Judging by the first 24 hours, we’re in for a two-year festival of utter horror from the UK and Scottish media. Yesterday saw a never-ending parade of metrosplaining idiots dragged willingly in front of cameras and microphones to pontificate their clueless and mind-numbingly ignorant drivel about Scotland.
It wasn’t possible to keep track of it all, because it was frequently happening on five channels at once, and it was harder still to watch it for any extended period of time without hurling a brick through the screen in frustration at the offensive stupidity of it.
Feeding into that was a stream of Scottish politicians who actually did know better, but who are too catastrophically dim to adapt to changing circumstances and had no strategy other than to endlessly repeat the same cretinous soundbites over and over.
(Adam Tomkins in particular was ubiquitous, spending what felt like several hours on various airwaves reciting the same brainless 10-second schtick forever.)
The constitutional politics of the UK and Scotland are in flux, and many aspects of the situation are complicated. But quite a lot of them aren’t, and if we’re all going to make it through the next two years without stabbing each other in the throat, it’d be a lot better if everyone accepted the things that are definite, empirical, indisputable facts.
…on Good Morning Scotland yesterday, then we suspect you’re going to love the Lib Dems’ heroically glaikit MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton on the same show today.
We don’t want to fall into the trap of portraying the Liberal Democrats as a party of any political relevance or consequence in Scotland, but for the sheer comedy value alone Willie Rennie’s interview with Gary Robertson on today’s Good Morning Scotland is worth a couple of minutes of your time.
Almost a year ago we ran a short piece mocking a Scotsman headline which claimed that “THOUSANDS” of people had signed a Tory anti-referendum petition, when the actual number was a strictly-accurate-but-pathetic TWO thousand.
We didn’t think that could ever be beaten for technically-true hyperbolic exaggeration, but we’d reckoned without the bold boundary-pushing ingenuity of the Daily Express.
Hundreds of thousands? How many hundreds, exactly?
The process of simply buying the Xbox One took me either three days or eight weeks, depending on how you look at it, due to a combination of how retail works these days and the gibbering random madness that is GAME's pricing and corporate structure. But I'm not even going to get into that here.
Five minutes and 51 seconds, to be precise, is how long David Mundell, Secretary of State for Scotland, spent frantically quacking out meaningless noise on this morning’s Sunday Politics Scotland in order to avoid answering a simple Yes/No question until the interview ran out of airtime.
We could quibble with presenter Gordon Brewer making the assertion that a Section 30 order would in fact be necessary for a second referendum (something which has never been established in law or conceded by the Scottish Government, with strong and genuine legal opinion on both sides of the argument), and with him letting Mundell get away with the blatant falsehood that an overwhelming majority of Scots don’t want another referendum – in fact, 50% want one within the next two years.
But sometimes you have to let some smaller things slide to avoid distraction and stay focused on your main point, and in our view this was one of those occasions.
These are the comments of UK defence secretary Michael Fallon in a short interview with today’s Herald. We don’t know about you, folks, but to us it feels like Christmas.
We think our favourite line is “There are other voices in Scotland now, not least Ruth Davidson’s”, but there are a lot to choose from.
Way back in October last year we analysed what now seems to have become the key plank of Unionist argument against independence in the wake of Brexit – the idea that because Scotland does more trade with the rest of the UK than it does with the EU, independence would be economic suicide because Scotland would be sacrificing “the UK single market” (a thing that doesn’t actually exist ) for a much smaller one.
It’s a completely idiotic position, but to be honest we didn’t do a very good job of boiling the counter-argument down to something snappy and quoteable, so let’s have another go and see if we can manage something a little better.
We followed with interest an exchange over the weekend between Times columnist Kenny Farquharson and the anti-Brexit QC Jolyon Maugham, regarding the difference between the UK government’s insistence that there won’t be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because of the UK leaving the EU, and its continued insistence that there WOULD have to be one between the rUK and an independent Scotland, despite the legal circumstances being indistinguishable.
Farquharson, who like much of the Scottish political commentariat clings doggedly to the implausible dream of a “federal” UK, was adamant that the rules would – and indeed that they should – be different for the two ostensibly identical situations, and his given reason was a deeply disturbing one.
Kenny, it seems, thinks Scottish nationalists should do a lot more murdering.
