On Wednesday we highlighted a curious outbreak of mass hysteria in the Scottish press, when a whole clutch of its newspapers suddenly and inexplicably jumped on a six-month-old story that had been comprehensively debunked at the time and hadn’t become any more true.
The story was swiftly proven to be complete rubbish all over again, and some of the papers printed grudging and much less prominent pieces admitting it was nonsense (all gallantly blaming their source, some Buckingham Palace flunky gone rogue, rather than their own failure to check the facts).
We’ve noted on more than one occasion that the spectacular SNP surge since the referendum appears to have completely unhinged much of the Scottish and UK press. Having pumped out a vast avalanche of hysterical coverage which utterly failed to stop the Scottish electorate returning 56 SNPs out of 59, the papers have responded to the rebuff by simply turning the volume up.
But even by those standards, today has been special.
We watched the Labour leadership hustings this week with interest. The most striking aspect in our eyes was the warm reception afforded by the audience to left-wing outsider Jeremy Corbyn, who’s been almost uniformly discounted, sneered at and worse by the commentariat (with the notable exception of the Guardian’s Owen Jones) as a suicidal option fit only for a return to the days of the Militant Tendency.
The main reason cited by pundits for dismissing Corbyn out of hand is a perceived failure to speak to “aspiration”, which seems to have been defined for the purposes of the argument as “poor people who want to become Tories”.
The thinking runs that the unemployed and low-paid don’t want to be that way forever (reasonably enough), and that therefore there’s no point in Labour trying to redistribute wealth downwards, because nobody wants to see themselves as still being poor in the future, so they won’t see any benefit from it.
There are all manner of things morally and ideologically wrong with that approach, but they’re pretty obvious so we won’t bother spelling them out here. Perhaps a more compelling one, though, is that it’s a really stupid way to try to win an election.
A casual observer might perhaps wonder if JK Rowling, no longer writing books about wizards for children, simply wants to be noticed.
Twice in the space of a few weeks she’s appeared on newspaper front pages bleating piously about the terrible hordes of cyber- and other-nats. Yesterday the Independent, Telegraph, Scotsman, Herald, Daily Record and more all ran dismal, whiny pieces about her (entirely evidence-free) claims that the SNP was infested with mad, bitter Anglophobes just waiting for a signal to invade Derby again or something.
No particular barrage of abuse appears to have been unleashed upon the former author to provoke the outburst, but seemingly for a lack of anything better to do with her time she had a good old moan anyway and the press lapped it up.
And the reason it’s all so very tedious is that the papers might as well run stories claiming that there’s a chance of rain tomorrow.
Yesterday we highlighted a quote from Labour MP Kate Hoey about how the party secretly expects their next leader, whoever it is, to be in opposition for the next 10 years, meaning the UK will have a Conservative-led government for at least 15 years. Kate Hoey is on the Labour fringes, but today one of the front-runners for the leadership job proved her right.
Over and over again in the years leading up to the independence referendum, Scots were warned of the many dire consequences of voting Yes. Among the No campaign’s prime targets for scare tactics were subsidies for renewable energy.
UK government subsidies drying up certainly sounded like a scary prospect.
The first five words of “The Vow” – the solemn pledge made by all three UK party leaders on the eve of the independence referendum – are “The Scottish Parliament is permanent”. This is what happened in the House of Commons this evening when the UK government was asked to make good on that pledge.
With scarcely a moment’s pause for breath or reflection, the Unionist polity and media has seamlessly switched its focus to the elusive beast that is “Full Fiscal Autonomy”.
(The SNP thankfully seems to have swiftly dumped the silly and short-lived attempt to rebrand it “Full Fiscal Responsibility”.)
Having deemed the anti-independence “Project Fear” strategy a success because it won the referendum – seemingly oblivious to the fact that what it actually achieved was to turn a 30-point lead into a 10-point victory, at the cost of the annihilation of Unionist MPs in Scotland – the exact same tactics have been deployed against FFA.
And the main problem with that is that there are in fact two FFAs. And the Unionist side is fighting against the wrong one.
On the day Jim Murphy stands down as leader of the Labour Party North Britain branch office, we’d like to take this opportunity to offer our humble, heartfelt tribute to both him and the insightful political commentariat of Scotland.
