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?
Wulls on The Plague: “I thought he was in the process of being tagged as a vexatious litigant ???” Aug 4, 19:14
Hatey McHateface on The Plague: “Sorry to be an irritant in Wokeland, Ian, but Connolly didn’t call for anybody to be burned alive. Why don’t…” Aug 4, 19:04
James on The Nobodies: “Ooh…concerted effort from the 3 Tenors/ sorry wankers. But the sad fact for these ****s is that Scotland still hates…” Aug 4, 18:59
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: “Those who are interested in S. Salyers’ constitutional campaign might find this interesting: www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5jXpFrZgIU” Aug 4, 18:47
Nicky T Naquetti on The Plague: “In pre-Communist China, the Imperial eunuchs were a protected clique, and to pour scorn upon them was treated like an…” Aug 4, 18:37
sarah on The Plague: “@ John Cleary – good on you for trying.” Aug 4, 18:34
duncanio on The Plague: “Can’t you make a complaint to the Police regarding their malicious harassment of yourself?” Aug 4, 18:28
John Cleary on The Plague: “That doesn’t work anymore Sarah. I tried that yesterday, sent material to 160 Members. All individually addressed, no spam. Yesterday…” Aug 4, 18:14
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
