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.
Vestas on The Plague: “@RevStu Have you considered a private prosecution? I have no doubt whatsoever that he can be tracked down for the…” Aug 4, 18:01
Ross on The Plague: “I’d be installing a doorbell camera ASAP. Eufy make ones that don’t need a subscription.” Aug 4, 17:13
Effijy on The Plague: “The police in the U.K. are making the Keystone Cops look like professional crime fighters. This idiot is wasting very…” Aug 4, 16:53
Ronnie on The Plague: “To quote Charlie Brown “Good Grief”” Aug 4, 16:52
Ian Morrison on The Plague: “Just incredible. I read the other week about how many of the ludicrous actions of the plods recently are down…” Aug 4, 16:36
Karen on The Plague: “Jeezo, what you go through for us all! Thank you. But what jumped out at me was that Ian Livingstone…” Aug 4, 16:33
sarah on The Plague: “Rev, first of all, I am so sorry for the hell you have been put through. Most of it unnecessary…” Aug 4, 16:28
Frank Gillougley on The Plague: “Here’s my tuppence worth. This has got MI5 all over it. The quality polis, just as the judicial bollocks, are…” Aug 4, 16:23
Adam Hibbert on The Plague: “Is there any kind of restraining order available to you, as a target of his harassment? If that requires a…” Aug 4, 16:23
Ex President Xiden on The Plague: “The banging on your door at 2:15 am sounds like a breach of the peace to me.” Aug 4, 16:21
Bob Johnston on The Plague: “You are a brave man. I am not, but any funding calls you make in the future will not be…” Aug 4, 16:19
Patsy Millar on The Plague: “Just sending love and hugs. You need both for what you have been put through.” Aug 4, 16:14
Kate L on The Plague: “This is unbelievable Rev. I’m so glad the excellent Free Speech Union were able to assist you against this new…” Aug 4, 15:57
Mike on The Plague: “Jeez, is there no end to the uselessness of the constabulary. There must be some redress for these baseless accusations…” Aug 4, 15:53
Aidan on Or Something: “The leadership of Liberate is a ragtag bunch of retirees and some cranks, as you might expect. They’ve paid a…” Aug 4, 14:20
Jay on Or Something: “Does the SNP have astructure of financial authority such as would indicate who spent monies on what goods and or…” Aug 4, 13:35
Young Lochinvar on Or Something: “HMcH @7.53 & 10.44 Ah! First the mouse squeaks Then the coney roars! Save us from these “terrors”!! 🙂” Aug 4, 13:22
BLMac on Or Something: “Judging by the responses a reasonable person might come to the assumption that cronies of the embezzlers are embedded in…” Aug 4, 13:21
Hatey McHateface on Or Something: ““shredded banners declaring Scotland’s ambition to be free” There you go again, Northy. Appropriating to all of Scotland the democratically…” Aug 4, 12:23
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “@CC There’s one experience where Scotland comes out top every time. Summer evenings, post rush hour, away from the cities,…” Aug 4, 12:10
Chas on Or Something: “Maybe the likes of you drove them away Northy?” Aug 4, 11:57
Northcode on Or Something: “I suspect most independence supporters have already abandoned this place. It feels like a post-apocalyptic, tumbleweed-strewn wasteland where tattered Saltires…” Aug 4, 11:28
Ex President Xiden on Or Something: “If that’s the case why don’t the crown office just say that?” Aug 4, 11:13
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: “@Hatey You get idiots in all manner of cars, it isn’t the car’s fault. How many Audi drivers do you…” Aug 4, 11:01
Hatey McHateface on Or Something: “@ Chas says: 4 August, 2026 at 10:06 am Never underestimate the effect on a black representative of a former…” Aug 4, 10:57
Hatey McHateface on Or Something: “It’s certainly all too easy to wonder how commemorating some not very nice boys hacking each other to bits 600+…” Aug 4, 10:44
Ian Smith on Or Something: “Refusing to hand over the books to a financial audit committee must come as close to evidence of who was…” Aug 4, 10:42
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “@CC I see a few of them around here. They absolutely boss the reserved disabled parking and the double yellows…” Aug 4, 10:22
Chas on Or Something: “Who are the Office bearers, high heid yins, of Liberation Scotland, Salvo or any of their offshoots, if there are…” Aug 4, 10:06
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: “Hey Aidan, it’s the PHEV hybrid Sport, meaning it has e-motor shove, as well as the 6-cyl Ingenium petrol engine…” Aug 4, 09:44
