Introducing… the Union Jocks 148
Posted on
May 28, 2013 by
multiple authors
The No campaign makes for some unlikely bedfellows.
We’d like you to meet our new favourite patriots.
Archive for the ‘comment’
I was in Labour, but I didn’t inhale 92
Posted on
May 26, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
One year on 61
Posted on
May 26, 2013 by
Peter A. Bell
12 months into the official independence campaign, if the mainstream media is to be believed the Yes Scotland campaign isn’t doing too well. On the few occasions when the organisation isn’t being assumed to be merely a synonym for “the SNP”, it’s to allow some comment to the effect that they are “on the back foot” or has suffered another “setback” of some kind.
To be fair, it’s not only the media who have been critical. Many committed independence supporters have expressed mixed feelings about the official Yes campaign, usually along the lines of it not being proactive enough or sufficiently vigorous is dealing with this or that. Is such criticism justified? Are the media offering a fair analysis of Yes Scotland’s management of the campaign?
We must be missing something 135
Posted on
May 25, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Can anyone explain to us the fundamental difference between “I wouldn’t want my son to be a foreigner” and “I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry a black man”? Because we’re not at all sure that we can locate it.
News from the UK 60
Posted on
May 24, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We don’t normally pick out individual stories from the Sealand Gazette and put them on the front page, but, well, you’ll see why we’ve done it today in a few seconds’ time.
The piece below is from the Ilford Recorder, a newspaper in north-east London.
Half-full vs half-empty 54
Posted on
May 23, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
“World’s biggest wave energy farm off Lewis gets go-ahead” (Herald):
“Scotland warned independence could cost billions in renewable subsidies” (Guardian):
A good day to bury bad news 26
Posted on
May 23, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This story was on the front page of the Scotsman website when we were checking the papers at 7am. It’s now not only vanished from the front page, but from every index we can find. We tried finding it with the site’s Search function using the words in the headline, but none of them bring it up.
We eventually managed to locate it via Google, hidden two-thirds of the way down the Business page, but in case it gets deleted for good, you can find it below.
100% of nothing 60
Posted on
May 22, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The SNP has been assailed from all directions at once recently on the subject of Corporation Tax in an independent Scotland. Radical left-wingers say there’s no point in independence if we’re just going to ape neoliberal policy. The No camp insists both that a “race to the bottom” would be destructive and counter-productive and morally wrong, and that we wouldn’t be allowed to anyway.
(Even the Tories attack the idea, despite having just stolen it wholesale.)
At the same time, the Scottish Government has been bombarded with criticism for giving grants to companies like Amazon, who received more money in the UK from government handouts than they paid in tax. (Despite the company’s tax avoidance being wholly in the remit of the Westminster government rather than the Holyrood one.)
We don’t mind telling you, readers, we’re a bit confused.
Knockout stages extended 155
Posted on
May 21, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A stunning piece in the Telegraph eventually ran away with the vote in our British Loony Of The Week poll at the weekend. But what we didn’t realise at the time was that we were in fact only conducting the first semi-final. We’ve got two more absolute crackers for you to enjoy today.
While we’re on the subject 39
Posted on
May 21, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
…of welfare reform, we thought you might like to hear this. It’s a short (four and a half minutes) interview with a doctor formerly employed by Atos Healthcare, broadcast on the Today show on Radio 4 last Thursday. Atos were hired to do this work by Labour, and retained by the Tories and Lib Dems. But you knew that already, right?
If you want to listen to the whole segment, it’s from 20 minutes.
Coincidental mistakes 41
Posted on
May 21, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Yesterday the Daily Record led with a front-page splash about Labour-controlled South Lanarkshire council threatening to evict a tenant over bedroom tax arrears. Today the paper carries a profuse apology from the council’s leader Eddie McAvoy insisting that the letters were sent in error, although the recipient was unconvinced:
“The council last night hand delivered a letter of apology to Angela. But she said: “I don’t believe a mistake was made in the first place and it is only because I appeared in the Record that the council have backed down.””
The Record was deeply sceptical too, issuing a sternly-worded rebuke to the council in an editorial leader column which also pointed out other unsightly goings-on in the “long-time Labour fiefdom”.
We must presume that rogue elements in Labour are at fault, then.
Is it even worth bothering? 106
Posted on
May 20, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
With the latest Westminster fearbomb, we mean. We’ve covered the pensions thing in considerable detail already, so the Treasury’s attack was outdated before it was even launched. It’s becoming increasingly plain with every passing day than an independent Scotland would be better off financially than the rest of the UK (unless we get “more powers” after a No vote, that is), so why would it have more difficulty paying pensions?
After all, the UK government didn’t put the effort in to construct an even minimally coherent case, so frankly we don’t see why we should. We’re going for a pie.
