It’s a pretty desperate day for news in the Sunday papers. The Sunday Herald has a rather overplayed piece on the already-tepid T In The Park “scandal” for its front page, while Scotland on Sunday falls back on its standard last-resort panic move of getting Gordon Wilson – who last led the SNP more than TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO – to blather on about something or other.
In the Observer, Kevin McKenna (who seems to be experiencing voter’s remorse over switching to the Nats in May after a lifetime backing Labour) appears to have written the exact same column as last week – a vague and woolly “SNP bad, Labour fightback starts here” spacefiller – and the Mail On Sunday digs up the ever-reliable boss of the CBI to warn that the sky will fall in if the SNP does anything ever.
Over on the Sunday Times they’re really scraping the barrel in a desperate attempt to somehow flog yet another week out of the Michelle Thomson story, prominently (and entirely gratuitously) mentioning the MP in a piece about an allegedly-dodgy house sale which she has not even the slightest sliver of any sort of connection to.
But it was something else in the same paper that caught our eye.
Alert social-media users will have noticed that it’s hard to avoid a constant low-level buzzing from a faction of the Yes movement, calling on the next Scottish Government (in the event, as currently seems likely, that it’s another SNP majority) to issue a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, or UDI for short.
And in the context of achieving Scottish independence UDI is indeed the answer, if we assume that the question is “What’s the stupidest thing the SNP could possibly do?”
These pages from the 14 March 1998 issue of NME (just 10 months after the election of Tony Blair’s first Labour government) are a fascinating historical document.
They needed saving. So we found them and we saved them.
We’ll never tire of documenting the Daily Record’s increasingly panicked attempts to get David Cameron to enact the Record’s dodgy promise of last September and save it from having to answer for the pup it sold Scotland.
By now you should all have had a chance to marvel at the extraordinary madness that is Scottish Labour’s 51-page suicide note of SNP members who’ve said rude words on the internet since 2012.
You may even have had time to read a data protection expert (and Labour voter)’s assessment of all the ways in which the dossier breaks the law.
Over and over again in the years leading up to the independence referendum, Scots were warned of the many dire consequences of voting Yes. Among the No campaign’s prime targets for scare tactics were subsidies for renewable energy.
UK government subsidies drying up certainly sounded like a scary prospect.
For the last month or so, the Unionist parties have briefly enjoyed the opportunity to taunt the SNP in the Commons over Full Fiscal Autonomy, challenging the party to bring forward proposals and accusing it of being afraid of the policy it campaigned and won on in the election. The Nats called the bluff, and today got the unsurprising result.
The reason given by Secretary of State David Mundell – who declined to appear on today’s edition of “Good Morning Scotland” to defend or explain the decision – was that FFA “would cost every family in Scotland £5,000”.
And we thought that figure had a rather familiar ring to it.
On the day Jim Murphy stands down as leader of the Labour Party North Britain branch office, we’d like to take this opportunity to offer our humble, heartfelt tribute to both him and the insightful political commentariat of Scotland.
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “Given the gas was unburned, the CO2/greenhouse gas impact would have been horrendous. Roughly the same as driving an average…” Sep 9, 16:58
agentx on Anything But That: ““John Swinney nightmare as Westminster launches probe into Peter Murrell’s crimes and Lord Advocate’s role in Cabinet” For details read…” Sep 9, 16:39
sam on Anything But That: “sez the UK parlyment England which has about 90 % of UK surface water has problems, to put it mildly,…” Sep 9, 16:37
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “OK we’re talking methane, not propane, therefore a lower calorific value and all that jazz, but fuck me, 700kg of…” Sep 9, 16:37
agentx on Anything But That: ““Stephen Flynn says he was unaware of ferry gas escape” ——————————————————- No surprise there then!” Sep 9, 15:57
agentx on Anything But That: “The Math Breakdown:Methane Volume: \(700 \text{ kg} \div 0.657 \text{ kg/m³} = \mathbf{1,065.4 \text{ m³}}\) Average UK 4-Bedroom House: A…” Sep 9, 15:54
Minceheid on Anything But That: “Hatey McHateface says: 9 September, 2026 at 2:54 pm Sounds like they were very lucky they didn’t have 82+ incinerated…” Sep 9, 15:10
Ian Smith on Anything But That: “700kg of methane could fill far more than the volume of a four bedroom house, unless it had a double…” Sep 9, 14:56
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Sounds like they were very lucky they didn’t have 82+ incinerated corpses bobbing in the ocean. I guess “lessons will…” Sep 9, 14:54
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Not a bad program for the myopic. Nothing specifically about G@za. I guess it comes under Foreign Policy, but I’m…” Sep 9, 14:47
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: ““which means the pipelines are back on” Good one! Biggest laugh of the day so far. Perhaps to be exceeded…” Sep 9, 14:28
Willie on Anything But That: “Oh dear, news just breaking of the appalling developing country engineering standards in Scotland has just emerged. Seems that in…” Sep 9, 14:23
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Michty! Is it breakfast time already?” Sep 9, 14:20
sam on Anything But That: “I guess you didn’t read this. “OUR MISSION The Scottish Sovereignty Research Group was formed in December 2020, when it…” Sep 9, 14:16
Confused on Anything But That: “leah has a good blog, connecting scottish nationalism into wider geo politics https://archive.ph/gM0JM – she is an american woman and…” Sep 9, 13:55
Confused on Anything But That: “SSRG is perfectly fine – if it was a middle class wankers circle wank setup there would be a whole…” Sep 9, 13:54
Confused on Anything But That: “beggan is a just a turd with an 85IQ, here to disrupt. He is reminiscent of another turd, Mark Boyle,…” Sep 9, 13:53
Confused on Anything But That: “everything is made in china (more or less) ya fucking tit; let’s all buy english flatscreen tellies and english computers…” Sep 9, 13:52
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “The EU is moving at its usual glacial pace towards shutting out Covid Spreader unfair competition within its markets: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/09/eu-buy-european-public-procurement-rules-china-goods-services…” Sep 9, 13:15
James Che on Anything But That: “I do not vote so neither left or right. Or even in the middle. When politics and election improve from…” Sep 9, 12:33
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Mark, Measurements of length have always been relatively arbitrary and it has only been in recent times that it has…” Sep 9, 12:26
James Che on Anything But That: “Mark Beggan. I wll retain my politeness as I have done on wings for the sake of he host of…” Sep 9, 12:21
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: ““differed in some degree from their English equivalents.” Which system would be the more accurate? Was the transition to the…” Sep 9, 11:35
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Aye Northy never trust the French. A wee eighth of a Scottish inch or a baw hair ken.” Sep 9, 11:24
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: ““professors, authors, policy thinkers, a Labour peer, a broadcaster, and Salvo/Liberation Scotland” I wonder if they will be taking questions.…” Sep 9, 11:07
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: ““move Scotland even a millimetre closer to independence” Sorry, Northy, but no True Sovereign Scot uses the metric system. Prior…” Sep 9, 10:53
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Just those who don’t agree with you.” Sep 9, 10:44
Hatey Mchateface on Anything But That: “An ideal opportunity for Burnham to promise a McLaren in every postcode.” Sep 9, 10:40
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Wrong city. The capital of the fascists was Rome. Germany was a National Socialist dictatorship. Benito Mussolini would have to…” Sep 9, 10:27