We see Gordon Brown is celebrating his 500th article promising “federalism” in the Scottish media today. Which is nice. We always enjoy hearing about the stuff Labour pretends it’s going to do when it’s in power.
But like everyone who’s been waiting 100 years and counting for it to abolish the House Of Lords (a pledge which also gets another runout in Brown’s latest intervention, bless him), we won’t be holding our breath.
In news that will come as a shock to absolutely no readers at all, McDougall wasn’t just lying, and wasn’t just wrong about one thing, but was both wrong and lying about pretty much everything he said.
Both of the Yes camp’s “scare stories” which were sneeringly mocked by McDougall during a BBC debate in Inverness actually came true – the Tories DID win the next election, and Johnson DID end up as leader of the party and then as Prime Minister.
(McDougall burst into tears at Scottish Labour HQ on the night of the 2015 election as his party lost 40 of its 41 seats despite his services as Jim Murphy’s speechwriter and adviser, his powers of chortling seemingly having deserted him.)
Still, at least the Record hasn’t been so completely lacking in self-awareness as to point a finger at others in Scotland and say something like “far too many people who should know better are complicit in the tragedy”.
We weren’t sure whether tomorrow’s Cairnstoon was going to be delayed by technical gremlins (it turns out it isn’t), so we prepared an emergency backup plan on the same theme and you may as well see it now as a sort of trailer.
It’ll be good every time they dig him up yet again in the future too.
Of course, they meant if they LOST the first one. But readers might feel that a certain degree of irony has perhaps manifested itself since then, particularly in terms of people knowing “what they would be in for” after June 2016.
So just to recap the UK government’s rules for the Yes movement:
– If you win, you don’t really win and you have to go again in case things change.
– If you lose once, that’s it forever, no matter how much things change.
Always remember what we’re dealing with, folks. The rules are always whatever they say they are, regardless of what they might have said a minute ago, and no matter what happens we’re swimming against the sea.
That’s the only reasonable interpretation of this tweet from Jenny Marra MSP.
Because clearly if the Scottish Parliament of 1707 was an illegitimate oligarchy that didn’t represent the people – and it certainly didn’t – then it can’t have had any right to sign away the sovereignty of Scotland and the Acts Of Union must immediately be repealed and a new referendum held to decide whether Scotland should join the UK.
You could actually weep for some of the people in our country.
But the point Yes supporters understand and Unionists don’t is that it’s everything to do with the question – because “who is or might be Prime Minister, or which party is in government” is never our choice. It’s the choice of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland together. One of those countries outnumbers the others by 8 to 1.
More than that, it isn’t just who is Prime Minister now, or who may be in the future – it’s every single Prime Minister in my 35 years of existence on this planet.
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “Northcode You said,”Scotland is being murdered…” Recommend you do a search for “youtube, social murder, david walsh”” Jan 19, 15:12
Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Can it be any wonder Scotland and the Scots are in such poor condition given the battering they’ve been taking…” Jan 19, 13:39
Northcode on The Secondhand Amendment: ““… the woefully inadequate levels of accountability and transparency across all of Scotland’s establishment and civic society…” The monumental fuck-up…” Jan 19, 13:03
Frank Gillougley on The Secondhand Amendment: “Brilliant! Thank you Rev for having the gift of succinctly rising above the obfuscatory legal minutae and calling out the…” Jan 19, 12:22
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Learning Insanity: “Back in May 2014 I wrote replies to negative reviews of Doug Gay’s above-mentioned ‘HONEY FROM THE LION’ book by…” Jan 19, 12:09
Anton Decadent on The Secondhand Amendment: “Thank you both for bringing this to light. It looks as if the plan is to bullshit, lie and bluster…” Jan 19, 12:04
Michael P on The Secondhand Amendment: “I speak as an English Barrister who has followed this wretched story and is dismayed/bamboozled by it. I do not…” Jan 19, 12:03
SilentMajority on Learning Insanity: “A very surprising moment on GMB earlier this morning…there were two of the Darlington nurses being interviewed (approx 0730am) by…” Jan 19, 11:53
Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: “And so we return, as inevitably we must, to the reality of life in a colonial society, where assimilated elites…” Jan 19, 11:10
TimePilot on The Secondhand Amendment: “Excellent as always Stu. I noticed this quote from Dr McCloud in the following Sky News article in relation to…” Jan 19, 11:03
Cynicus on The Secondhand Amendment: ““……the algorithmic “hallucination” that was imported, one step removed, into the Judge Kemp findings.” ======= On Radio 4’s Today programme…” Jan 19, 11:02
Cynicus on The Secondhand Amendment: “Vivian O’Blivion, 19 January, 2026 at 9:09 am “In the seventies, and eighties, the composition of Westminster could be lazily…” Jan 19, 10:46
100%Yes on The Secondhand Amendment: “Nigel Farage will ‘try to scrap Holyrood’ as PM, says John Swinney, sign me up. The SNP has used Holyrood…” Jan 19, 10:38
Alf Baird on Learning Insanity: ““there would be no Union” More astute observers now realise that the so-called UK ‘Union’ is of course a charade,…” Jan 19, 10:30
100%Yes on The Secondhand Amendment: “Long tails and short skirts will sooner or later will have to end in favor of biological women and men.…” Jan 19, 10:05
James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “Lorna, I have replied to you’re comment you made yesterday on Stu’s previous post, so not to interrupt this one…” Jan 19, 09:58
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Lorna, The need to research the accumulated information under one roof would not go amiss, which is something that not…” Jan 19, 09:54
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Lorna. It did not simply expand Great Britain parliament. It dissolved the parliament of Great Britain in 1800, You will…” Jan 19, 09:43
Sven on The Secondhand Amendment: “One can only applaud Mr Kennedy, and, of course, our esteemed host.” Jan 19, 09:15
Rogueslr on The Secondhand Amendment: “When West Midlands Police ‘made up’ evidence to ban fans, and referenced events that never occured, the result was the…” Jan 19, 09:14
John on Learning Insanity: “FYI, The ‘Metagender’ status is specifically fluidity within identity. The technical term is ‘Schrodinger’s Twat’.” Jan 19, 09:13
Vivian O’Blivion on The Secondhand Amendment: “The balance between independence, and oversight of the judiciary is the perennial problem. In the seventies, and eighties, the composition…” Jan 19, 09:09
Effijy on The Secondhand Amendment: “Absolutely unacceptable whitewash and a very large nail in the coffin of justice. Why don’t they just tear up the…” Jan 19, 08:31
WeeChid on Learning Insanity: “I’m so glad I’m retired ’cause if I was still in the workplace and had to go on one of…” Jan 19, 08:26
Adam Hibbert on The Secondhand Amendment: “As I understand it, “Judicial colleague” is a standard phrase only used to refer to fellow judges. So the error…” Jan 19, 08:10
Willie on The Secondhand Amendment: “If it was AI as you suggest Iain then this would mark Judge Kemp as a liar since Sandra Muir…” Jan 19, 04:09
Tim on The Secondhand Amendment: “Are the judges and lawyers (reputed to have been) involved in “Fettesgate” in the early 90s still in place? That…” Jan 19, 03:50
Iain mhor on The Secondhand Amendment: “Everybody and their dug knows it was AI. Every Civil Service letter I get is patently AI generated. Nobody in…” Jan 19, 03:18
