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.
Chas on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The first sensible comment from you that I have ever seen. Well done.” Mar 25, 10:00
Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “A word of advice, and I’m sorry to have to say this, James Che, but even I, a staunch supporter…” Mar 25, 09:30
Chas on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I worry about the mental health of the nutters who post the same tripe day, after day, after day on…” Mar 25, 09:15
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Scottish people pay the standard income tax as the rest of Great Britain, however they also have added on Scottish…” Mar 25, 09:13
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Scotland is not in the parliament of Great Britain. Scotland is not in the parliament of the United kingdom. Only…” Mar 25, 09:01
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Why vote? To continue Colonialism, to hold and de- value democracy in Scotland. These are not actually Scottish elections.” Mar 25, 08:40
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Scotland is not bound to the 1707 parliament of Great Britain, Scotland is not bound to the united kingdom parliament…” Mar 25, 08:35
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The pretend Scottish parliament and its false Scottish elections with Englands registered political parties are irrelevant to people in Scotland,…” Mar 25, 08:23
Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The Bigger PICTure Scotland is lost… lost to a stupid, vicious and invasive foreign power. A power smaller in wit,…” Mar 25, 08:19
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Colonialism only occurs in Scotland due to Scottish people thinking they are or very briefly were in a treaty of…” Mar 25, 08:09
Dan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@Aidan A quick search suggests only about 4% of folk in Scotland earn the 100k figure you band about so…” Mar 25, 07:53
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Question, How and by what means is Scotland officially or legally tied to England? There is no legal or official…” Mar 25, 07:51
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Question, At what date did Englands Great Britain parliament End, ? It was dissolved in 1800.” Mar 25, 07:44
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Question, What date did the Great Britain parliament dissolve Scotlands parliament from the Great Britain parliament? 1707.” Mar 25, 07:40
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Question, At what date did Scotland make a 1707 treaty with the United kingdom parliament? It holds nor made no…” Mar 25, 07:36
James Che on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Question, At what date does anyone here find Scotland attached to The Great Britain parliament in any legal or official…” Mar 25, 07:32
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““…demand the implementation of devolution for The Kingdom of England, and stop the KoE treating the UK Parliament in Westminster…” Mar 25, 07:25
Aidan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@Dan there isn’t an option to renounce the benefits (which for most working people on an average wage or above…” Mar 25, 07:19
Breastplate on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Alan, you may think you’re a Unionist but there is no Union, just a parasitic England sacking the lifeblood from…” Mar 25, 00:02
Cynicus on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “No idea who this guy is – or what you’re talking about. Are you sure you are posting in the…” Mar 24, 23:53
Dan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@alan scott “When are you unionists going to” demand the implementation of devolution for The Kingdom of England, and stop…” Mar 24, 22:46
Cherrybank on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Sarah @ 8.15pm Jim Sillars published his final book on November 2025 titled ‘The New Case for Optimism ‘ costing…” Mar 24, 22:33
sarah on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Ask a French person when they will give up their nationhood. Or a German. Or the c. 200 other countries…” Mar 24, 22:22
agentx on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““When are you Nationalists going to say enough is enough and demand the abolition of Holyrood and the end to…” Mar 24, 22:18
Iain More on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I am told that the UK owns c £700 Billion of Yankee NAZI Debt. We are ruled by Brit/Sassanach FUCKWITS…” Mar 24, 21:57
alan scott on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I’m a Unionist who thinks Holyrood should be abolished. The cost of one election is peanuts compared to the cost…” Mar 24, 21:53
