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Absolute Fanny Of The Week 425

Posted on January 20, 2018 by

We’ve got a shock result for the inaugural winner of this exciting new award, readers. Remarkably it’s NOT David Torrance – who wrote an arch review of a chapter of a book about Donald Trump that didn’t actually exist. Good effort, Davey, but no cigar.

And it’s not even notorious Lib Dem atom-wit Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP, who bleated to Ofcom when an SNP party political broadcast unrelatedly took the mickey out of a character who may (or may not) have been the selfsame Torrance.

No, the first ever Wings Absolute Fanny Of The Week is… Anas Sarwar!

In common with half of Scottish Labour, Sarwar has been raging at Paisley MP Mhairi Black for her “silence” over the closure of a 16-bed children’s ward in the town, which has been replaced by an entire new state-of-the-art 256-bed children’s hospital 10 minutes down the road, right next to the sparkly new Southern General.

But only Sarwar did it by enclosing a picture of the local paper’s front-page splash on the story. In which there was one teeny-weeny slight problem for him.

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Nothing to see 116

Posted on January 20, 2018 by

David Torrance Fact Check 237

Posted on January 19, 2018 by

Remarkably, the notoriously unreliable and yet somehow omnipresent Scottish political commentator and reality-disputer David “Davey” Torrance was still digging last night in the wake of this story from three days ago.

Never, eh? Let’s see if that’s true, shall we?

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The Streets Of Dan Francisco 155

Posted on January 16, 2018 by

The past week saw the return to the public eye of the former Independent columnist Johann Hari, who vanished in disgrace a few years ago in a plagiarism scandal over claiming to have done things that he hadn’t.

It also saw the return of ubiquitous Scottish politics scribe David Torrance from a trip to San Francisco, the details of which he shared at stultifying length with the unfortunate readers of The Scottish Review.

Or at least, what he SAID were the details of where he SAID he’d been.

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Something to keep in mind 263

Posted on January 15, 2018 by

…as the Scottish Government releases its Brexit impact paper.

(Panelbase, Scottish adults, fieldwork mid-December 2017)

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Norwegian wouldn’t 166

Posted on January 14, 2018 by

Now remember, small oil-rich countries bordering the North Sea, there’s just no way you can thrive on your own.

After all, would this guy lie to you? He’s from the fair and unbiased media!

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The political football 84

Posted on January 13, 2018 by

Setting the example 178

Posted on January 08, 2018 by

In some little-noticed news slipped out last Friday, it was revealed that Kezia Dugdale is to take up a position on the governing body of the Scottish Parliament.

Our favourite thing was her quote on the nomination:

“I’m very pleased to be Labour’s nominee for the SPCB. Having argued for gender balance, I’m glad that at least two of the five positions will now be held be women.”

…which suggested that she was unhappy exact gender balance hadn’t been achieved by placing two-and-a-half women on the board. (Unless she was getting at some sort of alternative solution, we suppose.)

But since the Herald raised the subject, it seemed a good time to take a look at voters’ opinions as to whether she might be a fit and proper person for such a role.

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Fearing your own voice 161

Posted on January 07, 2018 by

So this one was interesting.

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The ordinary voter 196

Posted on January 06, 2018 by

The essence of democracy 129

Posted on January 05, 2018 by

This is the well-known hardcore Corbynite commentator John McTernan on the radio yesterday, detailing how outrageous it would be for politicians to attempt to block a second referendum on a divisive but important issue.

(Talkback, BBC Radio Ulster, 4 January 2018)
.

No, not THAT kind of second referendum, silly!

The law that nobody wants 266

Posted on January 03, 2018 by

On a number of previous occasions we’ve highlighted the weird discrepancy between the undivided loathing of the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act in the Scottish media and the Act’s overwhelming popularity with the Scottish public.

You will struggle to ever hear a voice anywhere in the media in favour of it, yet there has never been a law in the history of the Holyrood parliament that is as universally backed by the electorate as the OBFA. Support for it crosses party lines, unites men and women, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, Yes voters and No voters, Celtic fans and “Rangers” fans, football lovers and football haters, and pretty much any other groups you can think of.

Despite their own voters wanting to retain it, however, the combined opposition parties may well succeed in having the Act repealed this year, for reasons of their own that we can’t begin to rationally explain.

Meanwhile, every party at Holyrood – this time including the SNP – looks as though they may be preparing to come together and implement the LEAST-wanted legislation (in terms of public opinion) that the Parliament will have ever seen.

But which legislation are we talking about?

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