Still, at least the Record hasn’t been so completely lacking in self-awareness as to point a finger at others in Scotland and say something like “far too many people who should know better are complicit in the tragedy”.
From today’s lurid Scottish Daily Mail cover splash about a “£1 BILLION TAX BLACK HOLE” appearing in the Scottish budget “despite [imaginary] Nationalist tax hikes”:
There’s quite an interesting piece in today’s Sunday National detailing the extremely unequal representation of various parties on the BBC’s network politics shows in the last month, in which readers will be astonished to learn that the SNP (and Scotland in general) come off very poorly.
(Five appearances compared to eight for the Lib Dems, 40 for Labour and a startling 143 for the Tories.)
As it happened, it coincided with our coming by a list of people who’ve appeared on the Corporation’s nightly newspaper-review show, so we wondered whether the brave members of the press whose job it is to scrutinise politics independently might have redressed the balance somewhat.
When this complaint got the brush-off from the BBC, flatly refusing a right of reply under Article 28 of the Broadcasting Code to the Corporation’s grossly unbalanced and factually-inaccurate coverage of our court case against Kezia Dugdale:
We now have to go through TWO more rounds of pointless dickaboutery and dismissal from the BBC, taking up several weeks, before Ofcom will take the matter up.
(You may have noted, incidentally, that the letter gives no indication that its response can be appealed in any way. It took Ofcom to tell us it could.)
You’re going to need to before you watch today’s episode of The Jeremy Vine Show, featuring Paul Burrell (who used to be a royal butler about 20 years ago and somehow is now a political commentator), Nicola McLean (who used to get her surgically-altered breasts out for tabloid newspapers around the same time and then went on a reality show for halfwits with no actual talents), and Carole Malone, who we assume is some sort of live public-safety-information warning about the dangers of overdoing HRT.
Vine watches the unfolding horror with the expression of a man absolutely convinced he’s going to be murdered the next time he comes to Scotland. The most painful part is probably just after (Scottish) co-host and former weathergirl Storm Huntley (no, really) helpfully pipes up to suggest “shortbread, tartan… bagpipes” as Scotland’s economic foundations, at which point Jeremy turns in last-ditch desperation to the audience to save him from this slow-motion trainwreck and… well, you’ll see how that goes.
When the second indyref comes along, whenever the Yes campaign has a political broadcast slot on TV, we suggest just putting this on every time.
As Ofcom require any complaints about the BBC to be directed to the Corporation first, I’ve sent the BBC the letter below today (by physical mail, as the online complaint form is comically inadequate), which I expect to be a waste of time and energy. If I don’t receive a satisfactory response – and I’m sure that I won’t – I’ll take it up with Ofcom.
An alert Wings reader noted that they hadn’t been able to locate any coverage by the state broadcaster of the SNP’s annual conference this weekend either, even though they send live cameras to just about any other party’s gatherings even if they amount to three people in a phone box (hi, Scottish Lib Dems).
Alert readers will know by now that there’s nothing the Scottish media – and the Scottish Daily Mail in particular – likes more than printing scary-sounding figures with no context whatsoever by which people could judge how big or small they really are.
Nothing’s changed today (other than a rather sneaky inset shot of an old story about a different statistic which misleadingly makes today’s one look like a big increase), so rather than bang on we’ll just fill in the blanks: ScotRail runs around 760,000 trains a year, so this year’s cancellation figures amount to about 3.5% of all trains.
Which is to say, around one time in every 30 that you go to get a train it’ll have been cancelled and you’ll have to wait for the next one, which on the average commuter line will probably mean 15-20 minutes.
Which is still a pain in the hole, of course, but if it’s such a high number ask yourself why the Mail is so pathologically averse to simply telling you what percentage it is.
We’ll see you again with these figures in a few weeks, folks.
