Wings Over Scotland

Last night the not-noticeably-cybernat Liberal Democrat Voice website declared that a young woman in the audience of the STV leaders’ debate, professing herself to be an undecided who’d been “totally convinced” by Jim Murphy to vote Labour, appeared to be the same person as one who’d previously appeared in Labour leaflets.

Then this happened.

I don’t know why anyone is surprised that revelation having teenage lassie in Tuesdays STV debate was a Labour plant. They are desperadoes.

— Misssy M (@MisssyM) April 9, 2015

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We already KNOW the solution to the problem of panellists shouting all over each other. It’s used every day in the Scottish Parliament: the chair is in charge of all the microphones and only the person whose turn it is to speak gets theirs switched on.

If someone else raises a good point while someone is speaking, the chair can hear it and bring them in in a controlled manner if appropriate, rather than the self-defeating, time-wasting exercise in irony that is shouting at everyone to stop shouting.

The fact that the system is never used therefore leads us to only one possible logical conclusion – the broadcasters WANT chaotic rammies where nobody gets to make their points properly. As for why, you’d have to ask them.

As our veteran readers will know, Duncan Hothersall is a prominent Scottish Labour activist, occasional BBC and STV pundit, prospective Labour parliamentary candidate and editor of LabourHame, the party’s favoured blog in Scotland.

Earlier today we got an email from someone who wanted us to ask him a question.

Here’s how the conversation went.

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Alert readers will probably recall that a couple of days ago we explained this site’s most fundamental purpose as being to teach people “how to read between the lines [and] and spot what isn’t being said” in newspapers, so we’re grateful to today’s Daily Record for providing us with a timely example of the second phenomenon.

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Anyone reading the weekend’s newspapers could have been forgiven for thinking that Westminster had been replaced with a bouncy castle, and our political class with hysterical children. As the long-anticipated rise of the SNP looms closer into sight, the Conservative press seems to have wet itself in fear.

The Daily Mail front page on Saturday shrieked that Nicola Sturgeon is “The most dangerous woman in Britain”. The Times’ front page story declared that Labour is panicking and likely to run to the left after Sturgeon’s debate victory. The Telegraph gave up on any remaining pretence of journalistic standards and ran a story about a conversation between Nicola Sturgeon and the French Ambassador without asking either of them for a quote on it (both deny it).

It’s worth considering for a moment why this is. Conventional wisdom in the Labour Party, after all, is that a strong SNP is good for the Tories. Why, then, would the Tory press be so quick to attack them? Particularly in a way, as with the Telegraph, which might actually have damaged them, had the punch landed?

The answer is that Britain’s papers are in the process of re-writing our constitution to keep Labour out – and Jim Murphy is helping them.

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…after this, then there’s always this:

Aneurin Bevan’s heart would have swelled with pride.

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In the last 24 hours the Scottish and UK media has circled the wagons around the BBC’s James Cook, a good and balanced reporter who perhaps didn’t have his best day on Saturday. Predictable condemnation has poured in on “cybernats” alleged to have rained “vicious abuse” on the journalist in a co-ordinated fascist bullying attack etc etc, though as ever, actual quoted examples are in short supply.

(We’re aware of exactly two abusive tweets – one nutter identified by the Huffington Post calling the entire BBC “the scum of the Earth”), and one we ourselves saw and chided, which was then deleted by the normally-sensible user and which we honestly don’t remember the content of, beyond that it was unpleasant and excessive. It should go without saying that we deplore and condemn such abuse, while defending the right to civil, legitimate criticism of a public servant where justified.)

There’s nothing in the papers on this, though.

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Okay, it was a serious breach of the rules, but the culprit’s been punished enough.

Dear God above, we’re not monsters.

As alert readers will already know, this site’s core long-term aim is to eventually render itself redundant, by showing people how to read between the lines, spot what isn’t being said and understand the various tricks that newspapers use in order to get the public to believe things that aren’t true without ever doing anything so crass (and more to the point, legally-actionable) as directly lying.

Today’s papers provide an especially clear-cut example.

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Barely 18 months after this, here’s East Lothian Labour councillor Norman Hampshire (centre) and pals campaigning today with the aid of their new best friend.

As the story collapses and investigations begin into a cut-and-dried case of unlawful civil service interference in politics (and possibly worse), may they reap what they sow. If the current polls come true, never will a party’s fall have been more abject or more complete, nor its fate more richly deserved.

…we shall say zees only wance.

That clip (from just past midnight on the BBC News channel) isn’t a bad starting-point summary of last night’s extraordinary story, except by our count the Telegraph’s piece was fourth-hand rather than third-hand.

(First-hand would have been Nicola Sturgeon. Second-hand would have been the ambassador. Third-hand would have been the consul-general. The civil servant – who doubted the story him/herself – is fourth-hand.)

This is also a pretty good primer. Now let’s get to the fun stuff.

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Nicola Sturgeon is brilliant. Can we just outsource all our politics to Scotland and make Parliament into a Weatherspoon’s? #leadersdebate

— Brian Millar (@arthurascii) April 2, 2015

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