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A different kind of beat 105

Posted on November 22, 2018 by

So this was in the Times football section today:

And you find yourself thinking, “Well gee, why might THAT be, Alex?”

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The staunch defenders 281

Posted on November 19, 2018 by

If we were to write an article every time Murdo Fraser said something moronic, we’d have to rename this site Wings Over Murdo Fraser, and drink an awful lot of Red Bull to be able to cover it all.

Stuff like this, for example, is almost too easy.

43% (actually 45.3% excluding Don’t Knows) is considerably more than Murdo Fraser has ever achieved in an election, either himself or as part of a party. His average over the seven elections he’s contested and lost since 1999 is just 30.1%, and until a blip in 2016 it had been falling lower and lower each time, as people have watched how he performed as an MSP and got less and less keen on the idea.

That’s still actually slightly more than the 28.6% his party secured in Scotland at the last election, though, in what was nevertheless generally regarded as an unusually impressive performance. Two years earlier they gathered just 14.9% of the votes cast.

Yet neither Fraser nor the Tories disappear for a generation every time Scotland tells them to go and get stuffed. Fraser keeps trousering an MSP’s fat salary despite two decades of unbroken and unequivocal personal rejection from the electorate, even as he demands that the independence movement gives up after losing ONE vote.

But in his defence, his leader’s not setting him much of an example.

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Waiting for the penny to drop 96

Posted on November 19, 2018 by

This is the best one of these we’ve ever seen.

Nobody tell him, now. Imagine the moment when he spots it for himself.

The armchair terrorists 456

Posted on November 17, 2018 by

This is the editorial in today’s Scottish edition of The Times:

It seems to be an increasingly popular viewpoint in the country’s media.

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Unionist Blackjack 106

Posted on November 17, 2018 by

The question begged 516

Posted on November 15, 2018 by

Only an idiot would try to write anything today about the epic mess currently unfolding in British politics. You’d barely get to the end of typing a sentence before events had rendered it obsolete. But there’s one thing we’d really like to know, which bewilderingly nobody is mentioning.

The primary root cause of Brexit was idiots complaining about immigration. The core supposed aim of leaving, no matter what anyone said, was to reduce the number of foreign people coming to live and work in the UK. The issue of immigration regularly topped polls of what voters were most concerned about, and a 2017 study showed it was the biggest factor in the Leave vote.

But yesterday the UK government, after two and a half years of quite spectacularly inept negotiation, produced for the approval of the electorate a Brexit deal which did precisely NOTHING about immigration, and nobody in the media even mentioned it.

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Theresa May’s Crack Team 242

Posted on November 14, 2018 by

…is what they’re calling Jack and James now, we hear.

Draw your own conclusions about the word “crack” there.

Serving the nations 188

Posted on November 14, 2018 by

Ever aware of its need to deliver informed enlightenment to the populace, the state broadcaster has recently put up a “BBC Brexit Jargon Buster” page on its website. We’re not sure it was meant to be quite this candid.

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When they think we’re not listening 405

Posted on November 11, 2018 by

This piece ran in the Telegraph – a newspaper with no Scottish edition and almost no Scottish sales – on Friday. Click to enlarge.

Our favourite line is:

“Think of what the UK would be like without the vast wealth generated by the 44bn barrels of oil pumped from British territory over the last 40 years.”

(Curiously, this is a rather different line to the one Critchlow took during the indyref, when he was the Telegraph’s full-time business news editor penning a string of articles about how bankrupt an independent Scotland would be despite possessing an asset that’s now apparently big enough to prop up an economy 12 times Scotland’s size.)

It’s worth keeping in mind whenever Unionists tell us (a) how volatile and worthless and used-up oil is, (b) how much Scotland depends on the kind benevolence of the UK to survive, and (c) why we can’t have another referendum until years after Brexit.

The worst-laid plans 226

Posted on November 10, 2018 by

Your occasional reminder about who’s been governing us since we refused to take the responsibility for it ourselves.

To be quite honest, readers, if we’re going to leave our future in the hands of a Fox, we’d probably be better off with Basil Brush.

