Perhaps the single most striking feature of everyday non-constitutional Scottish politics is Labour’s constantly-recurring habit of highlighting some supposedly unsatisfactory statistic about the Scottish Government’s performance, only for it to be revealed that it’s vastly better than the comparable figure for Wales, where Labour has been in power ever since the Assembly was created in 1999.
So let’s crank up the machine again and see what it says, shall we?
It really takes some going to stand out for especially terrible journalism in the Scottish press this week, given the vast acres of page-space that are still being devoted to truly abysmal, and borderline legally-actionable, barrel-scraping articles about the recent allegations made against Alex Salmond. So hats off to perhaps the only man who could possibly have achieved it.
The Scottish media has really had to scrape the barrel to give a negative spin to some NHS stats today. The Herald, Daily Mail, Daily Record and Scotsman all feature a story concerning an increase in ambulance waiting times, noting that the number of callouts taking more than ten minutes has doubled in four years.
What they’re a lot more reluctant to reveal is that the reason for that is a deliberate policy change which has meant ambulances have been saving more people’s lives.
We’re just going to reprint this piece every year, because only the numbers change.
Today saw the publication of the 2017-18 GERS stats, which are once again triggering a convulsive orgy of “BLACK HOLE!” articles across the media as every Unionist in the land falls over themselves to portray their own country as a useless scrounging subsidy junkie without actually using the exact words “too wee, too poor, too stupid”.
And once again, everywhere you look there’s a “Proud Scot” screaming about how the figures destroy a case for independence that those same people have spent most of the current decade stridently insisting never existed in the first place.
The BBC front page headline for this is actually just the alarming-sounding “Scottish prescription costs rise by 25%”, without even the qualifier about the timespan.
Most of Scottish Twitter has been enjoying itself greatly for the last few hours after England’s exit from the World Cup, but scattered in amongst the amusing memes has been a fair amount of angst about victors Croatia – a nation of 4 million people – being in the final when Scotland once again failed to qualify.
And while we’ll more than happily listen to any amount of criticism of the unbelievably incompetent, hapless clowns who’ve been in charge of the SFA/SPL/SPFL for the last several decades, that judgement is a bit harsh on the players and coaches and the nation as a whole. Because there really hasn’t been much in it.
Scotland’s qualification for World Cup 2018 hinged and ultimately faltered on a split second and a single badly-chosen pass in stoppage time.
Yesterday we reported on the Sunday Herald’s bizarre and blatant reversal of the plain facts about OBFA prosecutions in its front-page lead. But it wasn’t the only paper pulling that trick this weekend.
The Sunday Times ran a major piece on results from a poll it conducted at the same time as our most recent one, spinning the outcome as voters rejecting the SNP’s plan to boost the Scottish economy via more immigration.
But as so many stories in the press do, the article simply disintegrated before readers’ eyes almost immediately after the headline.
One of the uglier facets of opposition to the hugely-popular but now-repealed Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act was the 100% uniform stance against it in the Scottish press. Despite the Act being backed by a large majority of voters across every demographic and political divide, not one print or broadcast journalist ever stood up for the public.
The reason, of course, is that bigots (and lurid stories about them) are a large part of what keeps the Scottish media’s life support machine functioning, and so the media panders cynically to the extremist sections of the Celtic and “Rangers” support who still buy papers for the latest transfer gossip and soft-soap interviews with ex-players.
And so it is with a remarkably mad front-page lead in today’s Sunday Herald.
The paper reports that “over half” – 44 out of 86 – outstanding OBFA charges have been “converted” into other types of offences and are still being prosecuted by the independent Crown Office, claiming without explanation that this is “an embarrassing move for the SNP Government”.
Political pundits on both sides on the border often marvel at how the SNP appear able to defy the normal rules of electoral gravity, still holding a comfortable double-digit lead in the polls after more than 11 years in power. But there’s no great mystery to it, and the answer is simple, in several senses of that word.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to present to you Scottish Labour’s offering for who’d be in charge of all the Scottish Government’s money if the SNP weren’t in power – finance spokesman James Kelly MSP.
The Sunday Times puts some poll results in an interesting frame today:
And readers who’ve learned anything at all from this site over the last six years will be looking at that tweet and immediately wondering “what AREN’T we being told there?”
Although this site is blacklisted by the press regulator IPSO and therefore unable to file complaints about inaccurate and misleading newspaper articles, our alert readers sometimes pick up the baton from Wings articles and do the job themselves.
