Almost nine in ten Scottish voters now back a second referendum on independence. This rather startling news was brought to us at the weekend by an unlikely source, in the form of walking brain vacuum Annie Wells MSP.
Wells was absolutely unequivocal that NO other vote this Thursday – not Labour, not Lib Dem, not Brexit Party – would constitute opposition to a second indyref.
(She emphasised the point by RTing a tweet from the Scottish Tories’ boorish and obnoxious head of media Adam Morris which described both Nigel Farage and Vince Cable as “weak on Scotland’s place in the UK”.)
So how are those numbers looking?
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analysis, comment, europe, idiots, scottish politics
The Herald has a story this morning about the Secretary of State for Scotland, a man who readers may recall promising that Scotland would benefit financially from the UK government’s £1.5bn bung to the DUP (which then didn’t happen), and threatening to resign over Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement (which he didn’t do, then denied ever saying), and promising to do everything he could to oppose a no-deal Brexit but then abstaining on a vote to rule it out (and refusing to resign despite being a government minister who had refused a government whip).
Older readers may also remember Mundell as someone who voted against the repeal of the homophobic “Section 28” legislation in the Scottish Parliament despite being a closeted gay man at the time, and who voted to effectively ban IVF treatment for gay couples but now works for a lesbian mother.
But demonising Boris Johnson? Who would ever do such a monstrous thing?
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comment, music, scottish politics
Last week, Norway rubbed our faces in it again.
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comment, scottish politics, stats, world
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.
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comment, scottish politics
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.
Tags: misinformation
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comment, media, missing context, stats
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.
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comment, media, navel-gazing
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.
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Tags: toldyouso
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analysis, comment, europe, history, uk politics
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?
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comment, europe, scottish politics, uk politics
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?
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comment, europe, idiots, scottish politics, uk politics
