With the greatest of reluctance, and only in the absence of anything even remotely more interesting, then, let’s have a few words on Scottish Labour’s latest solemn and sincere declaration of its full, total, complete and utter autonomy.
Because while the media is reporting the development that UK Labour has decided to extend a few extra inches of lead to Kezia Dugdale’s branch office as if it had the slightest importance to anything, it seems oddly reluctant to ask the obvious question.
Eternally angry Conservative MSP Adam Tomkins has been even shoutier than usual this week, purple-faced with rage about the fact that the SNP has decided to spend some of its own money (not taxpayer cash) asking people for their opinions.
It’s a curious argument from a member of a party that’s been rejected in successive elections in Scotland in 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1974 again, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2016, but keeps turning up and barking orders anyway. You’d think the first 50 years might qualify as a hint.
The Scottish Mail On Sunday felt obliged this weekend to devote newsprint in what’s technically an actual newspaper to a piece of snark that might just be a new all-time low in the highly competitive barrel-scraping field of “SNP BAD”:
Half a page was given up to a bunch of sour complaints that the First Minister had built in FIVE MINUTES on her itinerary on a school visit (aimed at encouraging girls to take up traditionally male careers) for people to get selfies with her.
Dismayingly often, the thing that irritates us the most about the Unionist press lying to its readers isn’t the fact that they’re doing it, but the fact that they do it so insultingly badly. As an illustrative case in point, here’s the Sunday Times’ reliably dull-witted Scottish columnist Gillian Bowditch today:
Now, let’s be generous and ignore the honkingly stupid first paragraph, which paints a couple of exceptional bad years as a permanent status, and focus on the second one.
This is the demented, McCarthyite state of madness the Labour Party has reached:
This is a party now openly rejecting anyone as a member who has ever supported any other party. We’d take a minute to try to explain to them how the arithmetic of that one works out, but they’re a long, long way beyond the grasp of reason now.
So the official Westminster line is that Scotland will HAVE to become independent if it wants to remain in the EU. We’re sure the FM will be absolutely gutted to hear that.
Some of you will have missed this over the weekend:
Yes – Michelle Mone, of all the people on Earth, really did just go on TV and accuse Nicola Sturgeon of being all about ego. We’ll leave you to absorb that for a bit.
As we write there’s a protest going on outside the Scottish Parliament regarding the privatisation of ferry services to the Western Isles. It was formally announced almost three hours ago that there definitely wasn’t going to be any privatisation and that the service would remain in public hands, but the protest still went ahead.
The people conducting the protest, who’ve got the exact thing they wanted, are now doing their level best to lose it again. Welcome to Scottish politics.
Cynicus on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““I might also take the opportunity to draw attention to a recent quality illustrated book investigating the Gaelic and Welsh…” Jan 12, 02:42
Cynicus on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““there’s an oven ready and legitimate Stuart pretender Franz, Duke of Bavaria” ========== Be careful! The Crown Prince, Francis of…” Jan 12, 02:18
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Northcode writes « Tho if a culture had the nature of a coloniser aboot it… then a wid hae nae…” Jan 12, 01:20
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Alf writes: « The point, which you appear to have missed, is that our friend wha comes here tae bide…” Jan 12, 00:59
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““plummeting” The point, which you appear to have missed, is that our friend wha comes here tae bide notes he…” Jan 11, 23:49
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““You’re plummeting, Alf.” Only in your eyes, Gael. And only because Professor Baird challenges your false narrative on the importance…” Jan 11, 22:43
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Dinna be daft, Alf. Us Scots fowk be ane o the wrechit o the Earth… ye micht as weel expect…” Jan 11, 21:53
sarah on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “www.scotcourts.gov.uk/livestream/ – to watch tomorrow Monday 12th Jan from 09.30 the Court of Session case of Craig Murray applying for…” Jan 11, 21:50
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: ““So where is Scotland’s Atom Bomb moment?” At this rate, any century now. The British Brainwashing Corporation and MSM generally…” Jan 11, 21:23
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““I speak and read three forms of Arabic plus Syriac, French, English, some German, Spanish, Hebrew, Farsi and Turkish and…” Jan 11, 18:30
Nae Need! on Off-topic: “I’m going to add The Alienist to my watch list. Thank you for the recommendation 😉 IMNSHU Pluribus is excellent.…” Jan 11, 17:17
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: “Hi, Nae Need! It barely does exist compared to the old days 🙂 . I only returned around Christmas to…” Jan 11, 17:00
Nae Need! on Off-topic: “Hello Off TOPICers, I didn’t know this place existed until today. Have any of you watched Pluribus? None of the…” Jan 11, 15:16
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “A hiv makkit this short Sunday sermon… First: Ither fowks cultures are mild cuiriosities tae me tho a widnae dream…” Jan 11, 15:01
sam on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “See this? The genetic landscape of Scotland and the Isles https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1904761116” Jan 11, 14:33
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: “Thought I’d cheer us all up with this uplifting song (before Trump does something really stupid): www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIoBrob3bjI” Jan 11, 14:22
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “TURABDIN. And my sincere apologies to you for the rather exasperated tone of my initial comment. (Though you will perhaps…” Jan 11, 14:20
Nae Need! on Failure To Learn: “That was one of my first thoughts too. My second thought being about the word ‘failure’. Failure presumes an attempt…” Jan 11, 13:45
Nae Need! on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Having had the time this morning to follow this discussion, I too am in agreement with Aidan and Hatey. Wonders…” Jan 11, 13:39
TURABDIN on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@ FEARGHAS MAC FHIONNLAIGH, @ ALF BAIRD, @ ANDY ELLIS. COMING FROM AN ANCIENT CULTURE whose language, various iterations of…” Jan 11, 12:40
Andy Ellis on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@Alf As it happens, this is the only applied theoretical framework explaining Scotland’s colonial condition and urgent need for decolonization:……” Jan 11, 11:59
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I agree that a lot of history is bunk, most is just tail spun yarns. The treaty of York 1237…” Jan 11, 11:08
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Indeed Henry 111 father Earl of Cambridge, according to DNA does not appear to be his father at all, Ceciley…” Jan 11, 10:47
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@Andy Ellis There was more in my original post but it went to moderation. I was writing about the pictures…” Jan 11, 10:34
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““develop his own coherent theories rooted in our own, unique, Scottish circumstances” As it happens, this is the only applied…” Jan 11, 10:31
Bilbo on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““Young women” may well speak for themselves but what they speak about is another thing. The actions of that nutter…” Jan 11, 10:23
Andy Ellis on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I suspect it won’t be over until we see some strange fruit in turbans swinging from the lamp posts of…” Jan 11, 10:08
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““Whatever would Fantoosh, Mammy and Ceasar make” Who cares. It’s all part of his depressingly cringy acceptance of mediocrity that…” Jan 11, 09:58
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “It’s over. We won. With the exception of one dead body, President Trump got all the hostages home.” Jan 11, 09:48
