard to keep track of it all, but we’ll have a go.

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Tags:
Category analysis, comment, media, scottish politics, wtf

Bigger and better than this 88

Posted on January 17, 2014 by

Some loony posted this to YouTube on Christmas Eve, so we’ve only just stumbled across it. It’s the speech given by Scotland’s Sweetheart (and Wings Over Scotland contributor), the estimable Saffron Dickson, to the Radical Independence Conference back in November, and it’s seven minutes of your life well spent.

We hope to live long enough to see her as First Minister.

Category scottish politics, video

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