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Politics is satire plus time 509

Posted on September 10, 2014 by

Here’s an image we made back in October 2012:

edunity

It’s based on a graphic from the movie version of “V For Vendetta”.

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Point and counterpoint 202

Posted on September 10, 2014 by

mails

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Spoiled for choice 133

Posted on September 10, 2014 by

George Monbiot in the Guardian, 10 September 2014:

“If Scotland becomes independent, it will be despite the efforts of almost the entire UK establishment. It will be because social media has defeated the corporate media. It will be a victory for citizens over the Westminster machine, for shoes over helicopters.

It will show that a sufficiently inspiring idea can cut through bribes and blackmail, through threats and fear-mongering. That hope, marginalised at first, can spread across a nation, defying all attempts to suppress it. That you can be hated by the Daily Mail and still have a chance of winning.”

We could have picked almost any paragraph. A tour de force.

A case apart 569

Posted on September 09, 2014 by

We’ve long argued that whatever the small print, when it comes to an independent Scotland’s membership of the European Union common sense and realpolitik will prevail, because nobody wants Scotland to be out of the EU for even a day and it’s in nobody’s interests for it to be.

Of course, we’re just some idiots with a website and nobody should listen to OUR opinion about anything. But it seems as though people like Graham Avery (Honorary Director-General of the European Commission), Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, (the former Deputy Secretary-General of the UN) and Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, (author of a book on EU constitutional law and professor of European law and human rights at Oxford University) ought to have a pretty good inside track on Europe stuff.

And if all those still aren’t enough, how about the esteemed Pat Cox, former President of the European Parliament? He ought to know what he’s talking about, right?

A time to choose 76

Posted on September 09, 2014 by

Between this, and this.

We don’t think we understand 329

Posted on September 08, 2014 by

We just watched, jaws agape, as the BBC news channel gave Scottish Labour an uninterrupted 50-minute party political broadcast for no immediately obvious reason. It mainly took place at Loanhead Miners’ Welfare, and featured speeches from a warm-up man, then Johann Lamont, and finally Gordon Brown.

The ostensible event justifying this extraordinary coverage lasted just 2m 36s.

And having sat through the whole circus, we still have no idea what it was for.

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Hard medicine 183

Posted on September 08, 2014 by

First Owen Jones’ stinging rebuff to the odious fauxcialist John McTernan, now this:

weedougieslap

As another famous Unionist might say: Oooft!

Finding sense to make it work 205

Posted on September 08, 2014 by

The alert readers of this site have encountered currency trader Alpesh Patel of equity company Praefinium Partners before. We were more than a little bit scathing about a previous appearance of his on the BBC News channel back in February, on which it seems fair to say that he nailed his Unionist colours very firmly indeed to the mast.

So this clip from the same channel this morning was interesting.

We don’t think his words need any comment from us, save perhaps that we commend Mr Patel for having learned from his previous errors when it comes to assessing the attitude of businesses to the prospect of Scottish independence. Anyone can make a mistake. The key is to not keep repeating it when the evidence proves you wrong.

The quality press 50

Posted on September 08, 2014 by

You have to laugh.

hoots

Anyone would think WE were the ones who’d had to remove, apologise for and pay compensation for defamatory articles about THEM.

A theme develops 238

Posted on September 07, 2014 by

Save it from what, exactly? Democracy?

theme

(More here.)

The great surrender 70

Posted on September 07, 2014 by

Owen Jones in the Guardian, 7 September 2014:

“New Labour’s surrender to the underlying assumptions of the Thatcherite crusade gave the independence movement its greatest opportunity. Yes, the Blairites could not entirely purge Labour’s traditions, and so the minimum wage was introduced (albeit at too low a level), poverty was reduced and public services were invested in.

Yet they illegally invaded Iraq with Conservative support, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and 179 British military personnel before handing much of the country over to fanatics. They punished aspiration by introducing tuition fees, saddled public services with long-term debt through the colossal rip-off of PFI, and began privatising our NHS – laying the foundations for some of the pernicious policies of this coalition as they did so.

They allowed the living standards of millions of working people to begin falling years before the crash, even as the coffers of corporate Britain prospered like never before. They failed to solve an ever-worsening housing crisis, leaving 5 million languishing on council housing waiting lists. They cut taxes on corporate Britain while indulging in entirely destructive gimmicks such as scrapping the 10p tax rate.

Many Scots look at the Britain built by this political elite, they don’t like it and they want out.”

Seems to pretty much cover it.

Quack quack quack quack quack 299

Posted on September 07, 2014 by

Here’s what George Osborne actually said on today’s Andrew Marr Show:

“You will see in the next few days a plan of action to give more powers to Scotland. More tax powers, more spending powers, more plans for powers over the welfare state. 

That will be put into effect – the timetable for delivering that will be put into effect – the moment there is a no vote in the referendum. The clock will be ticking for delivering those powers – and then Scotland will have the best of both worlds.”

(From 32m 40s.) It’s not actually very hard to follow.

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