Nine Minutes Later 134
Posted on
December 10, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Two stories from yesterday’s Scottish papers, published at 11.19am and 11.28am:
But it’s even weirder than it looks.
Archive for the ‘media’
We are lost for words 295
Posted on
November 06, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It doesn’t happen often, but it has today. Because Nick Robinson said this:
You know, Nick Robinson. It was Nick Robinson who just complained about someone misleadingly editing an interview to make it look as though someone hadn’t answered a question. Seriously, the actual Nick Robinson.
We’ve got nothing, folks.
How numbers work, with Paul and John 241
Posted on
August 30, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We just watched a nine-minute segment on Sky News, purportedly on the subject of “Is the Union between Scotland and England under threat?”, which for maximum balance and impartiality included views from both Labour and the Tories – in the forms of Paul Sweeney MP and John Lamont MP – but nobody else.
Both men spouted some quite extraordinary claims, all of which went unchallenged by presenter Adam Boulton. Let’s just take a quick look at a couple of the best ones.
Wait, what?
We agree with Dorothy 209
Posted on
August 22, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It seems mad that this even needs to be said.
Luckily, as always, Wings is way ahead of the zeitgeist.
The flip test 135
Posted on
August 21, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
If you’re a writer for a living and you want to check if something you’ve written might be embarrassingly stupid, there’s an easy and quick technique you can use.
By way of example, here’s Kenny Farquharson in the Times today, on the subject of the supposed similarities in the relationships between the Tories and the Brexit Party, and the SNP and the potential new Wings party:
So here’s the trick: switch the protagonists around.
We Are Not Your Hostage 207
Posted on
August 17, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Oh dear God in Heaven, not THIS again.
Helen Thompson is apparently the “Professor of Political Economy” at Cambridge University. No wonder the country is being run by imbeciles.
Let’s speak really slowly and see if the idiots can get it into their thick heads this time.
The big idea 604
Posted on
August 13, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Crazy stuff happens when we have a thought.
Buckle in for a bumpy ride if you don’t like pictures of my ugly mug.
On Tape 324
Posted on
August 11, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We thought readers might possibly like to hear the unexpurgated audio of our interview with The Times this week, so that they could judge the tone of our “expletive-ridden condemnations” and whatnot for themselves.
Other than a few bits of minor tidying-up – such as me umming and aahing trying to remember the name of a song, or when the manager came round to ask if we wanted more drinks – this is the whole of the “official” interview.
(In conversation with Kenny Farquharson of The Times, 1 August 2019)
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Running the numbers 452
Posted on
August 10, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
So, there’s been quite a response to our interview in today’s Times.
The interview was an interesting one in itself that we might talk more about later this weekend, but let’s leave that aside for now and talk about the headline take, because as usual the Scottish media is presenting it in a remarkably dishonest manner.
Voices of the colonies 408
Posted on
August 07, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
In case you missed it, there was an interesting phone-in on the subject of Scottish independence on James O’Brien’s LBC radio show from 10am this morning. I chipped my tuppence-worth in at the start (I’m the second caller, from about 6m 25s), but it’s fascinating listening to O’Brien’s tone evolve as the hour-long segment goes on.
(James O’Brien, LBC, 7 August 2019)
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We don’t doubt for a moment the sincerity and good intent with which he states his position. But when he talks in the intro about the special feelings he has when he’s in Scotland, which he also gets in Greece, the whole argument collapses.
Because O’Brien doesn’t appear to need to feel that he “owns” Greece, or that he’s a Greek citizen, to have that warmth towards it. He doesn’t need the people of England to elect Greece’s governments for it – he’s happy to have those feelings towards a completely independent country. So why not about an independent Scotland?
(Sadly I was cut off before I got a chance to respond to his point about Germany and its federal regions, which would have been to point out that no one German region is six times bigger than all the others put together and can – and does – impose its will on them whenever it wants.)
And much to his credit he appears to realise that as the show goes on. Whether he still thinks deep down that the Scottish independence movement is in significant part driven by anti-Englishness, only he can say. But his callers today at least appear to have made him think about it, and it’s a process worth listening to.
The cut-off 160
Posted on
August 03, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Times leads its Scottish edition today with a piece on Ruth Davidson’s collapsing popularity with Tory members, which it helpfully illustrates with a graph.
Alert readers will notice, however, that for some inexplicable reason the graph ends more than a year ago, in July 2018, with Davidson’s rating still at a very healthy 54% – some three and a half times what it is now. So we’ve fixed it for them.
