Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale today marked the historic nomination of Scotland’s first female First Minister with a Daily Record column in characteristically sour style, which waited until the second paragraph before sticking in a Margaret Thatcher comparison.
It wasn’t until later that it got confusing.
Here’s Neil Findlay MSP on this morning’s Andrew Marr Show:
Wait, what?
We noted with interest this morning an uncredited story in the Herald, suggesting that Scottish Labour leadership candidate Jim Murphy would stand as an unlikely champion of the poor and downtrodden and the heroic defender of universal benefits.
On investigation, the truth was somewhat at odds with the headline.
We’re sure our ever-alert readers don’t need telling, but it never hurts to put up a little refresher course for those who might have joined recently.
As it becomes clear to everyone in Scotland that the No camp’s promises of the UK being the guarantor of survival for the Govan shipyards was the cynical lie those of us on the Yes side always said it was, it’s been interesting to watch the panicked response from the Westminster government.
Let’s take a quick look at how it works.
Our favourite Scottish Labour activist and media starlet reacts to the news that the promises of a No vote saving the Clyde shipyards have turned out to be lies.
Let’s just be clear – that’s unequivocal, unambiguous support for condemning the Govan shipyards to certain death, losing thousands of Scottish jobs, going back on promises just months old, so long as it might save the UK Treasury a few quid which the current government would probably spend on more tax cuts for billionaires.
Well, if that doesn’t save a party currently languishing on an average of about 24% in the Scottish opinion polls and help to win back the trust and support of Scottish voters, we simply don’t know what will. Solidarity, brothers and sisters.
There’s so little happening in Scottish politics today, readers, that the Scottish Sun has been reduced to interviewing a brick. And no, that’s not rhyming slang.
Frankly, folks, at that point we may as well have the day off.
On last night’s Scotland Tonight, prospective Scottish Labour deputy “leader” Katy Clark MP told the nation that “it could be Scotland that lets us down”.
It wasn’t a slip of the tongue. By “us” she meant the Labour Party, and she went on to elaborate, telling the old Labour story about how UK general elections are about an Old Firm-style showdown betweeen two parties and how it was in essence the duty of Scots to vote Labour to keep the Tories out at Westminster, seemingly unaware that just as with the Old Firm, most people despise both of them pretty much equally.
(And conveniently overlooking the fact that Scots voted overwhelmingly Labour in 2010 and got the Tories anyway, as Labour obstinately refused to consider a “rainbow coalition” because they hated the SNP too much. What Scots learned that year was that Labour would rather let Tories rule Scotland than be civil to left-wing nationalists.)
The comments followed just a couple of days after Holyrood Magazine editor Mandy Rhodes had penned an article about the Scottish branch’s current woes that had a very telling first paragraph.
Alert readers will know that we like to keep you updated on the progress of our Freedom Of Information requests. Way back in May this year we sent one regarding the infamous unpublished opinion poll, and got a response the following month.
We weren’t very happy with it, though, and we followed it up. And today, just six months after the initial request, we got a final reply.
One week after the independence referendum we posted about a fundraiser by the producers of Dateline Scotland. It was an unusual fundraiser, in that it didn’t promise to actually produce anything – the team simply wanted money to sustain them while they worked towards something much bigger. The fundraiser was a massive success, reaching more than three times its target in the blink of an eye.
And today the something bigger started to take shape.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
