As it happens, one of the things that we’ve been occupying ourselves with during the current news drought is pulling together a post called “The SNPBAD Files”, collecting all the desperate smear and innuendo of the Unionist press as it systematically tries to discredit every one of the 56 SNP MPs elected last May.
Until last night we hadn’t been sure which had been the most pathetically dismal. Was it the MP who still did a few haircuts in his barber shop on Saturday afternoons? The one who bought a derelict London house many years before he was an MP, renovated it with his own hands and now sometimes stays there when working at Westminster, rather than charging expenses to the public for accommodation? Or perhaps the one who tweeted that he was opposed to the concept of monarchy, the foul monster?
We’re not saying there isn’t a lot going on at the moment, but today’s Daily Record actually devotes a page to telling women when to change their pants.
Below is a 17-minute section of this afternoon’s John Beattie show on BBC Radio Scotland, featuring me and an amateur blogger with a keen interest in Pedigree Chum discussing the effect of the lower oil price on the Scottish economy.
So that’s genuine progress – next time some frothing Yoon screams “OIL PRICE! BLACK HOLE! SNP LIES! TOO WEE, TOO POOR!” at you, you can direct them here for categorical agreement from the Yes and No sides alike that actually the falling oil price makes an independent Scotland MORE economically viable, not less.
Unfortunately you’ll have to put up with a condescending, patronising arse sniggering randomly throughout, but it’s a relatively small price to pay.
Normally when the BBC’s Andrew Neil asks a politician to put a figure on one of their policy proposals the interviewee should be wary, because a trap is about to be sprung.
Governments, of all political stripes and nations, are often accused of being control freaks bent on constructing and enforcing a “nanny state”, where citizens’ freedoms are arbitrarily curtailed under a pretence of it all being for their own good.
The phrase most repeated by angry Unionists in the 16-and-a-bit months since the independence referendum is surely “once in a generation”. While the SNP quietly gets on with the business of government, having not mentioned a second referendum in its 2015 manifesto and not being expected to do so in this year’s either, the parties of the UK can’t seem to shut up about it.
(This is happening despite Ruth Davidson having said just nine months ago that her party wouldn’t block a second indyref, while Ed Miliband said that Labour would. However, Davidson’s organ-grinder, David Cameron, joined Labour in ruling it out just a few months later, which may explain Davidson performing a sudden U-turn akin to her famous one over more devolution.)
And when you boil it down to the brass tacks, what that means is that the parties of the Union want to hold the Scottish people prisoner.
The groupthink of the Unionist commentariat is unfailingly a sight to behold. Barely a dozen weeks ago we drew attention to a seasonal crop of articles professing that the end of the SNP’s eight-year “honeymoon” was in sight, and that surely voters would surely tire at any moment of their supposed poor record in government.
But after the damage anticipated by the press from the Forth Bridge affair and another load of ham-fisted Labour attacks failed to materialise (defused in part by a set of excellent and significantly improved NHS waiting-time stats that must have had the BBC’s Eleanor Bradford weeping inconsolably into her clipboard), the pundit hive-mind has moved swiftly on to a new outlook: morose resignation.
The Labour Party has today published Margaret Beckett’s report into why it lost the 2015 general election. We were rather struck by this line:
Let’s just go over that one again to be sure: Labour believed that an SNP victory in Scotland would make it “impossible” for the Tories to form the government.
Which is weird, because that’s not quite what we remember them saying.
During the independence referendum campaign, we catalogued numerous breaches of the law for which the “Better Together” campaign was let off with a slap on the wrist, from data protection to running unlicensed lotteries. Today several papers report that the official No campaign has been fined £2000 by the Electoral Commission for failing to document £57,000 of its expenditure during the campaign.
Alert readers will no doubt recall the explosion of glee from Unionists in the press and on social media last October when this site was fined £750 for being late with some of its own documentation, and we assumed that much the same thing had happened with BT, but on closer examination the story appears to be rather different.
Rather than simply missing the deadline for providing receipts or invoices for specific items of spending, “Better Together” appears, going by the report in the Herald, to not have accounted for the money at all.
Thanks to the Scottish Daily Mail, we’ve just spotted a piece by the Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin for City AM a few days ago. We had an inordinate amount of trouble getting the full article to display past the site’s incredibly over-zealous advert enforcer, so we’ve preserved it for posterity here.
