Spilt black milk 393
Posted on
May 07, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Archive for the ‘comment’
The slow learners 189
Posted on
May 03, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Poor old Gary Smith and the rest of the super-unionist GMB. We wonder how many times the UK government has to kick them up the arse before they stop bending over.
We’re pretty sure we’ll need to take our shoes and socks off to count, though.
The restoration of faith 796
Posted on
April 29, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We should have known all along, really.
The woman who said she didn’t want to be leader but did, then said she wouldn’t quit as leader but did, then said she had no intention of quitting politics altogether, just did.
Or did she?
Context phobia 418
Posted on
April 22, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers will know by now that there’s nothing the Scottish media – and the Scottish Daily Mail in particular – likes more than printing scary-sounding figures with no context whatsoever by which people could judge how big or small they really are.
Nothing’s changed today (other than a rather sneaky inset shot of an old story about a different statistic which misleadingly makes today’s one look like a big increase), so rather than bang on we’ll just fill in the blanks: ScotRail runs around 760,000 trains a year, so this year’s cancellation figures amount to about 3.5% of all trains.
Which is to say, around one time in every 30 that you go to get a train it’ll have been cancelled and you’ll have to wait for the next one, which on the average commuter line will probably mean 15-20 minutes.
Which is still a pain in the hole, of course, but if it’s such a high number ask yourself why the Mail is so pathologically averse to simply telling you what percentage it is.
We’ll see you again with these figures in a few weeks, folks.
A tissue of fair comments 256
Posted on
April 19, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Most of the on-the-spot media reporting of the judgement in our court case against Kezia Dugdale on Wednesday was pretty fair and straightforward news coverage. The majority of pieces accurately and prominently mentioned the fact that the sheriff had found that I wasn’t a homophobe and that Dugdale’s article in the Daily Record which had claimed that I was WAS both untrue and defamatory.
(Some readers objected to headlines claiming that Dugdale had been “victorious”, but the strict legal fact is that she had.)
But it didn’t take long for the press to recover its composure and revert to type.
A comment piece in today’s Herald is probably the peak so far.
The long drop 171
Posted on
April 16, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Almost exactly two years ago, this website suggested that it might not be the smartest idea for Labour to go along with Theresa May’s call for a snap election. (Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, it couldn’t have happened without Labour’s support.)
And it occurred to us today that if they hadn’t, the current government would only have a maximum of one year left to run.
What you wish for 548
Posted on
April 14, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Conservatives’ disastrous handling of, and failure to deliver, Brexit seems to have finally begun to hurt them in the polls, with a clutch of recent stats showing Labour with a significant lead for the first time in many months.
Most seat projections on the numbers show Labour failing to reach a majority either on their own or with the Lib Dems, but being able to get Jeremy Corbyn in to Downing Street with the assistance of an increased number of SNP MPs.
But then what?
The ruined summer 321
Posted on
April 11, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Firstly, our congratulations to Her Majesty’s Government (pictured below) on its setting last night of a new world record in incompetence.
We can’t see it being beaten in a long time. But Jesus, what now?
Any minute now they’ll get it 234
Posted on
April 08, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Just you wait and see.
Scottish political pundits: they’ve got all the pieces in their hands, but they still haven’t even worked out that it’s a jigsaw.
The problem with being liberal 262
Posted on
April 07, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We haven’t talked much on Wings about the court case currently in progress against former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale, for hopefully obvious reasons.
The case is currently “in avizandum” – legal jargon for “the sheriff is considering his decision” – and a result is hoped for around the end of this month, and while as far as we know there’s no actual rule against talking about it at this stage, if you’re one of the participants it’s probably not the greatest idea as a general principle.
But what CAN be discussed is a much wider issue which it touched on, as highlighted by Daily Record columnist Anna Burnside while talking about the case during last week’s BBC Radio Scotland media review on the John Beattie Show.
The debate had a fully balanced panel: Burnside, who thought I was an awful person, Stuart Cosgrove, who thought I was an awful person with a sometimes-good website, and Anne Marie Watson, who thought I was an awful person. But it was Burnside who really went in with the boot, as can be heard from 2m 27s on the clip below.
(The John Beattie Show, BBC Radio Scotland, 28 March 2019)
.
Let’s take a walk through that.
Scottish Labour’s best man 342
Posted on
April 04, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
After running a minor post about poll results this morning to pass the time between Brexit fiascos, we got a bit engrossed – as we’re wont to do now and again – in some stats. Because the Labour Party in Scotland has been in a seemingly inexorable slide into irrelevance for a good few years now, and seems completely unable to find itself a supremo capable of stopping the rot.
But with our customary diligence, we’ve discovered their secret star player.
Because somewhat to our surprise, it turns out that the most successful Scottish Labour leader of the past 20 years is… Alex Rowley.
