Alert readers of the Scottish Mail On Sunday – if any such people exist, that is – will have noticed that the paper has of late been cutting both costs and the middleman by giving Tory MSPs entire pages to spout party propaganda for free rather than paying a journalist to slightly rewrite it.
First Ruth Davidson, and now the party’s finance spokesloyalist Murdo Fraser, have recently had free rein to say whatever they liked to the paper’s readership, and today Fraser chose to go with the topic of “waste”.
We long ago gave up expecting any sort of principled consistency from the Scottish Tories. Whether it was Ruth “line in the sand, no more powers” Davidson magically morphing into a champion of extended devolution, or suddenly reversing her position on free prescriptions, the party is now almost as fluid on policy as Scottish Labour.
The underlings, of course, dutifully follow their leader’s example. Readers familiar with Adam Tomkins’ remarkably rapid journey from fiery pro-independence republican to an ultra-Unionist ultra-Conservative monarchist will, we suspect, barely have batted an eyelid this morning as he unblinkingly performed a full 180-degree turn on the concept of universal basic income.
I apologise in advance to readers for the personal indulgence of this post.
Some months ago, quite coincidentally, I happened to avail myself of Twitter’s archive function, which allows users to download their entire tweet history. For various reasons I’ve been looking at it recently, and until I did I’d been unaware that it records not just a user’s own tweets, but also the tweets from other people that they’ve retweeted.
I’ve collected some of Wings’ tweets and retweets – in reverse chronological order – below. (Famously, of course, RTs aren’t necessarily endorsements, but you can decide on the underlying tone for yourself. Each of them links to the original tweet so you can see the whole conversation, or click on the links being referenced.)
They’re all on one subject, by way of illustration, because Twitter is a transient medium full of people all too eager to jump at the slightest excuse to make spurious and hateful allegations about everything (and anyone) under the sun to serve their own agendas, and for the sake of the future of human discourse it’s worth remembering that nothing exists in isolation or free of context, and we shouldn’t jump too easily to conclusions.
We’re back in the archives again today, because there’s still no news. (The Herald is desperately trying to whip up outrage over trains arriving 61 seconds late, and David Torrance has finally turned up at the “OMG YES MOVEMENT SPLIT” party just as the last stragglers are heading home and the hosts are going to bed.)
And we’re particularly enjoying this one, for a whole list of reasons:
In the continuing summer absence of any sort of Scottish politics news (the Sunday papers consist of Michelle Thomson understandably taking a swipe at the SNP in the Sunday Post, the Sunday Times spluttering in impotent fury that Michelle Thomson wasn’t prosecuted, and the Sunday Herald giving a glowing write-up to idiot Tory MSP Annie Wells while savaging sections of the Yes movement yet again – this time “older white men”), we thought you might enjoy a piece from the archives.
Discovered by an alert reader, this 1976 Times article features Labour MP for Basildon Eric Moonman discussing the seemingly-imminent prospect of Scottish devolution, to which he was implacably opposed and instrumental in defeating, ultimately leading to the collapse of a Labour government and the election of Mrs Thatcher.
I went to “Dunkirk” at the cinema today. If you want to know what it’s like, just watch this trailer 40 times in a row and save yourself the £12.
It’s a poor movie, disjointed and aimless and curiously lacking in tension or narrative given the real-life subject matter. (It’s remarkably short on dialogue, which is lucky because you can barely make out any of what little script or story there is from behind the endlessly howling one-note airhorn of the soundtrack. It’s a bit like someone filmed an IKEA assembly manual in live action during a Formula 1 race.)
But I couldn’t help thinking that part of the reason it was so unengaging was because it felt akin to watching a boxing match between two fighters you don’t like. If Mike Tyson took on Tyson Fury, would you cheer for the rapist or the anti-Semitic homophobe?
