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This is where you stand 192

Posted on July 24, 2018 by

If you vote Scottish Labour:

And if you vote Scottish Conservative:

Always good to know.

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Our best offer 181

Posted on July 21, 2018 by

The People’s Mess 305

Posted on July 18, 2018 by

Oh God. Would you look at the absolute state of this, readers?

Let’s make like everybody’s mental health and break that down.

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The bag carrier 431

Posted on July 14, 2018 by

A cordial invitation 156

Posted on July 13, 2018 by

Dear Mr. Trump,

I’m a big fan of your work.

Especially your later stuff. You are the obvious natural successor to those other great leaders, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush – the perfect combination of dodgy and thick. You’ve got it all.

Since the first day of your tangeroid slithering into Barack’s old gaff, you’ve gone from strength to strength. I thought building a thousand mile wall to stop people escaping would be your greatest triumph. But putting kids in cages? Genius.

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Sliding-out doors 187

Posted on July 12, 2018 by

Most of Scottish Twitter has been enjoying itself greatly for the last few hours after England’s exit from the World Cup, but scattered in amongst the amusing memes has been a fair amount of angst about victors Croatia – a nation of 4 million people – being in the final when Scotland once again failed to qualify.

And while we’ll more than happily listen to any amount of criticism of the unbelievably incompetent, hapless clowns who’ve been in charge of the SFA/SPL/SPFL for the last several decades, that judgement is a bit harsh on the players and coaches and the nation as a whole. Because there really hasn’t been much in it.

Scotland’s qualification for World Cup 2018 hinged and ultimately faltered on a split second and a single badly-chosen pass in stoppage time.

That really is how close it was.

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Black-Is-White World 111

Posted on July 01, 2018 by

One of the uglier facets of opposition to the hugely-popular but now-repealed Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act was the 100% uniform stance against it in the Scottish press. Despite the Act being backed by a large majority of voters across every demographic and political divide, not one print or broadcast journalist ever stood up for the public.

The reason, of course, is that bigots (and lurid stories about them) are a large part of what keeps the Scottish media’s life support machine functioning, and so the media panders cynically to the extremist sections of the Celtic and “Rangers” support who still buy papers for the latest transfer gossip and soft-soap interviews with ex-players.

And so it is with a remarkably mad front-page lead in today’s Sunday Herald.

The paper reports that “over half” – 44 out of 86 – outstanding OBFA charges have been “converted” into other types of offences and are still being prosecuted by the independent Crown Office, claiming without explanation that this is “an embarrassing move for the SNP Government”.

But it rather seems like the opposite is true.

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The worst country in the world 187

Posted on June 30, 2018 by

In our latest Panelbase poll, we asked the same independence question we asked in the last one, and got much the same answer. (Technically the indy vote went up by about a sixth of one percent, but that’s statistically meaningless.)

That’s a bit disappointing after the events of recent weeks, but also not very surprising – after all, the way the question is framed pretty much guarantees at least 38% of the population will choose the second option straight off the bat.

Much more interesting is the question we asked next.

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One story, two spins 78

Posted on June 27, 2018 by

Part 1: the story.

This year’s Scottish Social Attitudes Survey has found, yet again, that Scottish people trust their government in Holyrood vastly more than they trust the one in Westminster. The figures transcend party loyalties, with far more people saying they trust the Scottish Government than vote for the SNP.

Trust in both governments was down by five points, which meant the Scottish Government had lost 7.6% of its trust (66 down to 61) while the UK government had lost 20% of its trust (25 down to 20).

Now let’s see how two newspapers owned by the same company reported the news.

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Whose mayhem is it anyway? 402

Posted on June 25, 2018 by

Leaflets being given out by Labour today in Scotland and England respectively:

But for some reason there don’t seem to be any going around in Labour-run Wales.

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Sauces for the geese 159

Posted on June 23, 2018 by

Willie Rennie in the Daily Record today:

And to be absolutely fair to the Scottish Lib Dem leader, he’s always been consistent in his beliefs, such as the view that elected members should be given a second chance when they’ve committed a minor misdemeanour, and NOT have to (for example) stand down and face re-election.

