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.
Sarah Walker on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Brilliant work: thank you. Interesting that paragraph 879 implies Upton has a protected belief that he’s a woman. Gender critical…” Dec 11, 23:42
PC Foster on Strike One: “Twathater- you could not be more right. lets ensure that Sandie Peggie can take this all the way up to…” Dec 11, 23:16
robertkknight on The ginger stepchild: “Frankly my dear, not a shit will be given either way. The SNP are charlatans in tartan suits selling snake…” Dec 11, 22:19
BLMac on Strike One: “This sort of judgement is reminiscent of what happened in Queensland a few decades ago. As it turned out the…” Dec 11, 22:13
Tommo on Strike One: “This is truly an amazing piece of forensic dissection (by the Editor and a few others) of a piece of…” Dec 11, 22:05
willie on The ginger stepchild: “Sixth on the list is crime. But what is crime and what is the perception of what crime actually is.…” Dec 11, 22:04
Bilbo on Strike One: “It could be the bias built into the AI Chatbot used. I’ve played about with a few of these AI…” Dec 11, 21:58
Andy Wiltshire on Strike One: “Quite right – it used to be English hats off to the Scottish legal and educational systems. No more.” Dec 11, 21:54
Andy Wiltshire on Strike One: “Don’t let them buy you off though, Rev.” Dec 11, 21:52
Bilbo on The ginger stepchild: “Hardly surprising that the SNP voters are not interested in independence because the support the SNP for a wide variety…” Dec 11, 21:51
Ex President Xiden on Strike One: “Jackasses are going to jackass.” Dec 11, 21:43
Iain More on The ginger stepchild: “SNP are just another Yoon Party now.” Dec 11, 21:12
Geoff Anderson on Strike One: “£400k spent on the KC by NHS Fife. https://x.com/_RebeccaMcCurdy/status/1999055522188943455?s=20” Dec 11, 21:07
Alf Baird on The ginger stepchild: “The only in-credible thing here is the vast GDP-per-capita gap between a much poorer yet resource-rich Scotland and near neighbour…” Dec 11, 20:48
Geoff Anderson on Strike One: “https://x.com/newsandpics/status/1999194291365683484?s=20” Dec 11, 20:21
robertkknight on The ginger stepchild: “The SNP is NOT the party of Independence any more… Any member who cared about Indy is long gone, leaving…” Dec 11, 19:52
Geoff Anderson on Strike One: “Now we know why…… https://x.com/iwontwheesht/status/1999180012893929938?s=20” Dec 11, 19:41
Northcode on The ginger stepchild: “The problem, TH, is that if Liberate Scotland gets TOO much attention and – God forbid- gets the mass backing…” Dec 11, 19:39
Mark Beggan on Strike One: “Let’s play Judges and Lawyers. Unsuitable for under fives.” Dec 11, 19:28
Mark Beggan on The ginger stepchild: “We’ll cut aff oor noses to spite those English bastards faces. That’s them telt. Bastards. Soar Giro!” Dec 11, 19:27
David Holden on Strike One: “Sadly I am old enough to remember when Scottish law was given a level of respect even from South of…” Dec 11, 19:24
Lewis Moonie on Strike One: “Anyone ever seen a trans woman who didn’t stick out like a sore thumb? Me neither” Dec 11, 18:58
Hatey McHateface on The ginger stepchild: “Perhaps the pollsters were unaware women are allowed to vote. Perhaps when the pollsters asked people, the men refused to…” Dec 11, 18:48
Geoff Anderson on Strike One: “I think this one needs a detailed explanation from the judge https://x.com/anyabike/status/1999121983481536635?s=20” Dec 11, 18:45
Lorncal on Strike One: “It seems to me to be far too accurate in its misinterpretations and unsound quotes to be purely AI or…” Dec 11, 18:41
Lorncal on Strike One: “I’d second that. Alex Massie has written a glowing reference to the Rev, too, acknowledging his forensic analyses.” Dec 11, 18:25
Karen on The ginger stepchild: “I’m surprised that women (and children’s) rights come in at 3% or less.” Dec 11, 18:25
Hatey McHateface on The ginger stepchild: “Cart before horse, Alf. First you have to get a solid majority of Scots to believe your number. Then you…” Dec 11, 18:22
twathater on The ginger stepchild: “The rev talks about supporting yoonionist parties in an attempt to destroy or remove the stench of the Scum Nonce…” Dec 11, 18:15
Northcode on Spoiler Alert: “I’m not allowed friends anymore. Not since… sorry, I’ve been told I can’t talk about it. All I can tell…” Dec 11, 18:08
