At the weekend this site noted that on the BBC’s Sunday Politics, presenter Andrew Neil claimed that the Scottish Government’s budget had not been reduced in real terms in “the last five or six years”, and that therefore Scotland has not faced cuts.
But as we pointed out, the Scottish Government budget HAS been cut, year-on-year, since the Tories took office. The independent Fiscal Affairs Scotland assessed the cumulative reduction at a hefty 10%, or a little over £3bn a year.
We weren’t going to take Professor Adam Tomkins’ hysterical “NATMAGEDDON!” article for this week’s Spectator seriously enough to pull it apart line by line.
But once we’d wiped the tears from our eyes we thought we’d better do our job.
Kezia Dugdale made a spectacle of herself again at First Minister’s Questions earlier today. Using time intended for holding the Scottish Government to account over its devolved responsibilities, Dugdale once more decided instead to ignore her duty to the people of Scotland and attack the FM over a matter which is entirely outwith the Scottish Government’s control, namely the past actions of a Westminster MP.
Pausing only to demand that Holyrood interfere in the running of the independent Law Society, Dugdale then abandoned her casual endangerment of a live police inquiry by focusing instead on the morality of the aforementioned MP’s business practices:
But Ms Dugdale’s own ethics left a few things to be desired.
The media and Unionist politicians (we really need to come up with a word to describe that single entity), when not concocting hysterical frothing diatribes against Michelle Thomson or complaining about the Scottish Government giving money to T In The Park – a position we must confess we find ourselves in some sympathy with – have recently been loudly protesting about last year’s “underspend” in the Holyrood budget.
There’s an extremely good article here by Dr Craig Dalzell of the Scottish Greens dealing with the broader issue of why such complaints are idiotic, so rather than go over the ground again we thought we’d look at another angle.
It appeared on any possible interpretation to be complete nonsense, but Ms Dugdale – who’s pledged to make education the issue at the heart of her leadership – has been somewhat reluctant to clarify the statement.
Several queries from her Lothian constituents have gone unanswered, but one Wings viewer did manage to get a single tweet of response.
We didn’t think that could be right, and dug up some figures suggesting that it was nonsense, but of course “the poorest kids” is a highly-flexible metric. Strictly speaking you could just mean the two poorest children in the country, and if one of those two can’t read there’s your 50%.
Luckily, we’ve now had some meat put on the bones of that claim.
Kezia Dugdale talking to Gordon Brewer on BBC Scotland today:
“I’m astonished that you’ve spent 10 minutes in this interview talking about independence and Trident when almost 50% of the poorest kids in the country can’t read […] I’m sure you’d be shocked to know that 50% of the poorest kids leave our schools unable to read.”
We suspect he would too. Because it’s total cobblers.
There’s a remarkable story on the BBC News website today about the latest findings of the British Election Study, last seen destroying the myth that fear of the SNP damaged Labour in England. The piece focuses on the discovery that being seen as “too left-wing” does NOT, in fact, cost Labour votes, despite the hysterical warnings of supposedly leftist pundits.
But there’s a more startling fact buried right at the end.
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robertkknight on Still Time To Save Her: “cont. The wording of the Act is as follows: 84. In respect of Scotland, national security is a reserved matter,…” Oct 10, 00:53
robertkknight on Still Time To Save Her: “You’re wrong, sorry… “Because national security and core intelligence powers are reserved, the UK legislation still takes effect in Scotland…” Oct 10, 00:25
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Alf Baird on Still Time To Save Her: ““It’s Shite living in a Colony !” Hopefully mony mair Scots are starting to realise the fact that colonialism is…” Oct 9, 20:32
David G on Still Time To Save Her: “I hope Stu is suitably appreciative that he is being blown off and given the runaround by a CCA Accredited…” Oct 9, 20:05
Willie on Still Time To Save Her: “Just more of the toilet that is Police Scotland and the COPFS. Scotland’s arms of the state is rotten and…” Oct 9, 19:43
robertkknight on Still Time To Save Her: “Perhaps due consideration should be directed towards… Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021 “The Covert Human Intelligence Sources…” Oct 9, 19:27
Dan on Still Time To Save Her: “Aye, and folk should also remember that a remarkably similar modus of dubious activities and procedures by certain organs of…” Oct 9, 19:23
BigJay on Still Time To Save Her: “Something that has always piqued my interest was the resignation of then Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Sir Iain Livingstone.…” Oct 9, 19:08
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Anna on Still Time To Save Her: “This will probably do more damage to the police , Sturgeon is being protected. The police are being undermined ,…” Oct 9, 18:27
James Barr Gardner on Still Time To Save Her: “Scotland has not just got a political deficit, it also has a Justice deficit ! It’s Shite living in a…” Oct 9, 18:01
Skip_NC on Still Time To Save Her: “I’ve wondered that about Murrell too. I gather he was brought up in Edinburgh. Sturgeon is from Ayrshire. It has…” Oct 9, 17:01
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100%Yes on Still Time To Save Her: “Sturgeon won power by convincing us all she was a nationalist. I applaud her for being a formidable involtrator. John…” Oct 9, 15:29
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