Here’s Jim Murphy, a self-proclaimed “socialist” and the hot favourite to be the next “leader” of Scottish Labour, interviewed in today’s Mail On Sunday while doubtless still fresh from his regular early-morning run-through of The Red Flag:
To the barricades, comrades!
…are closer than they appear, runs a (slightly depressing) inscription that must by law be engraved on the door mirror of cars in the USA.
Objects in the Telegraph, though, follow different rules. (Thanks, we’re here all week.)
It needs saying as much today as it did last month.
The coverage of the Smith Commission findings in today’s press is woeful pretty much across the board, regardless of where each paper’s allegiances sit. Right-wing Tory papers fume about the poor suffering English (without ever quite pinning down how England would lose out from the proposals) and rage bitterly at what they bizarrely interpret as hypocrisy on the part of the SNP for signing off on the report but then criticising it as inadequate.
(If it helps, chaps, try picturing yourselves as creditors of a bankrupt business being offered a CVA settlement of 10p in each pound owed. It’s better than getting nothing at all and you’d accept the offer, but you’d still be pretty unhappy, right?)
Meanwhile, the Daily Record continues its blitzkrieg bombardment of breathtakingly barefaced bullshot, attempting to simply overwhelm gullible readers by virtue of the sheer volume (in both senses of the word) of its spin and flat-out lies.
We mentioned this story (about David Cameron pushing ahead with “English votes for English laws” legislation that would exclude Labour MPs from budget votes, despite the Smith Commission report categorically saying he wouldn’t) earlier today, but one particular line from it deserves a post of its own.
He said: ‘This is the Prime Minister’s view, it is not government policy.’”
You heard it right, readers: a never-seen dimwit in a job so pointless he himself stood in the last election on a policy of abolishing it altogether really just said “Don’t listen to anything this idiot says about government policy, he’s only the Prime Minister.”
It’s been that sort of day, folks.
You have to hand it to David Cameron – he doesn’t hang about. Barely two hours had passed after the declaration of the result of the independence referendum when he started tying new devolved powers into legislation on “English votes for English laws”, in a slick knifing of his unsuspecting hitherto-allies in Labour.
And just as hot on the heels of the Smith Commission’s final report, he’s at it again.
We’re going to hold off full scrutiny and analysis of the Smith Commission report on devolution until it’s actually released and we’ve read it, rather than going on pure speculation like most Scottish newspapers this morning.
But what we CAN talk about is this.
We’ve had another letter from the government.
Scottish Labour-style.
Good stuff. We’re just not sure that’s, y’know, the main reason for doing it.
It’s still Jim Murphy Day here at Wings (did you all get nice presents?), but we’re as sick as you are of hearing him avoid questions about devolution, so instead we’re going to take a look at something else he said this afternoon.
£250 million? We’re sure it used to be rather less than that.
Today we’ve become quite obsessed with Jim Murphy’s pathological avoidance of a straight answer to the question of whether income tax should be fully devolved to the Scottish Parliament or not. The BBC now has a report on his much-trailed speech in Glasgow, but we’ll get to that in a moment. First it’s worth having a listen to this.
It’s an interview taken from the “Pienaar’s Politics” podcast on Radio 5 Live earlier this month. And it makes for an intriguing study of the art of evasion.
It is, in fairness, a fairly slow time for politics news at the moment. But it’s striking all the same to open this morning’s papers and see almost all of them running what’s not only basically the exact same story, but also the exact same groundless spin on it.
THE SCOTSMAN: “Jim Murphy tells Scots Labour to back tax powers”
DAILY RECORD: “Labour leadership frontrunner Jim Murphy set to back full income tax-raising powers for Holyrood”
THE HERALD: “Murphy to support handing full income tax powers to Holyrood”
THE TIMES: “Murphy calls for full income tax devolution”
STV NEWS: “Labour candidate Murphy calls for ‘full devolution of income tax'”
EVENING TIMES: “Murphy in call for full devolution of income tax”
There’s only one thing conspicuously missing from all of the stories – a quote from Jim Murphy saying he backs the devolution of full income tax powers to Holyrood.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
