Joke’s on you, suckers 161
Posted on
June 12, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A little over five years ago.
Strengthen, destroy, what’s a little slip of the tongue between friends?
Archive for the ‘comment’
The Buckaroo Principle 432
Posted on
June 10, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s probably fair to say that the voters of Scotland have been feeling a little put-upon lately. In the last decade they’ve been sent to polling stations on no fewer than 12 occasions (Holyrood elections in 2011 and 2016, UK elections in 2010, 2015 and 2017, council elections in 2012 and 2017, European elections in 2009 and 2014, and finally referendums on AV, independence and the EU).
And they’ve been subjected to endless weeks, months or even years of campaigning and haranguing each time. One woman – who only had to endure nine of those 12 – had famously had enough of it.
Yet Scots face possibly three more in the next 12 months or so, if various factions get their way, taking the total to 15 major votes in a decade. And if we want to secure the desired outcome in any of them, we’re going to have to ease the load on folk a bit.
Logic in reverse 134
Posted on
June 07, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re having a lot of trouble with this one, to be honest.
The Record, along with Scottish Labour and a lot of the left of social media, are up in arms that a mystery benefactor has donated a £230,000 Rolls Royce to Glasgow City Council for the use of the Lord Provost. But nobody can quite manage to explain why they’re so angry about it.
That Went Well Department 207
Posted on
June 05, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
November 2009: “at the end of the day the banks will be paying money to the British people and not the other way round”.
Shall we take a look through the arched-eyebrows window, readers?
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough 74
Posted on
June 05, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ll shortly round up the last pieces of data from our Panelbase poll of English voters last month, but this one merits singling out, we think.
Wait, what?
Being silenced is golden 80
Posted on
May 31, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The findings of Lord Bracadale’s report into hate-crime law in Scotland were published today (tl;dr version: OBFA’s coming back), and we couldn’t help observing them in the context of an interesting Guardian article on the alt/far right yesterday.
Because we’ve discovered something slightly odd about the subject.
The incredible sulks 157
Posted on
May 29, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This is from one of the first ever articles we wrote on Wings, just a couple of weeks after the site’s launch way back in November 2011:
Depressingly, some people still don’t get it.
The frying pan and the fire 111
Posted on
May 28, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ll keep this one brief, because it’s a bank holiday. We asked our Panelbase poll of English voters this month who they thought – regardless of respondents’ own politics – was doing the best job of leading their party. These were the results, in descending order of perceived competence:
1. Nicola Sturgeon (SNP)
Net rating: -5
(32% good, 37% bad, 31% don’t know)
2. Arlene Foster (DUP)
Net rating: -5
(13% good, 18% bad, 69% don’t know)
3. Vince Cable (Lib Dem)
Net rating: -7
(21% good, 28% bad, 51% don’t know)
4. Theresa May (Con)
Net rating: -18
(34% well, 52% badly, 14% don’t know)
5. Jeremy Corbyn (Lab)
Net rating: -19
(32% well, 51% badly, 17% don’t know)
Not a single net positive, and it seems particularly telling (and grim) that the two at the very bottom of the list are the only ones with any chance of actually becoming Prime Minister – pending, Lord have mercy on us all, the arrival of Jacob Rees-Mogg – while the top two don’t even sit in the UK Parliament.
(Foster, in fact, doesn’t currently sit in ANY parliament.)
To be honest, readers, it’s a miracle British people bother to vote at all any more.
Ruth Davidson Lie Watch 376
Posted on
May 26, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
So it appears that Ruth Davidson has been lying again.
And as is so often the case, the lie is easy to expose.
The alternative to growth 249
Posted on
May 25, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Like most Scottish politics nerds we’re going to be spending the morning absorbing the report of the Sustainable Growth Commission. But while we do that, we’ve got more data from our Panelbase poll of English voters earlier this month, on what Scotland could expect in the future if it stays in the UK.
We told them: “Under a system known as the Barnett Formula, the government spends more money per head on people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than it does on people in England, because their populations are more thinly spread so it costs more money to provide the same services.”
And this was how they felt about that:
