Alert readers may recall a very recent incident where the Daily Record made baseless insinuations about a trip by former SNP MP Natalie McGarry to Syria, and whether its funding had been declared on the Parliamentary Register Of Members’ Interests.
(It had been, and the Record still hasn’t clarified its article to that effect.)
We’ve been having some trouble trying to explain the Alistair Carmichael verdict to some English chums who hadn’t been following the case previously and have now just heard about it on the news.
Lord Matthews and Lady Paton in their great wisdom concluded that Carmichael had lied about the “Frenchgate” memo, and that he had also lied to them in the courtroom, and that the first of those lies was intended to help Carmichael achieve re-election, but that somehow his own re-election was not a “personal” matter.
Our friends couldn’t follow the logic of that, and to be honest we weren’t able to help them much. Nevertheless, the judgement has been handed down and the case is closed. It seems unlikely the petitioners could fund an appeal even if one was to be allowed, particularly given that according to press reports Carmichael will be pursuing them for his £150,000 costs as well as their own.
However, in the process of wriggling out of his lie on an obscure legal and semantic technicality, Carmichael appears, so far as we can tell, to have explicitly implicated himself in a far more serious crime.
The National today has a story we’ve been sitting on for several days while we tried to get some verifiable evidence in the form of links or screenshots to back it up.
But Labour aren’t the only people having trouble scaring up a candidate roster.
It’s never usually terribly difficult to get a Scottish Labour MSP to express a view on anything. It’s hard to open a newspaper without being forced to hear Jackie Baillie or James Kelly’s opinion on something or other.
(Admittedly it’s generally the SNP, and the opinion is invariably that they’re bad and whatever they do is wrong – but still, they’re not shy about coming forward with it.)
So when Neil Findlay attacked the SNP for all having the same view on bombing Syria last night (about which he was inexplicably furious, even though that view was exactly the same as his own opinion), we thought it’d be easy enough to find out how many of his MSP colleagues were on the respective sides of the debate.
Alert readers who follow our Twitter account, like all sensible people do, may have noticed we’ve had a few exchanges with the BBC presenter Andrew Neil since we published a couple of articles about his interview with the SNP’s Angus Robertson on The Sunday Politics last week.
The debate centred around a claim Neil put to Robertson:
“You go on and on, your party, about ‘austerity, austerity’ – how much has the Scottish Government budget been cut in the past five or six years? […] In real terms there’s been no cut.“
It seems fair to say the matter’s been in some dispute since then.
At the weekend this site noted that on the BBC’s Sunday Politics, presenter Andrew Neil claimed that the Scottish Government’s budget had not been reduced in real terms in “the last five or six years”, and that therefore Scotland has not faced cuts.
But as we pointed out, the Scottish Government budget HAS been cut, year-on-year, since the Tories took office. The independent Fiscal Affairs Scotland assessed the cumulative reduction at a hefty 10%, or a little over £3bn a year.
Kezia Dugdale made a spectacle of herself again at First Minister’s Questions earlier today. Using time intended for holding the Scottish Government to account over its devolved responsibilities, Dugdale once more decided instead to ignore her duty to the people of Scotland and attack the FM over a matter which is entirely outwith the Scottish Government’s control, namely the past actions of a Westminster MP.
Pausing only to demand that Holyrood interfere in the running of the independent Law Society, Dugdale then abandoned her casual endangerment of a live police inquiry by focusing instead on the morality of the aforementioned MP’s business practices:
But Ms Dugdale’s own ethics left a few things to be desired.
We apologise for another post on the subject of The Wright House, everyone, but we do love getting our teeth into a puzzle, especially when it comes with a side order of lots of juicy evidence of the Scottish media telling people outright lies.
This should be the last one for the forseeable future, and we’ve actually got some solid info to impart this time rather than just a confused expression, so buckle up.
Even the alertest readers will probably already be confused by the baffling tale of Douglas and Jacqueline Wright, who sold their home to Edinburgh West MP Michelle Thomson. We certainly were last night, but on delving a little more into the media coverage of their story, things got a whole lot worse.
It appeared on any possible interpretation to be complete nonsense, but Ms Dugdale – who’s pledged to make education the issue at the heart of her leadership – has been somewhat reluctant to clarify the statement.
Several queries from her Lothian constituents have gone unanswered, but one Wings viewer did manage to get a single tweet of response.
We didn’t think that could be right, and dug up some figures suggesting that it was nonsense, but of course “the poorest kids” is a highly-flexible metric. Strictly speaking you could just mean the two poorest children in the country, and if one of those two can’t read there’s your 50%.
Luckily, we’ve now had some meat put on the bones of that claim.
Alert readers may recall an incident last year in which the Scottish media got itself very worked up about some independence supporters threatening to boycott holiday company Barrhead Travel after its owner sent a barking-mad letter to staff about how the company would go out of business if Scotland voted Yes.
