Let’s start with a nice simple flat-out lie, from the Daily Record:
The imaginary figures for future UK oil revenues released yesterday by the Office for Budget Responsibility (which is amusingly pretending it has some sort of idea what the proceeds from the world’s most infamously volatile industry will be 25 years from now when it can’t get anywhere close to accurate three-MONTH predictions) saw the OBR downgrade its OWN previous figure of £37bn – not the SNP’s – to just £2bn.
Let’s just say that again – despite the lie in the Record’s headline that the SNP had been predicting a figure of £37bn, that number was actually a projection by the OBR.
A reasonable person might at this point wonder why anyone would still bother listening to a body that had just slashed its own previous guess by an eye-watering 94% in the space of a year, when you could simply buy a dartboard and a blindfold, get drunk and produce your own “projections” that were every bit as likely to be accurate, but that’s not even the half of it.
We’ve already noted that today is a confusing news day. But when we were listening to the radio this morning we thought we maybe hadn’t woken up properly.
The segment concerned a report by the Tory-leaning think tank Reform Scotland, and saw both the organisation and Labour MSP Hugh Henry trying doggedly to find a bad spin on the news in the fact that crime in Scotland is at a 40-year low. So desperate were they to do so that they ended up denying the existence of arithmetic.
So first of all there’s this (click pic for full story):
…in which the figures appear to show that Iceland’s policy of imposing justice and imprisoning the greedy bankers who caused the world financial crash – rather than just shovelling money at them and letting them carry on robbing everyone – actually saw its economy recover at least as well as anywhere else’s.
Thank you for your e-mail to Kezia with regards to her exchange with the First Minister in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 23rd April 2015.
Kezia can confirm that the person mentioned in the exchange has had their membership of the Labour Party put under administrative suspension and an investigation is currently being conducted by the General Secretary of the Scottish Labour Party.
If you have specific questions on the investigation you will need to direct them to the Scottish Labour Party, not Kezia’s Parliamentary office.
If there is anything other issues Kezia can help with as your MSP, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
The Daily Mail, having unaccountably failed to notice the slew of Unionists who tried to blame the SNP for Charles Kennedy’s death before the body was cold on Tuesday, suddenly remembered to look at its Twitter timeline again today.
There’s an unmissable piece in today’s Guardian about the last days of the general election campaign, as seen from inside the headquarters of the Labour Party.
The reason it’s fascinating isn’t because (as it claims) it provides an insight into why Labour lost the election, but because it reveals how the party’s most senior staff, by pathologically avoiding any non-stage-managed contact with actual voters, lost all grip of reality and sleepwalked into their most crushing defeat in decades.
I had no time for the way that Charles Kennedy conducted himself in the referendum campaign and it would be hypocritical to pretend that I did.
But before that he was one of the main reasons I voted Lib Dem for over 20 years – a compassionate, principled man who took some difficult stands and left his party in a far healthier place, both politically and morally, than it occupies now.
This is Robert Hutton – UK political correspondent for Bloomberg News and author of the book “Would They Lie To You?” – and former Labour spin doctor Damien McBride on Radio 4 this morning, discussing the fate of Alistair Carmichael.
Michelle Mone, the titular head of a loss-making underwear company mostly owned by a shady Sri Lankan business group, who’s spent much of the last eight years trying to blackmail Scots by threatening to punish them with hundreds of job losses if they don’t vote the way she tells them to, has a 1400-word whine/house advert in the MoS today about how beastly cybernats have forced her to finally move to England.
Who wants to be the one to break it to her that they have Twitter in England too?
