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?
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