There’s a gem in every paragraph. You’re going to like this one.
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Seems like hardly any time since you were telling us it’s £200 billion a year. Whatever, what’s £50 billion between…” Sep 4, 18:52
Alf Baird on Anything But That: ““The court in The Hague reckons the Orcs owe $4.22 billion” Small beer, or the cost of one dodgy aircraft…” Sep 4, 16:34
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Respect to the Norwegians. They’re rediscovering their inner Viking and taking back control of the seas around their coastline. All…” Sep 4, 14:28
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Aye, James, breaths there as many as even ten True Sovereign Scots who have not, on reading your post, redoubled…” Sep 4, 13:42
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: ““highly valuable natural resources” Odd that nobody, either in Scotland or outside, knew we had any highly valuable natural resources…” Sep 4, 13:36
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Dear Slave, Shut up and eat your porridge or we will stop your privileges. Yours faithfully Sir Biggus ‘Fluffy’ Dickus…” Sep 4, 13:22
James Che on Anything But That: “There is ni UK parliament concerning Scotland, as the UK parliament has a start date of origin of 1800, When…” Sep 4, 12:03
James Che on Anything But That: “Willie, Jacob rees Mog was on his podcast yesterday praising that should the lights go out, not to worry as…” Sep 4, 11:58
Northcode on Anything But That: ““Plunder Scotland (UK) is a carpetbagging operation largely owned by non-Scottish, foreign ‘investors’ and overseen by Westminster who takes a…” Sep 4, 11:15
willie on Anything But That: “The issue of carbon emissions is a huge one and it certainly seems that the world climate is warming with…” Sep 4, 10:39
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “It is on. Stop Oil have glued their genitals to the tarmac. Expect more from the nutty putty brigade of…” Sep 4, 10:27
Lynn Fraser on This Other Earth: “My husband and I got refunds. We also contacted the Police using the crime reference number. We were both interviewed…” Sep 4, 10:20
James Che on Anything But That: “Well I am laughing an thise union minded people that cannot confirm there is a 1707 treaty of today, But…” Sep 4, 10:03
Marie on Anything But That: ““freedom of information battles”. Personally I wouldn’t eat the fish – but I’m only an ex-cancer nurse.” Sep 4, 09:53
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “MSM reporting Jackdaw and Rosebank to go ahead: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/jackdaw-gasfield-set-to-be-approved-by-ministers-this-month-sources-say Who knows, it may actually be true! If it is, Scotland…” Sep 4, 08:59
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “@GM “67% of all available housing must go to immigrants(not people seeking refuge or folk from abroad who have found…” Sep 4, 07:55
Hatey Mchateface on Anything But That: “Ach, c’moan, Mark. Long before Reform have taken power, the UN decolonisation committee will have gifted us our freedom. If…” Sep 4, 07:49
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “You’ll be fine, Wee Wally. Scotland still gets the top shelf mags.” Sep 4, 07:40
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Should have known you’d stick up for Northy, Wee Wally. What with Tourettes being the verbal equivalent of w@nking.” Sep 4, 07:35
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Food for thought. It is not a case of if but when will Reform take power and when they do…” Sep 4, 04:11
GM on Anything But That: “Well, you are a Pict? Probably.” Sep 4, 02:50
GM on Anything But That: “Unless of course they are actually lining us up for a vote we are in an utterly dire position to…” Sep 4, 02:08
GM on Anything But That: “By the way, the people I see on the street, actually sleeping on the street I have never seen drunk…” Sep 4, 01:27
GM on Anything But That: “67% of all available housing must go to immigrants(not people seeking refuge or folk from abroad who have found themselves…” Sep 4, 01:13
James on Anything But That: “Better a Pict than a “Prick” though eh, SP?” Sep 3, 22:33
James on Anything But That: “Hey everybodee… England gets the revenues. Scotland gets the nukes! Yaaaaaay! Rejoice!” Sep 3, 22:22
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “I asked Google: “how many countries or peoples can be described by specific English words by those who hate them”…” Sep 3, 21:29
agentx on Anything But That: “what is it in your Indigenous language?” Sep 3, 21:24
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Well, you are a Pict. A thousand year old, space traveling one at that. Whether in reality, or just self-identified,…” Sep 3, 21:12
