Fully represented 91
Posted on
May 03, 2016 by
Chris Cairns
Archive for the ‘comment’
The Howling Of The Furies 263
Posted on
May 02, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s been quite a 24 hours for watchers of the UK media. The Sunday papers saw two of the most demented rants to have been committed to print about Scottish politics since the independence referendum.
One came from Neil Oliver in the Sunday Times – painting a blood-curdling picture of a “second hate-fest” should Scots ever choose to debate the subject again – and the other from Leo McKinstry in the Sunday Express, beside itself with unhinged rage that Scots, having voted to remain in the UK, might exercise their right as UK citizens to also vote to remain in the EU.
(As a result of which we’ve concluded that a narrow rUK vote in favour of Leave being overturned by a huge margin in Scotland for Remain would be the funniest thing that had ever happened in British politics.)
They were joined this morning by David Torrance in the Herald wailing that “Scottish nationalists and Brexiteers have much in common. Both are utterly vacuous” (which readers might feel was a bit rich coming from the unchallenged master of vacuity) and blaming the parlous state of Scottish political discourse mainly on this site and the vile cartoonist Greg Moodie – along, of course, with the ever-dastardly SNP.
Such was the onslaught, in fact, that Fraser “I’d put £1000 on Ed Miliband to win the election” Nelson of the Spectator, of all people, turned up as the voice of reason.
A gap in our memory 397
Posted on
May 01, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We must confess, we don’t recall when this happened.
If anyone can help us out, please do.
Four minutes of fun 336
Posted on
April 29, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This evening’s Question Time saw one of the most incident-packed passages on the show in recent memory. From left to right onscreen the panellists were Paul Marshall (hedge fund manager, head of a chain of academy schools and co-author of the Lib Dems’ infamous “Orange Book”), Alex Salmond, Tory minister Greg Clark, Labour’s shadow home secretary Andy Burnham and right-wing think-tanker Jill Kirby.
We’ll let you watch for yourself.
It’s Scottish Labour Manifesto Day! 120
Posted on
April 27, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We have high hopes.
Well, high-ish.
Clarity and certainty 414
Posted on
April 25, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re looking forward to the publication of the Scottish Labour manifesto for next month’s election, which is due to be published on Wednesday, just eight days before the vote. We confidently anticipate that it will definitively clear up a few issues we’re still not absolutely sure of the branch office’s position on.
For a day or two, at least.
A careful choice of words 385
Posted on
April 23, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
With fears growing that hundreds of jobs may be lost in the Clyde shipyards as the UK government slowly backs away from the commitments made during the independence referendum campaign, Kezia Dugdale was full of righteous outrage last night.
But note how delicately that tweet is phrased. The clear implication – while not directly stated – is that only the Tories were responsible for the promises.
Is that the case, though?
The constant revision of memory 418
Posted on
April 21, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve noted on numerous occasions previously that one of this site’s prime functions is merely to remember things – to serve as a repository of fact which can be referred to when politicians or the media try to mislead people about what happened in the past. It was a thought we were struck by again on reading The Times this morning.
Because as we beheld Kenny Farquharson’s account of the SNP’s manifesto launch, and how its emphasis on the word “RE-ELECT” was unfamiliar and “very different” to their last Holyrood manifesto launch, we were sure that wasn’t how we recalled it.
So we checked.
Five cold, hard facts about the election 317
Posted on
April 20, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This site has never told readers how to vote in Scottish elections and never will, partly because its editor has no vote there and doesn’t have to live with the consequences whoever wins. (Something that ISN’T true about independence, in which case Wings would relocate to Scotland, which is why we freely express a firm view on that.)
It’s in that context that we make the following observations about next month’s vote.
Reforming your principles 655
Posted on
April 17, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The meaning of the word “reform” has taken something of a battering in Scotland this year. First the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust decided that it meant “bailing out a known liar in direct contravention of our own stated rules”. And today we have the strange case of the Electoral Reform Society.
“Make seats match votes”. Nobody could disagree with that, right?
A small vignette 259
Posted on
April 13, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We were having a quiet night in, readers. (Living in a cul-de-sac, it’s quite peaceful here in the evenings, unless we’re hosting a soirée.) We’d just made ourselves a late snack of a tasty baguette – preceded by a small apéritif, and a few canapés serving as hors d’oeuvre – as the au pair is on holiday in Paris this week with the chauffeur, taking in some haute couture.
As we relaxed on the chaise-longue, pondering an indulgent dessert of a chocolate eclair or some crème brûlée, we glanced at Twitter, in the hope of being amused by a few bon mots in the milieu of the internet. Sadly, the reality was a cliché.
We’ve never felt so divorced from the zeitgeist.
