The Shining 431
Posted on
June 27, 2020 by
Chris Cairns
Archive for the ‘comment’
What is known as parklife 447
Posted on
June 24, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve just been out for our evening constitutional in the relatively cool night air (Bath sweltered at an oppressive 30C today and Bear Patrol was pretty gruelling), and we thought readers might be interested in what we saw.
The city has observed lockdown with great diligence, as we’ve previously documented, and to be honest we’re not sufficiently familiar with the latest rules to say it wasn’t still doing so tonight. But a nearby park, around 9.30pm, was a disconcerting scene.
Letting the days go by 278
Posted on
June 18, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re pretty sure they used the same “separating rival groups” phrasing at Tianenmen Square too, but we’d have to go and check. Meanwhile, here’s what really happened.
From the archives #13 657
Posted on
June 14, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve noticed a fair few Unionists this week proudly claiming that an independent Scotland would have been too broke to survive the coronavirus pandemic. They might not listen to our many and comprehensive rebuttals, but maybe they’d heed the words of Tony Blair, from way back in October 1987:
The sliding doors of history, there, readers. When Unionists tell you Scotland is feeble, remember who made it that way, and never forget how it could have been.
The comfort of lies 197
Posted on
June 09, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Jail time for Joanne 306
Posted on
June 08, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This site is not terribly inclined towards sympathy for popular children’s author Joanne Kathleen Rowling. We’re still waiting on an apology for her donating a crucial million pounds towards ensuring Scotland stayed ruled by Tories and got dragged out of the EU against its will, on the bonkers premise that voting No would magically put Scots in a position of unprecedented popularity and power within the UK.
As a smart piece of analysis it’s right up there with “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance”, and it would have been nice if at some point in the last six years she’d held her hands up and gone “Y’know what, I called that one really badly wrong. Sorry about the whole Tory/Brexit thing, everyone. We all make mistakes”.
(Wings, of course, got it exactly right at the time.)
We still don’t think she deserves seven years in prison, though.
A minor confusion 463
Posted on
June 03, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Oh no, someone’s let Ian Murray say words again.
There’s only one small problem with that complaint.
The test case 191
Posted on
May 29, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Some in the independence movement got quite excited yesterday about a widely-reported poll showing that 63% of Scots want a new indyref in the next five years. It reminded us that we’d had a question on the subject in our own Panelbase poll earlier this month that we hadn’t got around to talking about.
Because of what we wanted to find out, that question was asked in a slightly strange way, so let’s quickly explain.
Of no materiality 351
Posted on
May 27, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve just learned that we’ve lost the appeal over our defamation by the then-Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, when she repeatedly and publicly made the appalling, damaging and wholly untrue smear that I was a homophobe, even though the appeal judges all agreed with the original sheriff that the smear was false and defamatory.
But when it comes to deciding the verdict in a defamation case, it seems that the fact that absolutely everyone agrees I was definitely defamed is, to borrow a phrase from later in the judgement,“of no materiality”.