But the reader who took up that complaint has furnished us with a bit of interesting background to the story, and also news of a rather more alarming outcome.
GM on A Stitch In Timing: “‘We all know that Swinney stayed with Mandelson on his whisky trip to USA in Sep 25. I have done…” Feb 7, 01:43
DaveL on A Stitch In Timing: “Shouldn’t you be goose stepping somewhere? Who’d be Hatey?” Feb 7, 00:41
Willie on A Stitch In Timing: “The issue of John Swinney going to Washington to meet the President and lobby for Scotch whisky is exactly what…” Feb 7, 00:31
James on A Stitch In Timing: “Must have struck a nerve eh, Prick? “This has driven right-wingers into a frenzy with completely false claims about the…” Feb 6, 23:08
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: “Sorry, Northy, but I couldn’t understand any of that. Please translate into Scots and re-post. Thanks in advance.” Feb 6, 22:41
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: “Woo Hoo, James manages to put both hands on his keyboard. Giving your usual hobby a night off, James? You…” Feb 6, 22:39
Northcode on A Stitch In Timing: “The ancients – being the ancients – had a name for when words are used out of their ordained order…” Feb 6, 21:40
James on A Stitch In Timing: ““….life changing injuries….” Yet more bollocks from the Site Prick. To quote Craig Murray; “The final question was the charge…” Feb 6, 20:45
GM on A Stitch In Timing: “I see that argument quite clearly Lorna when you put it as you just have. There are plenty women in…” Feb 6, 20:15
PC Foster on A Stitch In Timing: “Scottish Executive- correct” Feb 6, 20:03
agentx on A Stitch In Timing: “They chose to be “activatists” let them fund it themselves.” Feb 6, 19:41
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: ““we are reminded here that: “colonialism is based on psychology”” Is that because it’s Friday, Alf? Seems like only Wednesday…” Feb 6, 19:41
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Stitch In Timing: “Or Scottish Executive?” Feb 6, 19:34
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: ““finding none of the activists guilty on any of the charges” Given they committed burglary, assault and grievous bodily harm…” Feb 6, 19:27
agentx on A Stitch In Timing: “We all know that Swinney stayed with Mandelson on his whisky trip to USA in Sep 25. I have done…” Feb 6, 19:17
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “Alf: I know it will take a lot more than that. The point I was trying to make is that…” Feb 6, 18:19
PC Foster on A Stitch In Timing: “It was always known as the Scottish Parliament. However the machinery was called the Scottish Administration until Salmond renamed it…” Feb 6, 18:04
Willie on A Stitch In Timing: “Couldn’t help but reflect on the latest reports about our out beloved Labour party politico one Mr Peter Mandelson. Its…” Feb 6, 17:40
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““try to rehabilitate Scotland before independence” I suspect that’s not generally how decolonization and ‘self-recovery of culture’ works, which is…” Feb 6, 17:18
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Stitch In Timing: “Re Sven. Point taken.” Feb 6, 17:06
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““Not the Crown” ? Hardly. The root of the despicable colonial situation is that elites in Scotland aye tak thair…” Feb 6, 16:48
sarah on A Stitch In Timing: “Scottish court cases are hugely expensive, another obvious impediment to seeking “justice”. The case in the Scottish courts for a…” Feb 6, 16:37
Sven on A Stitch In Timing: “Fearghas Macfhionnlaigh. My own view on that would be that by misnaming a devolved administration as a Parliament a clear…” Feb 6, 15:24
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “With a heavy heart, I have to agree with you, Southernbystander, but not all Scots are anaesthetized by colonialism. Truth…” Feb 6, 15:24
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “I’m not privy, GM, as you might imagine, to what the powers-that-be are up to, but I think that the…” Feb 6, 15:12
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Stitch In Timing: “I would assume that Alex Salmond, and Winnie Ewing (‘The Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on March 25 1707, is hereby…” Feb 6, 14:50
barelybare on A Stitch In Timing: “Thanks for the explanation am firinn. I have a feeling only the initiated are going to truly understand what is…” Feb 6, 14:46
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: “It is surely colonialism that makes a colonized people ‘dependent’. For “without colonialism there would be no colonized people” (Memmi).…” Feb 6, 14:25
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““a devolved administration” That’s what the colonizer calls it. To the colonized it is always a colonial administration.” Feb 6, 13:47