Lorncal on Pandora’s Campervan: “Indeed, to my mind, there never was any intention from 2014 onwards to do anything about a referendum or independence…” Jun 2, 21:49
Patrick Roden on Pandora’s Campervan: “The thing that really makes my piss boil, is that We now know for 100% certain that the people who…” Jun 2, 21:16
Morgatron on Pandora’s Campervan: “I am as excited, can’t wait Stu.” Jun 2, 20:50
Andrew Morton on Pandora’s Campervan: “Re Frank Waring’s comment, it certainly is a criminal offence to raise money for a specific purpose only to use…” Jun 2, 20:44
Captain Caveman on Pandora’s Campervan: ““The unionist media have been wanking themselves blind in excitement over this. And why shouldn’t they?” Well, yes. Why indeed.” Jun 2, 20:20
Onlooker on Pandora’s Campervan: “If you’re part-head honcho of a party, and don’t like being so, with your wife being the main (s)limelight-dweller…and if…” Jun 2, 19:49
Onlooker on Pandora’s Campervan: “The unionist media have been wanking themselves blind in excitement over this. And why shouldn’t they? That bastard Murrell handed…” Jun 2, 19:45
Bilbo on Pandora’s Campervan: “Whose thinking that this whole sordid episode is going to be made into a TV show by Channel 5 next…” Jun 2, 19:39
Ian Murray on Pandora’s Campervan: “A 24′ campervan parked along the side of a house somehow never came up in the conversation when Nicola and…” Jun 2, 19:35
Skip_NC on Pandora’s Campervan: “There are two reasons I can see. The first is that he planned to use it but people started asking…” Jun 2, 19:08
Lorncal on Pandora’s Campervan: “Anyone who buys three very expensive coffee machines and other sundry luxury goods as multiples has something wrong with him…” Jun 2, 19:08
agentx on Pandora’s Campervan: “I have no interest in your colonialism rubbish. Swinney is in charge of Scotland – a Country.” Jun 2, 19:05
Cynicus on Pandora’s Campervan: ““What an absolute fucking idiot – for God’s sake this stupid guy is in charge of a’Country!” ================== Please don’t…” Jun 2, 19:01
katielass42 on Pandora’s Campervan: “If you could help me out here – do I recall something being said along the lines of ‘we’re standing…” Jun 2, 18:49
sarah on Pandora’s Campervan: “I hope the Rev will post it for us all to see – I can’t find it yet. All I’m…” Jun 2, 18:48
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Pandora’s Campervan: “Ebok: « It’s difficult to put into words the appreciation for, and admiration of, the sheer volume and depth of…” Jun 2, 18:22
Bob Johnston on Pandora’s Campervan: “I thought Grace Mugabe, sorry Peter Murrell, look quite untroubled in court. Then I remembered the missing quarter of a…” Jun 2, 18:13
Terry on Pandora’s Campervan: “Woo hoo! Just seen you on stv news. Fantastic! If ever there was an embodiment of the saying “the truth…” Jun 2, 18:10
Dan on Pandora’s Campervan: “Well, I can recall with interest Craig Murray stating there may have been something bigger in the mix when the…” Jun 2, 18:07
Alf Baird on Pandora’s Campervan: ““this stupid guy is in charge of a Country!” Correction, he is heading up a colonial administration which by its…” Jun 2, 17:47
Bilbo on Pandora’s Campervan: “More important than all of this. PayPal Kavanagh is off sick again. Dig deep and click on that donate button…” Jun 2, 17:38
agentx on Pandora’s Campervan: “He told reporters that there had been a “colossal breach of trust”. Swinney said that while the party’s systems were…” Jun 2, 17:16
Tenruh on Pandora’s Campervan: “Heard today that Murrell and Swinney have been friends since childhood,any truth in that?” Jun 2, 17:08
AdamH on Pandora’s Campervan: “That Tommy Sheppard article He (now) knows exactly what went wrong yet seems to have no recognition of being 1…” Jun 2, 16:48
Anne on Pandora’s Campervan: “Is it not more likely that this excess of pointless bling purchasing and overspend on office refurbishment is a way…” Jun 2, 16:34
Ebok on Pandora’s Campervan: “It’s difficult to put into words the appreciation for, and admiration of, the sheer volume and depth of work being…” Jun 2, 16:16
agentx on Pandora’s Campervan: “Why embezzle a camper van and never use it?” Jun 2, 15:34
Ian on Pandora’s Campervan: “Incidentally, when those figures for ‘audio visual’ came out, I remember trying to compile a realistic invoice for a conference…” Jun 2, 15:30
agentx on Pandora’s Campervan: “Murrell was CEO of SNP from 2001. Murrell married Sturgeon in July 2010 The offences started 12 August 2010. ———————————————–…” Jun 2, 15:25