Bottom of the remedial class 58

Posted on November 10, 2018 by

A quick morality check 136

Posted on November 06, 2018 by

There was a certain uncomfortable 2018 inevitability this morning over the fact that where people were offended, arrests would follow.

And the burning of a cardboard model of the Grenfell Tower last night was certainly right up near the top in the pantheon of cretinously offensive things. Many victims of the appalling tragedy, which killed 72 people and injured many more, still haven’t been properly rehomed almost a year and a half later.

But if it’s a CRIME, we have some questions.

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    • Mark Beggan on Cowering From Destiny: “You have to pay to read it. Why don’t you just give us a summary.” Sep 26, 20:28
    • Hatey McHateface on Cowering From Destiny: “An interesting article on what’s wrong with the left: https://unherd.com/2026/09/the-centre-lefts-slow-suicide/” Sep 26, 19:31
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    • Mark Beggan on Cowering From Destiny: ““The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” Margaret Thatcher.” Sep 26, 18:35
    • TURABDIN on Cowering From Destiny: “Mea culpa….the wrong Kennedy it would appear. It does however rest on the definition of socialism. «socialism is a noble…” Sep 26, 18:04
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    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Cowering From Destiny: “Sorry. Forgot to add direct link to above-mentioned book: Ainmean Beanntan na h-Alba/ Scottish Hill Names: Meanings and Origins’ by…” Sep 26, 16:21
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Cowering From Destiny: “A couple of new books of Gaelic, Edinburgh, and Hillwalking interest: ‘A’ Ghàidhlig ann an Dùn Èideann tro na Linntean…” Sep 26, 16:01
    • James on Cowering From Destiny: “I often hear the question ‘was Surgeon a plant from the beginning, did they get something on her; or both’?…” Sep 26, 15:14
    • TURABDIN on Cowering From Destiny: “@Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Tapadh leat!, i’ve experienced more nastiness in my life than most. It has made me, i conjecture, wise…” Sep 26, 14:25
    • Captain Caveman on Cowering From Destiny: “”i [sic] am not unwise as to ways of the world.” Well, I’ll be the judge of that, son. In…” Sep 26, 14:12
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    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Cowering From Destiny: “Hang on in there TURABDIN. Your experientially informed contributions are appreciated.” Sep 26, 14:10
    • Peter McAvoy on Cowering From Destiny: “Yet again the SNP government has failed Scotland BBC Scotland news website stated that Alexander Dennis did not meet the…” Sep 26, 14:09
    • Mark Beggan on Cowering From Destiny: “‘Socialism is the reason I believe in free speech. How else can you tell who the idiots are’ Senator J…” Sep 26, 13:49
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    • Lorncal on Cowering From Destiny: “H McH: I respect your views, and everyone else’s, enough to actually read them. When have I ever said that…” Sep 26, 13:35
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    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Cowering From Destiny: “Re Edinburgh University – a very engagingly readable autobiographical essay by Kevin MacNeill – ‘A Subject That Taught Me I…” Sep 26, 12:34
    • BH on Cowering From Destiny: “Look at Sweden’s death rate say 1950 to present. Pin a pandemic on it. Try next door with its rising…” Sep 26, 12:20
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    • TURABDIN on Cowering From Destiny: “Ramsay Mac Donald in Socialism: critical and constructive, published in 1921, wrote: «The Anglification of Scotland has been proceeding apace…” Sep 26, 09:34
    • Northcode on Cowering From Destiny: ““… Indy isn’t gonna come from them sitting on their arses, holding out their hands, and saying “Gonna gie us…” Sep 26, 09:02
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    • Willie on Cowering From Destiny: “And meanwhile in Edinburgh where Edinburgh Univesity is culling some ninety arts and humanitues courses of which very very many…” Sep 26, 08:25
    • Hatey McHateface on Cowering From Destiny: ““the Scottish Parliament could and should call a referendum on the NHS” Make it a twofer with a second question…” Sep 26, 08:18
    • Hatey McHateface on Cowering From Destiny: “@Lorncal Here’s an interesting read on the qualitative differences between Yank and Covid AI: https://unherd.com/2026/09/xi-will-win-the-ai-war/ Spoiler alert: The Covid approach…” Sep 26, 08:11
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