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “Jay Depends on your age. Younger, and you probably are (correctly) worried about saying the “wrong thing” that in the…” Feb 24, 01:43
Saffron Robe on When the law breaks the law: “As I’ve said before, it’s unwise to ascribe your own failings to others – in this case, racism disguised as…” Feb 24, 00:39
Jay on When the law breaks the law: “Young Lochinvar: Having only recently become a ‘Wings’ reader (occasionally making comments), there seems to be a substantial degree of…” Feb 24, 00:26
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on When the law breaks the law: “« Scots is descended from Northumbrian, while Standard English emerged from the East Midland dialect of Mercia. Although markedly different,…” Feb 23, 23:35
Cynicus on When the law breaks the law: “Mandy in the Jile! But Randy Andy & Dandy Mandy not (yet?) sharing a cell. https://tinyurl.com/54mwctac” Feb 23, 23:30
Confused on When the law breaks the law: “john davidsons outburst at the baftas that so annoyed people – that illustrated perfectly the whole point of the film…” Feb 23, 23:09
Andrew scott on When the law breaks the law: “Anyone see the watermelon party’s PPB? nothing of course of their obsession with trans rights” Feb 23, 22:41
Northcode on When the law breaks the law: “Part of our debate would perhaps be concerned with a definition of ‘colonisation’ A modern definition of colonialism: ” [colonialism]…” Feb 23, 22:00
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on When the law breaks the law: “AUTISTIC DETRANSITIONER AWARDED $2m AFTER HER BREASTS WERE REMOVED AT 16 An autistic woman who underwent a double mastectomy at…” Feb 23, 20:27
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on When the law breaks the law: “PUBERTY BLOCKER TRIAL HALTED OVER SAFETY CONCERNS Work on NHS England’s planned puberty blocker trial has been paused after the…” Feb 23, 20:00
Garavelli Princip on When the law breaks the law: “Well Young Lochinvar, I know Hatey well. He was my boss: Head of Lavatorial Services. Where do you think he…” Feb 23, 18:30
Willie on When the law breaks the law: “Obviously in not mounting an appeal Durham and Darlington dont have the unlimited resources like the Fife NHS have. Incredible…” Feb 23, 17:56
Willie on When the law breaks the law: “Touted with the great hurrah the reality is that the MV Isle of Islay was delivered one year and three…” Feb 23, 17:41
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “I wonder if host Alan Cummings would have been so fulsomely inclusive and supportive if the tick in question hard…” Feb 23, 17:19
sarah on When the law breaks the law: “Sara’s response has been posted onto Liberation Scotland’s facebook. She shows JK up for what he has become.” Feb 23, 17:04
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “HMcH @2.30 Hay fit, straw fit.. Based on that I very much doubt it. Oi Vey! How does that sit…” Feb 23, 17:01
100%Yes on When the law breaks the law: “James Kelly, is best ignored and forgotten about, he’s a thorn in the Indy movement side. You could write pages…” Feb 23, 16:36
sarah on When the law breaks the law: “@ 100%Yes: I hope you succeed in bringing Alba under the Alliance to Liberate Scotland umbrella. I’ve been dropping the…” Feb 23, 15:07
Cynicus on When the law breaks the law: ““ From the ashes of Culloden and the tragedy of the Highland Clearances to the cliffs of Quebec…” ======== It…” Feb 23, 15:05
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Anybody know if they swore an oath of allegiance to the British Sovereign and his successors? And if they did,…” Feb 23, 14:30
100%Yes on When the law breaks the law: “Both me and my wife have just rejoined the Alba Party to support any new leaders and to stick two…” Feb 23, 14:26
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on When the law breaks the law: “GROUSE BEATER: ‘ALBA PARTY NEWS’ « […] Four senior ALBA members have offered to take over the party to ensure…” Feb 23, 14:03
sam on When the law breaks the law: “Frae BBC “A health trust spent more than £600,000 on an employment tribunal which found it harassed a group of…” Feb 23, 13:56
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on When the law breaks the law: “HOW SCOTTISH REGIMENTS FORGED BRITAIN’S EMPIRE Intro text on YouTube site – « When you picture the British Empire, you…” Feb 23, 13:50
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Scotland all over the MSM today, as the waves of synthetic outrage swell into a tsunami sweeping all of yesterday’s…” Feb 23, 13:45
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “I’ve viewed it 110 times. Northy 615. Who’s the ither twa?” Feb 23, 13:29
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Haha, “humble Scot”. Maybes you forget your claims to be a millennia-old, interstellar-travelling, Pict. But the denizens of Area 51…” Feb 23, 13:22
sam on When the law breaks the law: “@ factchecker “Part of our debate would perhaps be concerned with a definition of ‘colonisation’, which fills the posts of…” Feb 23, 12:54
