Another bullet dodged 91
Posted on
September 02, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Archive for the ‘history’
The kingdom of wishful thinking 233
Posted on
August 24, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
One thing you can always guarantee on GERS Day is that the latest set of figures for Scotland’s devolved economy inside the UK will trigger another uncontrolled spurt of “SNP HONEYMOON OVER” articles from the nation’s dogged commentariat.
Today we’ve seen already examples (links below) from two ex-Scotsman editors, Iain Martin and Magnus Linklater, the latter popping up in the Times by way of a rather crass and unpleasant analogy involving Oswald Mosley and the Blackshirts.
And since we’d rather watch “Suicide Squad” again than spend any more time going over the arguments about GERS (and trust us, readers, we don’t say that lightly), we thought it’d be more fun if we finally got round to compiling a semi-definitive list of all the times the collective wisdom of Scotland’s media and opposition has confidently predicted the SNP’s imminent demise.
It’s that story again! 246
Posted on
August 11, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
No, we’re not referring to the Spectator’s awful reheated whine from super-Unionist composer Sir James Macmillan, Knight Commander Of The Most Excellent Order Of The British Empire, in which he takes the audacious step of accusing some OTHER artistes of cravenly kowtowing to the establishment.
(A complaint he’s been levelling for several years in any publication that’ll listen, and which today’s piece hasn’t bothered to update with any post-2014 examples.)
We’re actually talking about this:
Because this one’s even older.
A new challenger appears 75
Posted on
August 11, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We thought yesterday’s Herald story – about a Scottish Government initiative designed to increase visitor numbers to island communities “backfiring” when it, er, increased visitor numbers to island communities – would be hard to top for this month’s SNP BAD Award, but when the paper grudgingly amended it a few hours later it seemed we’d have to look for a new contender.
Luckily we didn’t have long to wait.
Fluid times 148
Posted on
July 26, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A brief note on the current futility of political commentary.
Remember that? Well, let’s see how it really works.
Going round in circles all the time 459
Posted on
July 05, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re not naturally disposed to sympathy for Tories, but it must be hellish being poor Ruth Davidson at the moment. The poor woman doesn’t know which way she’s facing from one minute to the next. Here she is less than a year ago:
A blast from the past 219
Posted on
June 25, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We were startled to see an old face make a bit of a comeback to the Scottish political scene this evening, when BBC Scotland dug up the former “Better Together” campaign director Blair McDougall to urge Scots not to do anything hasty in the aftermath of the UK’s Brexit vote.
And it led us, by a circuitous route, back to this.
We thought we’d just leave it here for the record.
Knight follows day 90
Posted on
June 10, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
You’ll never guess what’s happened, readers.
At least they left a slightly more decent interval than with Michelle Mone.
The rest of your life as a champion 126
Posted on
June 04, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Today we’re a boxing site, and that’s all there is to it.
The impenetrable skulls 119
Posted on
May 28, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ll be honest, readers, we’re actually quite happy that the Tories are now the lead Unionist party in Scotland. Because after four and a half years, we’ve pretty much run out of things to say about the epic, unquenchable stupidity of Scottish Labour.
The above tweets from the branch office’s former leader come from an exchange about a long-standing Glasgow charity that’s been forced out of its premises after the Labour-run city council hiked its rent by 400,000%. (No, that’s not a typo – we really mean FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND PERCENT.)
Of course, that Lamont should choose to blame the SNP for cuts coming down the line from the Tory government at Westminster (that only controls Scotland’s budget at all because Lamont and her colleagues campaigned for Scotland to remain in the UK) is no surprise.
But it’s the sheer jaw-dropping lack of self-awareness in that last line which lays bare the incredible inability of her pseudo-party to learn a single lesson from the revolution in Scottish politics that’s been going on for most of the last decade.
Twisted blood 187
Posted on
May 03, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The rise of the SNP has so bewildered the metropolitan commentariat that even almost a decade after the party won its first Scottish election pundits still barely know which way to face to confront it. A case in point can be found in today’s Times.
That was a quick switch.
Clarity and certainty 414
Posted on
April 25, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re looking forward to the publication of the Scottish Labour manifesto for next month’s election, which is due to be published on Wednesday, just eight days before the vote. We confidently anticipate that it will definitively clear up a few issues we’re still not absolutely sure of the branch office’s position on.
For a day or two, at least.