Mia on What We Don’t Know Now: ““Alba not standing candidates is curious to me” I couldn’t agree more. It does not look like Alba is seeking…” Jun 8, 16:51
duncanio on What We Don’t Know Now: “Yep. The SNP have been in a “commanding position” since May 2015 – Swinney is hoping that the dumb electorate…” Jun 8, 16:33
Liz on What We Don’t Know Now: “Swinney is reported to have said, he’s rearranging the deck chairs in the Cabinet BECAUSE of the loss in Hamilton…” Jun 8, 16:27
Alf Baird on What We Don’t Know Now: “Scots fowk awready hiv thair ain constitution: https://salvo.scot/the-scottis-constitutional-covin/” Jun 8, 16:20
Stuart MacKay on What We Don’t Know Now: “Just get version 0 out there, put out a call for review / input, and revise as necessary. The one…” Jun 8, 15:43
Iain mhor on What We Don’t Know Now: “Alba not standing candidates is curious to me. Fair enough if it is purely a fiancial matter, but tactically you’d…” Jun 8, 15:35
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Jokers: ““Interesting to see RevStu again gloating at SNP failure. Perhaps he’s right to insist that the SNP are no longer…” Jun 8, 15:30
Dave on What We Don’t Know Now: “Swinney talks in abstract terms: “And that comes about by the SNP performing much better, of getting into a commanding…” Jun 8, 15:11
Hatey McHateface on What We Don’t Know Now: ““Whose niece is she?” That’s just so baaadddd. And I’m loving it!” Jun 8, 15:02
Stuart LAW on What We Don’t Know Now: “Believing in Independence, and being willing to vote for it, are two very different things. Because we’ve all seen what…” Jun 8, 14:59
Campbell Clansman on What We Don’t Know Now: “Since the running average of polls shows that support for Indy ISN’T above 50%; And since the voters repeatedly vote…” Jun 8, 14:58
Hatey McHateface on The Jokers: “Hi George, Thanks for the update. I was referring to Ferguson’s OG for Iceland Good luck with the ongoing…” Jun 8, 14:55
George Ferguson on The Jokers: “@Hatey McHateface What Ferguson are you referring to here? Here is a wee update from me. I got an estimate…” Jun 8, 14:37
Aidan on The Jokers: “I don’t know who is more insane, the people continually competing with each other to offer the most insane, delusional,…” Jun 8, 14:16
duncanio on What We Don’t Know Now: “The First Minister in an interview reported in The Sunday National today said: “My challenge is to make sure that…” Jun 8, 14:07
Rev. Stuart Campbell on What We Don’t Know Now: “Larkhall was part of the constituency for the 14 years the SNP have held it.” Jun 8, 13:49
gm on What We Don’t Know Now: “A logical, fair assessment. Fairer than I would be to the SNPs controlling clique. With support for Independence above 50%…” Jun 8, 13:43
Allison Graham on What We Don’t Know Now: “Agee with all of the above Stu. If Scotland wants a different future folk must work in reality not fantasy…” Jun 8, 13:26
Ian McCubbin on What We Don’t Know Now: “Still no mention of vast majority of Independence voters of which there must be about 1000000, and there 2nd vote…” Jun 8, 13:22
Dickie Tea on What We Don’t Know Now: “Don’t forget the Larkhall factor which would have bolstered Reform” Jun 8, 13:16
lothianlad on The Jokers: “As ever Mia, you are 100% correct!” Jun 8, 12:38
DMcV on The Jokers: “The important thing is to keep Reform UK out but that’ll be an even bigger battle in the main Holyrood…” Jun 8, 12:24
DMcV on Tell Them You’re Frightened: “Doesn’t really address any point I made, RevStu, but there you go.” Jun 8, 12:17
Hatey McHateface on The Jokers: “It’s really wicked to hope somebody takes her down into the tunnels to sample at first hand, for a year…” Jun 8, 10:27
TURABDIN on The Jokers: “OF COURSE to many in native Scottish politics this is by far more important. https://archive.is/fWe1Y The owl and the pussy…” Jun 8, 10:11
Hatey McHateface on The Jokers: “OK, Xaracen, I stand corrected. You and Mia both. I constantly challenge you to give us some examples of how…” Jun 8, 10:04
Hatey McHateface on The Jokers: “Thanks for your reply, Alf. I’m very happy with the idea of re-instating the Scottish Crown. That’s exactly the kind…” Jun 8, 09:55
Xaracen on The Jokers: ““you would have noticed that Mia writes off every democratic vote in Scotland as illegal or invalid when it does…” Jun 8, 09:40
Good luck with the ongoing…