Alf Baird on A matter of class: ““Reform Scotland membership now at twenty one thousand and rising.” Surprising its not a lot more considering at least 50,000…” Dec 27, 20:05
Mark Beggan on A matter of class: “Reform Scotland membership now at twenty one thousand and rising. How’s the colonized discussion going?” Dec 27, 19:30
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “….whilst conveniently completely overlooking that what the majority of Scots think is highly influenced by the UK MSM and what…” Dec 27, 19:25
Dan on A matter of class: “@ AiDan says: at 6.25 pm Above the belt? And jist what “rules” are we playing with here. Your rules…” Dec 27, 19:20
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Northcode 6.15 pm An outright lie easily disproved… your rhetoric is truly abysmal. The figures aren’t hard to find…” Dec 27, 19:19
agentx on A matter of class: “How many people on here felt colonised as they ate their Christmas dinner and went for a walk on Boxing…” Dec 27, 19:03
Dan on A matter of class: “Captain Caveman says: at 4:43 pm “Nah. I don’t care what yours or anyone else’s views are…” Yawn, then why…” Dec 27, 18:59
Aidan on A matter of class: ““These arseholes will pick up on and try to make hay out of the slightest thing” Bringing someone’s daughter up…” Dec 27, 18:25
Dan on A matter of class: “And newby AiDan enters the chat… Get your programmers to read a bit further back, and you will see plenty…” Dec 27, 18:23
Northcode on A matter of class: ““Alert readers might be interested to know that the number of Scots claiming French as their mother tongue is the…” Dec 27, 18:15
Dan on A matter of class: “Keep ripping into this shite Northcode. 2 min vid on Bloomberg of Jim Rogers stating how Scotland’s oil props up…” Dec 27, 18:11
Aidan on A matter of class: ““But no CC, FF is bonkers, and just continues on with his relentless efforts (with obvious support from unionists like…” Dec 27, 18:05
Dan on A matter of class: “Aye Alf, it’s so obvious what is going on. These arseholes will pick up on and try to make hay…” Dec 27, 17:53
Northcode on A matter of class: ““Britain doesn’t need to become great again – it already is” What utter nonsense from Piotr Wilczek… whoever he is.…” Dec 27, 17:50
Northcode on A matter of class: ““It always triggers the moonhowlers when I point out that the most influential voice in Scottish political blogging thinks their…” Dec 27, 17:49
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Alf 5.16pm Au contraire (that’s French that is…) Alf, I feel sure enough of my identity not to have…” Dec 27, 17:46
Alf Baird on A matter of class: “As demonstrated in the btl attacks here, the assimilated natives “place themselves in a considerably superior position to the average…” Dec 27, 17:16
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Dan 4.20pm For the benefit of the minimally self aware or those who read with their lips moving like…” Dec 27, 16:47
Captain Caveman on A matter of class: “Nah. I don’t care what yours or anyone else’s views are – some things just aren’t done, and that’s one…” Dec 27, 16:43
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Northcode 4.14pm In the unlikely event of the English deciding they wanted to dissolve the union I doubt they’d…” Dec 27, 16:34
Dan on A matter of class: “Ach, awa an dinae talk pish, ya pair o tag team fannies. My point was that folk, whether related* or…” Dec 27, 16:20
Northcode on A matter of class: ““…ethno-nationalist bigots don’t get to set the referendum franchise and decide on who is and isn’t pure enough to qualify…” Dec 27, 16:14
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “James, rather than clog up BTL discourse here with your cack-tsunami of ill thought out ramblings, wouldn’t you better advised…” Dec 27, 15:24
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@Capt. Caveman 2.49pm Blood and soil bigot types just can’t help themselves bud. He’s not the first and doubtless won’t…” Dec 27, 15:10
Captain Caveman on A matter of class: “@Dan Bringing someone’s kid into it is lower than a snake’s belly. I mean, I know you’re a miserable, bitter…” Dec 27, 14:49
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@Alf 6.45 pm Like gender ideology, so-called ‘civic nationalism’ ideology is also “Delusional nonsense” of the ‘snake oil’ variety, and…” Dec 27, 14:47
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “If you were educated you would know there is no Scottish government or parliament in Scotland, because there would be…” Dec 27, 14:24
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Dan 11.13am In the unlikely event you’ve ever been able to convince a woman to let you near enough…” Dec 27, 14:22
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “TURABDIN, Indeed a matter optics, He speaks of England as it it were all of Britain, but that Britain has…” Dec 27, 14:07
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “The thing is Turabdin, it’s not that he’s wrong exactly it’s just that the progress his own country country has…” Dec 27, 13:55
