This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.
It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.
My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.
Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.
This week The National published a poll it commissioned from Find Out Now for this May’s Scottish Parliament election, alongside a seat projection from Sir John Curtice. Here are the list-vote figures from the poll.
The seat projection calculated that the election would result in 59 SNP MSPs (six short of the number John Swinney says is the minimum needed to force a second indyref), 25 for Reform, 13 for the Greens, 12 each for Labour and the Tories and eight for the Lib Dems.
It didn’t specify how many of the seats were constituency ones and how many were list ones, so we dropped Sir John a line and asked him.
Yesterday we noted in passing that independence support now outstrips that of the SNP by more than 20 points, making the party into a gigantic liability as the vehicle for enabling Scots to leave the UK. Put simply, even when voters want independence (as most now do), they’re not willing to vote SNP to get it.
(Not, of course, that they WOULD get it if they voted SNP – the party still having no coherent or credible strategy to achieve it – but more than 40% of would-be Yes voters are no longer prepared to even try giving them the benefit of yet another mandate.)
And since what everyone loves most of all on New Year’s Day is a good old wade in some political stats, we thought we’d take a little more detail on that.
With Reform now pretty consistently miles in front in polling for the next UK election, logically this is brilliant news for the Scottish independence movement, isn’t it?
So can anyone explain why the SNP is so desperate to stop them?
There’s a post on the superwoke poll-analysis account Ballot Box Scotland today bemoaning the lack of interest in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election from polling companies, and presenting it as some sort of anti-Scottish conspiracy.
The real reason nobody’s very interested, of course, is that as things stand the election is an obvious foregone conclusion in which the party that’s been in power for the previous 19 years will stay in power for another five, and nothing will change.
The only minor intrigue around the election is to be found at the edges and is only of real interest to politics nerds, but since we ARE politics nerds we may as well take a look at it.
Because, y’know, you can call us old-fashioned purists or sticklers or whatever if you like, but government ministers probably shouldn’t openly lie in prepared statements to the High Court in order to pervert the course of justice.
As recently as this weekend, the Scottish Government claimed that it has “made clear it accepts the Supreme Court ruling [in For Women Scotland] and is taking forward the detailed work necessary”.
But as with so much the Scottish Government says, it’s a barefaced lie.
We thought we should keep track of all the issues with the Peggie tribunal judgment, now that Sandie Peggie has officially announced her intention to appeal it.
According to a new poll, fewer than a third of SNP voters even think independence is in the top three priorities facing Scotland.
It’s only five points ahead of immigration in fourth place, and seven ahead of housing. So it’s hardly surprising that the SNP aren’t bothering themselves about it. Their own support, like the party, is very comfortable with the way things are.
George Ferguson on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “@Dan 6:18pm Absolutely Dan A principled stance was my core belief. I don’t want taxpayers money. I had the formation…” Apr 18, 18:53
Dan on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “@George You’ll have to wait a long time for a decent and easier to instigate recall policy being implemented by…” Apr 18, 18:18
George Ferguson on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “@Sven 5:26pm True especially for wayward MSPS. I favour a recall mechanism for MSPs. A recent vote in the Scottish…” Apr 18, 17:55
Mark Beggan on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “The only winners in this election are the Civil servants and Lawyers. The only hope is that the whole woke…” Apr 18, 17:45
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Scots surely have the additional challenge dealing with colonial rule based on racial and cultural subordination which adds another dimension…” Apr 18, 17:43
Sven on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Genuine query, George. What action is available to bring to bear on an MSP newly installed for the next 5…” Apr 18, 17:26
George Ferguson on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “@twathater Wow calm down. We live in age of social media. Every promise they make will be played back to…” Apr 18, 17:02
twathater on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “So George how are the elected politicians going to be held accountable for their ignoring their manifestos and the voters…” Apr 18, 16:19
sarah on Happy Anniversary: “It has got worse since Westminster imposed the reduction in Councils – no more District Councils, only Highland Council with…” Apr 18, 16:15
George Ferguson on Happy Anniversary: “My Father in law was a Caithness Councillor he won it on a toss of the coin. A draw and…” Apr 18, 15:46
sarah on Happy Anniversary: “I almost agree with Mrs Henderson – I’m in the Wester Ross section of the constituency – perhaps God will…” Apr 18, 15:21
George Ferguson on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “The manifestos may be categorised as fantasy but this time we have studied them and recorded them. And the elected…” Apr 18, 14:52
Sven on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Rookiescot @ 13.53. Somehow I doubt that public disinterest or disillusionment will suffice to deter the professional, career politicos who…” Apr 18, 14:43
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “An ongoing conundrum regarding the desolating course the Scottish independence movement has taken since Sturgeon (and now policed by Swinney)…” Apr 18, 14:30
George Ferguson on Happy Anniversary: “@Sarah Your positive optimism is commendable to the Independence movement and now I know why. In your later post you…” Apr 18, 13:54
Rookiescot on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “This is why ballots need a “None of the above” option. When “None of the above” wins every damned time…” Apr 18, 13:53
TURABDIN on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “All independence movements reach a stage where the politics isn’t big enough for the idea. Scotland after nearly a hundred…” Apr 18, 13:40
Northcode on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Like Alf Baird, I am deeply suspicious of highly polished political messages… especially those from English interlopers trying to sell…” Apr 18, 13:18
Lorncal on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “YL: I have never denied that women are as much to blame for this state of affairs. Their suicidal empathy…” Apr 18, 12:51
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “I’ll take substance over style anyday, thank you. Fancy talking suits will never deliver oor leeberation, as the SNP has…” Apr 18, 12:49
Lorncal on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Onlooker, I am not a man-hater at all, but I can imagine morphing into one of this s***st**m keeps on…” Apr 18, 12:38
Bobo bunny on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Their party political broadcast the other day was awful. Amateurish. Tommy Sheridan cares about Tommy Sheridan and nothing else, and…” Apr 18, 11:40
Northcode on The Narcissism Of No Differences: ““…which is at root facilitated by ‘an arrogant elite and bourgeoisie’…” Indeed, Alf. People rarely think, “I am part of…” Apr 18, 10:55
willie on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Started out with great hope but now a pretend parliament full of wasters slurping on tax payer funding delivering nothing…” Apr 18, 10:48
James Che on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Carry on pretending any longer and you go down with the rest of Britain.” Apr 18, 09:09
James Che on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Retaining you’re blinkers effects all people in Scotland, pretending Scotland is in a treaty is why we have the batshit…” Apr 18, 09:07
James Che on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “The pretend scottish election for a pretend scottish parliament for pretend scottish politicians registered in England, If you go along…” Apr 18, 08:56
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: ““it’s just fashionable” Indeed, a fashion, or ‘the sociology of taste’, as Bourdieu might say; which is at root facilitated…” Apr 18, 08:52
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Perhaps you should try voting for ALLIANCE TO LIBERATE SCOTLAND. Its an uplifting and liberating experience voting for a party…” Apr 18, 08:22
