Wings Over Scotland

For reasons which defy all known science, John McTernan remains the first number on the BBC’s speed-dial list when they need a commentator to represent Labour views. It’s a remarkable editorial decision, given that McTernan despises the party’s current leadership almost beyond words, and it doesn’t seem too fond of him either.

But on today’s Good Morning Scotland, McTernan really kicked it up a notch.

Read the rest of this entry →

This is John Humphreys on the Today programme on Radio 4 earlier this week:

(Today, BBC Radio 4, 18 November 2015)
.

And there’s only one small thing wrong with that.

Read the rest of this entry →

And has no more luck this week with hapless Scottish Labour list MSP Claire Baker than he did with her habitually mendacious colleague Jackie Baillie last week:

(The Big Debate, BBC Radio Scotland, 13 November 2015)
.

Brewer’s weary sigh at 2m 14s speaks volumes.

Read the rest of this entry →

One of the stranger criticisms regularly levelled at this site is that we don’t attack the SNP/Scottish Government enough.

That’s weird firstly because it’s not like there’s currently a shortage of hostile media scrutiny of Nicola Sturgeon and her colleagues, and secondly because we’ve never in our four-year life claimed for a moment to be neutral.

But the reality is far more nuanced than that.

Read the rest of this entry →

This is amazing, readers. It’s an extract from this afternoon’s The Big Debate on Radio Scotland, in which a journalist – the BBC’s Gordon Brewer – finally gets round to asking someone from Scottish Labour how they can make the extra £500m they need to fund their tax-credits “policy” while keeping all taxes the same.

The answer… well, the answer is quite something.

(The Big Debate, BBC Radio Scotland, 6 November 2015)
.

You might have to listen through a few times to get your head round it, because that really is what a grown woman actually tried to get away with in front of a live audience.

Read the rest of this entry →

Asking the question is the easy bit: “If the all-new, super-autonomous Scottish Labour decides to oppose the renewal of Trident, and UK Labour continues to support it, which way do Scottish Labour MPs at Westminster vote on it?”

The answer, unsurprisingly, was a lot more difficult to ascertain.

Read the rest of this entry →

Kezia Dugdale on the BBC’s “Good Evening Wales” yesterday.

(Good Evening Wales, BBC Radio Wales, 21 September 2015)
.

“Wales and Scotland are so much smaller in size than the rest of the… the rest of England.”

The impressive bit is that that’s what she said AFTER she paused for thought.

Not our judgement, you understand, but that of Scottish Labour spokesclown Michael Kelly, former Lord Provost of Glasgow, speaking on today’s Good Morning Scotland:

(Good Morning Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, 19 August 2015, 2h 47m)
.

Read the rest of this entry →

We’ve already noted that today is a confusing news day. But when we were listening to the radio this morning we thought we maybe hadn’t woken up properly.

(Good Morning Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, 11 June 2015)
.

The segment concerned a report by the Tory-leaning think tank Reform Scotland, and saw both the organisation and Labour MSP Hugh Henry trying doggedly to find a bad spin on the news in the fact that crime in Scotland is at a 40-year low. So desperate were they to do so that they ended up denying the existence of arithmetic.

Read the rest of this entry →

This is Robert Hutton – UK political correspondent for Bloomberg News and author of the book “Would They Lie To You?” – and former Labour spin doctor Damien McBride on Radio 4 this morning, discussing the fate of Alistair Carmichael.

(The Week In Westminster, BBC Radio 4, 30 May 2015)
.

That’s going to be an awkward lunch.

Read the rest of this entry →

Hats off to the Daily Reckless:

.

Read the rest of this entry →

The former Liberal Democrat MP (and also the party’s former Scottish leader, and until just a few weeks ago its UK deputy leader) Sir Malcolm Bruce gave an extraordinary interview to Radio 4’s Today programme this morning about Alistair Carmichael.

The whole thing can be heard here, but the short passage below stood out even in the context of a breathless, furious, scattergun performance that sounded like a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

(Today, BBC Radio 4, 26 May 2015)
.

We’re sure readers will be greatly comforted by the fact that it’s okay for the Secretary of State for Scotland to tell a “brazen lie”, on the grounds that everyone else in the Houses Of Parliament is a liar too, and by the notion that a government minister who’s caught lying to the nation in order to undermine the democratically-elected leader of Scotland is an offence for which the culprit can simply decide their own punishment.