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.
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.
One of the uglier facets of opposition to the hugely-popular but now-repealed Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act was the 100% uniform stance against it in the Scottish press.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”.
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.
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.
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.
So as we’re busy today we’ll just refer you to some of the previous occasions we’ve covered it, because literally everything about it is exactly the same now as it was then.
Cynicus on Pandora’s Campervan: “McKenna is with you; “Only when John Swinney and his cronies are forced to resign can decency return to the…” Jun 2, 12:36
Alistair on Pandora’s Campervan: “The true motive for the conspiracy against Salmond and the treatment of Joanna Cherry also becomes clearer. If either had…” Jun 2, 12:35
Cynicus on Pandora’s Campervan: ““ .. if you view them through a lens of a chief executive with almost unlimited power to spend money…” Jun 2, 12:17
Morag on Pandora’s Campervan: “Suddenly rather a lot of things are clicking into place.” Jun 2, 12:15
duncanio on Pandora’s Campervan: “I note the Tommy Sheppard article in The National – “I was on the SNP NEC. This is what went…” Jun 2, 12:07
Alf Baird on The View From Row Z: “Colonialism works via cultural/colonial assimilation and here we know that imperial England ‘followed the politics of assimilation unrestrainably’ (Cesaire) in…” Jun 2, 12:03
DebatableLands on The View From Row Z: “London based Scot interviews another London based Scot. I wonder if after Murrell is sentenced more leaks will emerge? I…” Jun 2, 11:06
agentx on The View From Row Z: “Murrell was CEO of SNP from 2001. Murrell married Sturgeon in July 2010 The offences started 12 August 2010. ———————————————–…” Jun 2, 11:05
Geri on The View From Row Z: “& why was she told & by whom? That is what needs to be investigated. The UK is corrupt as…” Jun 2, 10:17
Captain Caveman on The View From Row Z: ““Spanish queer sauna” Good grief” Jun 2, 10:01
SilentMajority on The View From Row Z: “Quick…over there….a unicorn!” Jun 2, 09:45
Willie on The View From Row Z: “She resigned before she was ” burned out” of office. And “burned out” she would most certainly have been.” Jun 2, 09:43
SilentMajority on The View From Row Z: “Someone needs to ask Swinney, succintly, in front of a camera (and not ‘in camera’) exactly this question…about the ‘ring-fenced’…” Jun 2, 09:40
agentx on The View From Row Z: ““Sturgeon’s term ended on 29 March 2023, following her resignation announcement on 15 February, in which she claimed occupational burnout…” Jun 2, 09:33
agentx on The View From Row Z: “The SNP has been accused of using a “ringfenced” independence fund to repay a massive loan from EuroMillions winners Colin…” Jun 2, 08:58
TURABDIN on The View From Row Z: “THE SYSTEM will use this as a hammer to beat Scottish nationalism conveniently fogetting that it is the historic forensic…” Jun 2, 08:56
SilentMajority on The View From Row Z: “It is amazing that organisations are still ignoring the law, and are being quite blatant about it. Will it require…” Jun 2, 08:36
robertkknight on The View From Row Z: “The most credible explanation yet…courtesy of Rev Stu. https://x.com/WingsScotland/status/2061514899843682386 Where’s Izzie when you need her?” Jun 2, 08:10
Owen Mullions on Friends Without Benefits: “https://youtube.com/shorts/LgOS_ZvX-6c?si=Y7SE3tYJPio8bcLw” Jun 2, 07:22
Bilbo on The View From Row Z: “O/T https://archive.is/hY8Bk The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has called out the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) proposed updates to…” Jun 2, 07:11
Bilbo on The View From Row Z: “The left has been dazzled by the idea that giving parts of our society who have been marginalised in the…” Jun 2, 06:49
Bilbo on The View From Row Z: “@ Young Lochinvar Snobbery works both ways. This whole sordid episodes shows us that where despite having the same upbringing…” Jun 2, 06:40
James Barr Gardner on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Sanctifying Misandry: Goddess Ideology and the Fall of Man Katherine K. Young , Paul Nathanson” Jun 2, 05:39
James Barr Gardner on Marvola The Memory Woman: “That’s great coming from a misandrist !” Jun 2, 05:32
Young Lochinvar on The View From Row Z: “And that is supposed to mean? Only public school educated chaps and chappesses from nice areas are allowed to stand?…” Jun 2, 01:25
Buck Stradler on The View From Row Z: “This is what happens when you elect guttersnipes from Irvine.” Jun 2, 00:58
Young Lochinvar on The View From Row Z: “Hannah Bardell, former MP, lesbian and self professed “Queer” was aggressively pro Sturgeon on STVs Scotland Tonight. A quick Google…” Jun 2, 00:29
David Blake on The View From Row Z: “What do the police believe about the indyref2 money? The most obvious fact about the whole business is that it…” Jun 1, 22:17