So we’re sure that you won’t be able to move later today and tomorrow for newspaper articles about something similar, but significantly worse, that happened this weekend.
100%Yes on The Secondhand Amendment: “No mention of the Inuits, why am I not surprised. Took great detail to write the Kingdom of Denmark, interesting…” Jan 20, 12:46
Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: ““it’s hard to know it’s true meaning and who exactly is a fascist” According to Cesaire, numerous intellectuals including Robinson,…” Jan 20, 12:43
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Lorna, Do not confuse the two separate speeches the monarch made as they were on two separate chronological time lines.…” Jan 20, 12:37
James on Learning Insanity: “Really? That’s all you two losers have got? The great Unionist debaters. LOL. Mass debaters maybe.” Jan 20, 12:32
PC Foster on The Secondhand Amendment: “I wonder how much scope Murrell has to spill the beans on his wife or will he mysteriously die between…” Jan 20, 12:24
James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “From political attacks on farmers in France to British farmers to American farmers. From trans cults in Canada to it…” Jan 20, 12:15
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “?Foreign Affairs Committee? ?@afet.europarl.europa.eu?· 59m Today at 13.00 European Parliament will discuss territorial integrity and sovereignty of Greenland and the…” Jan 20, 12:07
James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “We can only accept it was a America problem if we discount every other Country that is under going the…” Jan 20, 11:56
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “Ms Forstater says of Judge Kemp’s error: ““The quote in my section wasn’t found anywhere else, so it was either…” Jan 20, 11:47
Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: “According to postcolonial theory all we can ever expect in a colonial society is a ‘mediocre meritocracy’ (Memmi), much as…” Jan 20, 11:29
Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Timing as broadly predicted by many on here!” Yes, colonial ‘justice’ seems predictable, in this instance timed to do maximum…” Jan 20, 11:08
TURABDIN on The Secondhand Amendment: “EUROPE & THE YANKEE BULLY BOY & HIS BAGGAGE Could the EU be getting its mojo back. Conceived as the…” Jan 20, 10:38
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: “Jane Russell, eh? Whew, what a scorcher! But I thought she was deid. How depressing that while still alive she’s…” Jan 20, 10:13
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “Is it possible that Ms Russell is the “judicial colleague” who exchanged correspondence with Judge Kemp? On the face of…” Jan 20, 10:12
James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “In Lorna’ version of the treaty of union case being real you will find only two biological sexes entered into…” Jan 20, 10:03
agentx on The Secondhand Amendment: ““The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) confirmed that a preliminary hearing on Murrell’s case is scheduled to take…” Jan 20, 09:58
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “In Sandie Peggie’s case against NHS Fife, the representation for NHS Fife was provided by KC, Jane Russell. Ms Russell…” Jan 20, 09:16
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: ““should be allowed into a female only space, such as a public toilet, on a case by case basis” Sure.…” Jan 20, 08:56
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: ““This implies that it is not inherently unlawful for a trans female to be given permission to use a female…” Jan 20, 08:47
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “According to Naomi Cunningham, who represented Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife it is UK government lawyers who are saying that,…” Jan 20, 08:38
Hatey McHateface on Learning Insanity: “If I was you, YL, I’d be taking steps. There can be little doubt “the Donald” will be coming for…” Jan 20, 08:29
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “Criticism from different sources of the tribunal findings in the Peggie case as reported in Personnel Today. “Dr Foran pointed…” Jan 20, 08:25
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “From the latest blog post at Legal Feeminist where Naomi Cunningham blogs. “The second question arises from the government’s arguments…” Jan 20, 08:08
Young Lochinvar on The Secondhand Amendment: “Timing as broadly predicted by many on here! They can’t even be subtle about their machinations..” Jan 20, 00:51
Michael on The Secondhand Amendment: “Or was it John Doe who was googling on behalf of the Judge?” Jan 20, 00:44
Young Lochinvar on Learning Insanity: “H McH No other incorrect accusations to throw about? Confused as you’ve been asking the wrong questions? You are so…” Jan 20, 00:39
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: “@Marie I think there is something odd when people living in a country that is so desperate for immigrants that…” Jan 19, 22:38
Marie on The Secondhand Amendment: “If you knew anything about how independence-minded Scots felt about their country you would know that a long-standing major concern…” Jan 19, 21:54
holymacmoses on The Secondhand Amendment: “It’s quite remarkable that Judge Walker (via Ms Muir) thinks that it’s OK to farm out work on an enquiry…” Jan 19, 21:24
Scot Finlayson on The Secondhand Amendment: “Man in wig looking out for man in wig. I wonder what % of `trans women` went to Scottish fee…” Jan 19, 21:21
