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.
(This article was originally intended to go up on Wednesday, but it was somewhat overtaken by events before it was finished.)
This week has seen another of those strange coincidences by which a whole slew of Unionist pundits all randomly decide to start talking about the same subject. On this occasion it was the rape clause, and why it proved the SNP are bad.
Most of the on-the-spot media reporting of the judgement in our court case against Kezia Dugdale on Wednesday was pretty fair and straightforward news coverage. The majority of pieces accurately and prominently mentioned the fact that the sheriff had found that I wasn’t a homophobe and that Dugdale’s article in the Daily Record which had claimed that I was WAS both untrue and defamatory.
(Some readers objected to headlines claiming that Dugdale had been “victorious”, but the strict legal fact is that she had.)
But it didn’t take long for the press to recover its composure and revert to type.
A comment piece in today’s Herald is probably the peak so far.
We haven’t talked much on Wings about the court case currently in progress against former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale, for hopefully obvious reasons.
The case is currently “in avizandum” – legal jargon for “the sheriff is considering his decision” – and a result is hoped for around the end of this month, and while as far as we know there’s no actual rule against talking about it at this stage, if you’re one of the participants it’s probably not the greatest idea as a general principle.
But what CAN be discussed is a much wider issue which it touched on, as highlighted by Daily Record columnist Anna Burnside while talking about the case during last week’s BBC Radio Scotland media review on the John Beattie Show.
The debate had a fully balanced panel: Burnside, who thought I was an awful person, Stuart Cosgrove, who thought I was an awful person with a sometimes-good website, and Anne Marie Watson, who thought I was an awful person. But it was Burnside who really went in with the boot, as can be heard from 2m 27s on the clip below.
gm on The Party Of The Dead: “Well spotted Turabdin. The Ruling Class.” Aug 11, 22:05
James on The Party Of The Dead: ““….Who is the pathetic twat?” Still you, Bubba.” Aug 11, 21:10
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Generally speaking, TURABDIN, in our culture, we don’t expect the offspring of anybody to be held accountable for the sins…” Aug 11, 21:06
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Isn’t that how to deal with a fatberg? Divide it into smaller lumps that can then be individually flushed.” Aug 11, 20:56
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “What useful activities do you spend your day doing that you can be “diverted” and “distracted” from?” Aug 11, 20:40
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “OL Probably to hide the fact he hadn’t fully thawed out, plus all the resuscitation equipment he requires when brought…” Aug 11, 19:39
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “HMcH I suspect it was the Diet Coke supplies that got hardest hit. He’s a fan apparently.” Aug 11, 19:36
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Well hold on there Bald Eagle! True. I uncharacteristically missed that one 🙂” Aug 11, 19:31
James on The Party Of The Dead: “Well said, diabloandco. Those 4 Yoon trolls are endless. Here all day, every day to divert, distract and divide. As…” Aug 11, 19:29
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “Have you thought about moving to South West Scotland? It’d be nice to get some more English voices into the…” Aug 11, 19:21
James on The Party Of The Dead: “What a fucking clown you are, Adrian. You keep good company. Cue the SP.” Aug 11, 19:20
TURABDIN on The Party Of The Dead: “FILTHY LUCRE… https://archive.is/AkQ3T the spawn of a major war criminal keeping it in the family.” Aug 11, 18:42
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “Sure! Keep the cash rolling in. £20 on the meter so far. 🙂 Never done a good grift before, sounds…” Aug 11, 17:53
Minceheid on The Party Of The Dead: “Captain Caveman says: 11 August, 2026 at 4:39 pm No, no Aidan, I’m actually quite touched that Fatso would give…” Aug 11, 17:34
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “*margarita even 😀 Jeez, what a typo… don’t want Fatso to think I’m holding a French white daisy for him…” Aug 11, 17:21
Oneliner on The Party Of The Dead: “Gordon Brown had a black-windowed cavalcade of Range Rovers when he went to his ‘How To Save The Union’ meeting…” Aug 11, 17:17
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “I’ll be sure to do so too, just for him – marguerite in hand. 😀” Aug 11, 17:16
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “He probably hasn’t twigged that you’ll still be able to post on the internet, exactly as today, from another location…” Aug 11, 16:58
Stevie on Anatomy Of A Grift: “Mentally ill, delusional, perpetually-victimhood-angry, self-righteous = dangerous” Aug 11, 16:43
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “No, no Aidan, I’m actually quite touched that Fatso would give me his life savings to help move out. :)…” Aug 11, 16:39
James on The Party Of The Dead: “£20 towards your moving expenses, no problem. Just say the word. Good riddance.” Aug 11, 15:18
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “Some of this “analysis” borders on being absurd and is clearly written from the standpoint of another agenda. – Nobody…” Aug 11, 15:04
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Somebody would have had to count the pies and sandwiches, etc, before and after. If it’s the same employee that…” Aug 11, 14:29
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “I guess the imperial nationalist Scots aren’t “True Scots”, what with being brainwashed and all. If they might be concerned…” Aug 11, 14:20
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “I daresay even an airport catering truck is preferable to, say, a luxury campervan paid for with embezzled funds. 🙂” Aug 11, 14:14
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Batman had the Batmobile, the Pope has the Pope Mobile, JFK an open top saloon, the King a carriage and…” Aug 11, 13:50
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““definition of “Scot”” An interesting point, Hatey. We may say there are different forms of nationalist ideology at play, and…” Aug 11, 13:49
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “HMcH Those artisans hung At Lauder Bridge.” Aug 11, 13:40
