More Bad News 96
Posted on
August 12, 2017 by
Chris Cairns
Archive for the ‘comment’
The magic money rigs 388
Posted on
August 10, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A reader sent us an interesting snippet of information today.
That seemed a startling fact, so we looked into it. And it’s true.
The Vanishings 133
Posted on
August 09, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Scottish media this week has started to rather resemble Argentina under General Galtieri’s military junta – everywhere you look are the ghosts of the disappeared.
We’ve already documented at length the sudden non-existence of the Herald’s madly inaccurate front-page lead story from Monday (along with the corresponding piece in the Evening Times). And today two more things joined the missing list.
Forever bad 103
Posted on
August 09, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Here’s Daniel Sanderson in the Times in January this year, complaining that too few university students come from poor backgrounds and therefore the SNP are bad:
So he’d be chuffed if that situation improved, right?
The ever-shifting goalposts 46
Posted on
August 07, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re back in the archives again today, because there’s still no news. (The Herald is desperately trying to whip up outrage over trains arriving 61 seconds late, and David Torrance has finally turned up at the “OMG YES MOVEMENT SPLIT” party just as the last stragglers are heading home and the hosts are going to bed.)
And we’re particularly enjoying this one, for a whole list of reasons:
Out come the freaks 282
Posted on
August 06, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
In the continuing summer absence of any sort of Scottish politics news (the Sunday papers consist of Michelle Thomson understandably taking a swipe at the SNP in the Sunday Post, the Sunday Times spluttering in impotent fury that Michelle Thomson wasn’t prosecuted, and the Sunday Herald giving a glowing write-up to idiot Tory MSP Annie Wells while savaging sections of the Yes movement yet again – this time “older white men”), we thought you might enjoy a piece from the archives.
Discovered by an alert reader, this 1976 Times article features Labour MP for Basildon Eric Moonman discussing the seemingly-imminent prospect of Scottish devolution, to which he was implacably opposed and instrumental in defeating, ultimately leading to the collapse of a Labour government and the election of Mrs Thatcher.
Actually doing it 217
Posted on
July 29, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Yes movement, like almost all movements, is plagued with a small but incredibly loud faction of intolerant, destructive extremists. Alert readers will have noticed that this site has again been the victim of them this week, but we’re not alone. They’ve also gone after two print publications – The National and iScot – over their “transgressions” against the beliefs of these self-appointed arbiters of what people are allowed to think.
What those two outlets and Wings have in common is achievement.
When Scotland Voted Leave 78
Posted on
July 28, 2017 by
Dr Craig Dalzell
Last month saw the first meeting between the UK Brexit delegation and the EU’s, and by many accounts it fell far short of the UK’s expectations. David Davis spent months drumming up the “strong and stable” approach which would see both the divorce deal and the subsequent post-Brexit trade deal negotiated simultaneously. He was told by everyone that this wouldn’t happen, but simply brushed off the warnings. When push came to shove, he finally accepted that he’d have to negotiate the divorce deal first.
This is just the latest in a long string of failures and ineptitudes over the course of the UK’s handling of the whole farcical process and it got me thinking. If Scotland had voted Yes in 2014, what would it have looked like if the Scottish Government had handled that vote the way the UK has managed Brexit?
Journey To Yes 219
Posted on
July 26, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The complete series so far. If you’ve got a story like this to tell, or you know anyone who does, Phantom Power want to hear from you – drop them a line.
Seeing it from here 187
Posted on
July 25, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
I went to “Dunkirk” at the cinema today. If you want to know what it’s like, just watch this trailer 40 times in a row and save yourself the £12.
It’s a poor movie, disjointed and aimless and curiously lacking in tension or narrative given the real-life subject matter. (It’s remarkably short on dialogue, which is lucky because you can barely make out any of what little script or story there is from behind the endlessly howling one-note airhorn of the soundtrack. It’s a bit like someone filmed an IKEA assembly manual in live action during a Formula 1 race.)
But I couldn’t help thinking that part of the reason it was so unengaging was because it felt akin to watching a boxing match between two fighters you don’t like. If Mike Tyson took on Tyson Fury, would you cheer for the rapist or the anti-Semitic homophobe?