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Heads up 63

Posted on June 23, 2018 by

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    • robertkknight on Shield Of The Phantom: “LOL… That’ll teach me.Jan 30, 21:09
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Here you go, Bob. Ben Bulbin (Sligo) Ben Lugmore (Mayo) Ben Gorm (Mayo) Ben Baun (Galway) – part of the…Jan 30, 19:21
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Naw, Dave, that’s nae richt. I’d hae wrote Camel Shaggers. And ye forgoat ane. In an Independent Scotland, the untermenschen…Jan 30, 19:00
    • robertkknight on Shield Of The Phantom: “The Picts, christened thus by the Romans who were apparently impressed by their tattoos, left plenty of evidence of their…Jan 30, 18:35
    • DaveL on Shield Of The Phantom: “…and you still can’t spell ‘cunt’.Jan 30, 18:29
    • DaveL on Shield Of The Phantom: “Choice! And that coming from the man who’s variously named vast populations as: Covid spreaders Orcs Camel jockeys Rag heads……Jan 30, 18:14
    • DaveL on Shield Of The Phantom: “Wee Adolf! You never cease to amaze. You wrote ‘Chinese’, that’s probably a first and way off your standard referencing…Jan 30, 18:03
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Beautifully painted windows on her! She’s sailing under the flag of the UK, a fictional country. Hope the Ukies don’t…Jan 30, 17:43
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “It’s an interesting idea, Lorna. But it comes up against the unimpeachable fact that no parliament can bind its successor.…Jan 30, 17:36
    • agentx on Shield Of The Phantom: “For anyone interested the new ferry built in Turkey – Isle of Islay is currently sailing down the east coast…Jan 30, 17:26
    • Lorna Campbell on Shield Of The Phantom: “100 to 200 women die at the hands of men each year in the UK – considerably more than ‘trans’…Jan 30, 16:19
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: ““So what have you ever achieved?” No mirror needed, James, to see I’ve achieved the writing of a simple statement…Jan 30, 16:15
    • Lorna Campbell on Shield Of The Phantom: “Absolutely agree, James. Any changes to the basic Treaty Articles is tantamount to resiling the Treaty because the changes have…Jan 30, 16:05
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: ““communicate the kind of neutrality that taxpayers expect of civil servants” Odd. I thought we all understood that Scottish civil…Jan 30, 15:40
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Shield Of The Phantom: “PEER: CI CIVIL SERVICE CASE HIGHLIGHTS DANGERS OF ‘POLITICISED POLICING’ Baroness Fox of Buckley has commended The Christian Institute’s legal…Jan 30, 15:24
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “I believe that one of the Voyager spacecraft has just marked a major and unique achievement. It is now one…Jan 30, 15:24
    • sam on Shield Of The Phantom: ““In our study, we looked at how genetically similar the Pictish genomes were to other ancient genomes from Britain and…Jan 30, 13:57
    • sam on Shield Of The Phantom: “There was frequent contact between the Gaels and the Picts. The Gaels brought Christianity from Ireland into the west of…Jan 30, 13:46
    • Sven on Shield Of The Phantom: “Willie @ 12.26. Whilst it’s the same basic principle, former Army medic, 51 yr old David Toshack whose on daughter…Jan 30, 13:24
    • Aidan on Shield Of The Phantom: “So you think that constitutional legal questions are determined by reference to vague anecdotes and metaphors and without reference to…Jan 30, 13:12
    • Southernbystander on Shield Of The Phantom: “Both Sun Ra and Karlheinz Stockhausen said they were from Sirius, so the Picts hailing from somewhere in the Andromeda…Jan 30, 13:08
    • James on Shield Of The Phantom: ““So what have you ever achieved?” Look in a mirror and ask yersel that, ya fucking roaster. But I expect…Jan 30, 13:03
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “As does this one.Jan 30, 13:01
    • James Cheyne on Shield Of The Phantom: “The parliament of the Great Britain or Uk cannot add a reservation or alter its original dates on the treaty…Jan 30, 12:46
    • Cynicus on Shield Of The Phantom: “Lorna, I think this comment belongs elsewhere.Jan 30, 12:43
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: ““I see no implied self-aggrandizement” How about the disparagement I refer to? See any of that? It’s a perfectly natural…Jan 30, 12:42
    • Willie on Shield Of The Phantom: “So the latest Tribunal hearing into a custody officer being sacked for not pandering to a woo woo gender bender…Jan 30, 12:26
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Few readers will know nor care that the word “pict” comes from the Latin. It is derived from a common…Jan 30, 12:25
    • James Cheyne on Shield Of The Phantom: “A Treaty is a formal agreement legally binding between two or more Sovereign States, Treaties are roughly Contracts, All treaties…Jan 30, 12:11
    • Northcode on Shield Of The Phantom: “Gaelic is the language of the Scotti, the invader of Pictland who came from Ireland. Gaelic bears no relation to…Jan 30, 12:10
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