Colin Alexander on All Or Nothing: “It is sheer folly to engage in a dead-end colonial-Scotland political system for the purpose of Scottish independence since The…” May 8, 09:17
Alf Baird on All Or Nothing: “You make an excellent point Robert. The Rev’s view (and that of the daeless co-opted SNP leadership) that Scottish national…” May 8, 09:03
MaryB on All Or Nothing: “I think Robert, above, is correct. The unionist are deliberately fostering despair and apathy and you, Stu, are playing their…” May 8, 08:56
Chas on All Or Nothing: “The psychiatric nurses forgot to lock the door to the computer room again! You never disappoint Billy. Mince after mince…” May 8, 08:41
Hatey McHateface on All Or Nothing: “I’m with you, Bob. Post the date and time of the March On Hollyrood on here and I’ll see you…” May 8, 07:57
Hatey McHateface on All Or Nothing: “Why aren’t you wearing a bunnet, or a glengarry, or a tam o’ shanter? What are you, some kind of…” May 8, 07:39
Robert Hughes on All Or Nothing: “” And the reason for that is that in their hearts everyone knows independence is dead as a genuine political…” May 8, 07:39
Hatey McHateface on All Or Nothing: “That’s fit ah always say tae the boy wha comes tae read ma meter: “Giza power plant o ma very…” May 8, 07:31
Aidan on All Or Nothing: “No, the view from the U.K. treasury and its economists, not from you misquoting William Waldegrave (who in any case…” May 8, 06:24
yoon scum on All Or Nothing: “got any figures on how much we send to the English and what we get back” May 8, 04:22
Billy Carlin on All Or Nothing: “Actually you might want to watch the Electric Universe guys expose what caused canyon systems etc on Mars, the Earth…” May 7, 23:42
handclapping on All Or Nothing: “Too political, Stu. Ghandi was right, Congress was wrong.” May 7, 22:15
agent x on All Or Nothing: “They are giving enough for the SNP to pretend they are doing things for people in Scotland. Oh It’s Scotland…” May 7, 22:06
James on All Or Nothing: “Yeah, they’re giving a little bit more of our revenues back to us [places cap in hand] “..thank ‘ee guv’nor”.” May 7, 21:41
Yoon Scum on All Or Nothing: “How about No more anonymous voting All votes have to be public and registered So anyone who voted NO can…” May 7, 21:41
James on All Or Nothing: ““…the prevailing view across the U.K. is Scotland is a net recipient of public funding…” Nice try. The view (lie)…” May 7, 21:35
agent x on All Or Nothing: ““(in which the main policy was the re-abolition of peak rail fares just months after the SNP insisted such a…” May 7, 21:04
Hatey McHateface on All Or Nothing: “It’s in the In Tray, x. Trouble is, more urgent stuff keeps getting dropped on top. So it’s now well…” May 7, 21:00
Hatey McHateface on All Or Nothing: “I don’t think you’ve taken that nearly far enough, Jamie. Here’s my idea – you’ll kick yourself for not thinking…” May 7, 20:56
KITTYBEE on All Or Nothing: “Voting for Scottish Independence – ha so you have a use after all!!” May 7, 20:49
Hatey McHateface on All Or Nothing: “I’m of the opinion that if I was to take Rev Stu’s text above, feed it into an AI, and…” May 7, 20:48
Yoon Scum on All Or Nothing: “is it just us English filth that should be banned from voting Or would you include the new Scots who…” May 7, 20:47
Yoon Scum on All Or Nothing: “is it just us English filth that should be banned from voting Or would you include the new Scots who…” May 7, 20:47
Yoon Scum on Let’s Make Jen Safe Again: “I’m told that the only reason the TORY SCUM wanted to leave the Eu was that the EU where going…” May 7, 20:43
Yoon Scum on All Or Nothing: “And he got that by people like me voting for them as they where making a decent job at running…” May 7, 20:41
agent x on All Or Nothing: “The SNP under Salmond achieved a majority at a Scottish PR vote = he got a referendum – get that…” May 7, 20:32
agent x on All Or Nothing: “Hold on – I thought the UN are going to declare that Scotland is independent!” May 7, 20:29
Alastair on All Or Nothing: “The SNP offer no route to independence. As a lifetime indepenanista that’s a tough one to face up to. Not…” May 7, 20:04
Lorn on All Or Nothing: “Yes, I can see how that might well work, Rev, but I am still wary of pre independence referendums. They…” May 7, 19:41
Xaracen on Let’s Make Jen Safe Again: ““And of course immediately rejoining the European UNION” I said nothing about rejoining the EU, but even if we did,…” May 7, 19:39