In so far as it’s worth talking about Scottish constitutional politics at all these days, it’s worth taking a moment to analyse the bloodless, anodyne nothingness spouted by the First Minister on The Sunday Show at the weekend.
That clip is less than three minutes long, but it’s so soul-crushingly boring and full of content-free drone and waffle that it’s almost impossible to sit all the way through it, so we’re going to translate and summarise it for you.
Warning: despite the quite zingy title this is actually going to be a very dry stats post, readers. It is, on the other hand, based on a man having something disturbingly close to a complete psychotic mental breakdown, so there’s always that for a bit of colour.
Because the paragraph above, and in particular the highlighted part, is without a doubt the most dishonest, diametrically false and wildly extreme lie about Scottish politics that we’ve ever seen anyone tell in the 13.5 years of Wings Over Scotland’s existence.
And as a rule we don’t bother addressing them because they’re so demented you could spend 5,000 words pulling apart all the individual strands of lunacy every time, and lunatics thrive on attention, but this one does merit a very brief comment.
Because “Vote Labour, get indy” wasn’t our plan. It was John Swinney’s.
Even by the embarrassing standards of The National, the gulf between this morning’s blaring front-page splash and the weak, watery weasel words in the actual article is a chasm so wide and so yawning (in every sense of that word) that it would put the epic planetary scar of Mars’ Valles Marineris to shame.
Coupled with a feebly underwhelming Programme For Government (in which the main policy was the re-abolition of peak rail fares just months after the SNP insisted such a move was unaffordable, with no clue as to where the money had suddenly been found) and a pitiful list of candidates for next year’s Holyrood election featuring the likes of Sally “all aboard the gravy bus!” Donald, Kaukab “DECAPITATE TERFS” Stewart, Kirsten “DECAPITATE TERFS” Oswald, Alison “DECAPITATE TERFS” Thewliss and Alyn “throw anyone who doesn’t want to DECAPITATE TERFS out of the SNP” Smith, the story was an abject vision of a bleak future for independence.
The less said about the Scottish Government’s toe-curlingly embarrassing “summit” last week, the sooner we can all pretend it never happened. We’ve got little to add to the withering assessments of Robin McAlpine and Kevin McKenna and just about everyone else who’s bothered covering this pathetic waste of everyone involved’s time. (Not that the time of most of these useless quangocrats was worth anything anyway.)
We take a moment only to note something remarkable: the closest Scottish Labour’s hapless branch manager Anas Sarwar has ever come to understanding anything.
Yesterday the Scottish media gave Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman what she’s never willingly given anyone else – a platform on which to make her case.
Most did a very poor job challenging her on her outrageous comments about the Supreme Court, with BBC Radio Scotland’s Drivetime show being an especially wretched example of allowing the interviewee to ignore every question and then just ramble on endlessly about something else entirely, but LBC’s Gina Davidson was on top of her brief and put all the points that reasonable people wanted to be made, while giving Chapman ample time to answer uninterrupted.
Let’s break down how that went, with the help of our handy Bullshit Buzzer.
We’ll be honest, readers, we gasped out loud when we saw this.
That such a basic, fundamental truth of human existence should ever be front page news with the capacity to shock 100,000 years after we invented language is a sign of just how insane our world has become since 2015.
But magnificent as it is, it’s not even today’s BEST front cover.
For those among you who don’t have the time or patience to wade through 88 pages of judicial lingo, we’ve distilled today’s Supreme Court judgment down to its key points.
Much of it, of course, can be summarised as “the bleeding obvious”.
Davie on Sicknote Slippers: “Farage will not be the nest Prime Minister. He is a charlatan, a rehashed Tory and establishment containment. Like them…” Mar 29, 21:15
TURABDIN on Sicknote Slippers: “Hey, mr Wishy Washy, the «far right» within the rotting BritState is a peculiarly English problem, let them deal with…” Mar 29, 20:01
Geri on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Why don’t you tell the group what socialism is? I’m sure we’d all love to read yer take on how…” Mar 29, 20:00
robertkknight on Sicknote Slippers: ““The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but…” Mar 29, 19:53
H Scott on Sicknote Slippers: “The far right were on the Royal Mile haranguing the indy march. Peter Wishart could have killed two birds with…” Mar 29, 19:50
James on Sicknote Slippers: “Wait…Pishfart is one of the SNP UK agents who are ‘Lords-in-waiting’, but “…a pretty openly anti-Semitic protest..” Really? Seen any…” Mar 29, 19:41
Young Lochinvar on Sicknote Slippers: “Wet P1shfart is a bad parody of himself..” Mar 29, 19:19
Sven on Sicknote Slippers: ““When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to call “Present” or “Not Guilty”.…” Mar 29, 19:15
sarah on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Well, all the sensible ones! And despite the obvious exceptions, most are sensible, nice people. 🙂” Mar 29, 19:03
James on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Nah…. “The Untold History of the United States” by Oliver Stone.” Mar 29, 19:01
Terry on Sicknote Slippers: “Well done for highlighting this.” Mar 29, 19:00
James on Protest But Don’t Survive: ““Agent” – aye; you’ve given yersel the proper pen name, right enough.” Mar 29, 18:42
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Protest But Don’t Survive: ““All the other thinkers and activists would gladly work with you.” LOLZ” Mar 29, 18:27
James on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Well said, Northcode….and somehow appropriate maybe, to paraphrase; “We find ourselves opposed by forces that operate in the shadows, without…” Mar 29, 18:27
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Protest But Don’t Survive: “What we have to do about it is destroy the SNP. Until people realise that, there’s no moving forward.” Mar 29, 18:26
twathater on Protest But Don’t Survive: “C’mon now James the cave dweller has every right to come on to a supposed indy supporting blog and give…” Mar 29, 18:18
Young Lochinvar on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Sven If she wasn’t prosecuted on the basis of “not being in the public interest” then she shouldn’t appear on…” Mar 29, 17:43
100%Yes on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Kitkat state’s shops shouldn’t sell these stolen treats and should contact kitkat.” Mar 29, 17:25
Sven on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Off Topic. Well, now we know Ms Sturgeon’s next earner, she’ll be a “celebrity” guest on the ITV Programme The…” Mar 29, 17:25
100%Yes on Protest But Don’t Survive: “The Hard Left, I never knew there was such a thing? Socialist have given a lot more than they have…” Mar 29, 17:20
Young Lochinvar on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Well well well. From the horses “mouth”.. Humza Useless on becoming a backbencher: “I had nothing to do”! Hardly a…” Mar 29, 17:12
100%Yes on Protest But Don’t Survive: “All of The National subscribers was at this event apart from Peter A Bell so really it was 14,999. All…” Mar 29, 16:58
Young Lochinvar on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Beggars Nuttyyahoo “saved the world”.. Not if you’re a journalist or flashing lights paramedic..” Mar 29, 16:48
Lorncal on Protest But Don’t Survive: “The hard left, the ‘wokies’ have captured every independence party and movement in the UK, and beyond: the SNP, the…” Mar 29, 15:09
James on Protest But Don’t Survive: “The Twa Trolls. Well matched; made for each other. Never let the truth get in the way of a pish…” Mar 29, 14:53
Mark Beggan on Protest But Don’t Survive: ““To argue with a fool only creates two fools” Senator Kennedy.” Mar 29, 14:46
Mark Beggan on Protest But Don’t Survive: ““Socialism is a disease that starts in the mind and then spreads to the rest of the body.” Baby Senator…” Mar 29, 14:32
