You might think that Scottish political journalists would all be in a shark-like frenzy of excitement at the events of the last few days. But not over on The Guardian.
Apparently it’s all a bit too much for the delicate wee flowers.
Tonight’s debate on Sky News between the three SNP leadership candidates was yet another inconclusive low-scoring draw, with each contender taking a few hits (almost all from host Beth Rigby) and also landing the odd blow on each other.
The most notable of the latter was probably when Ash Regan gave Humza Yousaf a rather uncomfortable time over his claiming credit for the Queensferry Crossing when he was Transport Secretary.
As well as frantically trying to deflect by pretending Regan had attacked the SNP’s record on the project in general, Yousaf insisted that he’d played a major role in the bridge’s delivery. So let’s just check the timeline.
The Unionist media in Scotland (ie all of the media in Scotland) usually keeps up a pretty united front when it comes to the subjects of independence or the SNP. So it’s been fascinating in these last couple of weeks to see a genuine schism develop between them on the subject of the party’s leadership election.
(For the avoidance of doubt, we do not include Holyrood Magazine, whose splendid front cover image that is, in “the Unionist media”.)
Right back at the start of the contest we highlighted The Times’ full-on love-in for Kate Forbes, but most of the Scottish press has now made their preferences clear. And you’ll never guess who they really, really DON’T want to be the next First Minister.
BBC NEWS: [abysmal, unprofessional disgrace to broadcasting]
ITV NEWS: Hold our beer!
(Still not deleted/fixed seven hours later.)
Wings Over Scotland has been monitoring the BBC’s coverage of Scottish politics for over 11 years now, readers, and other than The Nick Robinson Incident we’re honestly struggling to remember seeing anything worse than this.
The Corporation’s “coverage” of Ash Regan’s campaign launch for the SNP leadership election ran for roughly seven minutes. And we suppose we should be grateful that it did at one point feature a brief, incidental cameo appearance from Ash Regan.
Yesterday, readers, we warned you that “online newspaper polls are self-selecting and vulnerable to manipulation”. Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Let’s crunch some numbers.
We’ve already noted how the Unionist press appears to be trying to influence the outcome of the SNP leadership election, but last night the big beast of Scottish media – the BBC – waded into the fray.
A major piece by the Corporation’s Scotland editor James Cook focused on interviews with two of the three contenders – excluding Ash Regan – on the basis that both had launched their official campaigns yesterday while Regan’s isn’t expected to be until later this week.
That’s fair enough. No problems there, right?
The press watchdog IPSO, which is responsible for the language used by the media with regard to transgender issues, is reviewing its policies.
We urge readers to participate in the consultation.
This is incredible.
We couldn’t put it better than Alba MP Neale Hanvey, who said:
The SNP are a flailing shambles of incompetence, under a leader fast losing her iron grip on her own party as they watch her turning it into a laughing stock with growing horror. More and more disquiet reaches our ears from within her increasingly leaky and nervous Parliamentary groups. Who will be the first to tie their courage to a flagpole and make the move to mutiny? We can only wait and see.
Man, we wish we hadn’t used this headline up two days ago.
BBC Scotland’s Debate Night programme last night was rather peculiar. It took place in a mostly-empty studio, but clearly not due to COVID precautions because the people who were there were all jammed tightly together in the middle. (In fairness, given BBC Scotland’s audience ratings they may still have outnumbered television viewers.)
On an all-female panel it featured, “by popular demand”, someone presenter Stephen Jardine described as “one of our best-loved comedians”, a former electrician called Susie McCabe, who we’d never heard of in our lives. (She apparently presented the channel’s Hogmanay show, something no sane adult has watched since 1982.)
She made one particular contribution that set social media aflame.
The entire mainstream Scottish media has picked up this afternoon on our intriguing scoop from yesterday about Peter Murrell lending the SNP £108,000 last year.
(The official SNP line is that it was for “cash flow reasons after the 2021 election”, although that doesn’t explain why less than half the money has been paid back more than 18 months later. Surely the party’s had enough cash flowing back in since then?)
And it’s enlightening to see how Scotland’s “proper” journalists handle such things.
Left: February 2020. Right: November 2022.
Or possibly the other way round, we’re not sure. All we know is that we’re always surging upwards and forwards but somehow never actually getting anywhere.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
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