We’re on about Day 79 of NoScottishPoliticsNewsGate (today’s big “EXCLUSIVE!” in the Herald is something we told you about last Friday, and was also an “exclusive” in yesterday’s Scottish Sun), so we found ourselves getting diverted by something else in the papers this morning.
The Scottish Daily Mail had a piece on the cost of train journeys from Scotland, and living in Bath you don’t need to tell us how scandalously expensive British railways are compared to almost any other country in the Northern Hemisphere.
But the Mail is the Mail, and it couldn’t help distorting even an open-goal of a story like that until it had almost no relation to reality. And it’s a very useful illustration, should anybody need yet another one, of how this country’s newspapers vastly mislead their readers without actually technically lying.
The front page lead of today’s Scottish Daily Mail:
As alert readers of this site will know, the Mail has a particular fondness for presenting statistics bereft of any context so that people have no idea how big or small they really are. So is 1,600 passengers a week receiving compensation for delays a lot or a little? Let’s find out.
Ever aware of its need to deliver informed enlightenment to the populace, the state broadcaster has recently put up a “BBC Brexit Jargon Buster” page on its website. We’re not sure it was meant to be quite this candid.
There was a certain uncomfortable 2018 inevitability this morning over the fact that where people were offended, arrests would follow.
And the burning of a cardboard model of the Grenfell Tower last night was certainly right up near the top in the pantheon of cretinously offensive things. Many victims of the appalling tragedy, which killed 72 people and injured many more, still haven’t been properly rehomed almost a year and a half later.
We’ve been through all the papers and there’s still absolutely no Scottish politics news, so we’re going to take a moment out for one of our brief but always-popular tangential forays into the world of football. All the usual disclaimers apply.
Because the parlous state of current Scottish journalism can’t just be observed on the politics pages, with all their partisan spin, quarter-truths and hackery. Sometimes you get a better idea of it by stepping back and looking at the broader picture, and rarely is that picture more clear than when it’s a picture of “Rangers”.
The Daily Record devoted only a tiny corner of its back page on Thursday to the club’s latest financial reports, and the bulk of the text was devoted to Dave King enthusing about what great news it all was.
Pretty much every other piece of coverage to be found in the Scottish press was the same, shrugging the figures off as of no notable significance and all someone else’s fault anyway (in this case former manager Pedro Caixinha, even though one must suppose he didn’t spend any more money than the board told him he could), and we waited in vain for any in-depth analysis in the Sundays.
And we couldn’t help thinking we’d been here before.
Alert readers may have noticed that for a non-holiday period, Scottish politics is a deathly quiet place at the moment. Papers are struggling to find anything to write about at all, and were beside themselves with joy this week when presented with the chance to fabricate a ridiculous “anti-Semitism” story about an obscure blogger criticising a trade union and fill several pages with hysterical fauxtrage over it.
The sheer dearth of anything happening whatsoever is typified by the Scottish Daily Mail’s front-page splash this morning.
It sounds dramatic – a potentially catastrophic en-masse exodus of Scotland’s doctors would certainly be a crisis. But anyone reading beyond the lurid headline will swiftly discover a rather less doom-laden reality.
As if it wasn’t enough that one small country had to cope with the terrible burden of hundreds of billions of pounds of volatile oil revenues, now we have to face the grim prospect that with fossil fuels being phased out across the world to protect the climate, Scotland also produces TOO MUCH cheap, clean, infinitely renewable energy.
No wonder the Unionists think we’re too wee and too poor to go it alone.
Blimey, a “hammering”? Well, we suppose after 14 years in power they’ll have had a good run, so who’s going to replace them as the next Scottish Government?
There’s a remarkable piece in today’s Times about Stefan Cross, the lawyer working for the women in the Glasgow City Council equal-pay dispute. (For example it’s over 1500 words long but the word “Labour” doesn’t appear a single time, despite the party having controlled the council for the entire 20 years or so the dispute covers.)
The most interesting passage, though, is this one.
Because the story reveals that the GMB, an ultra-loyalist Labour and Unionist trade union, did absolutely everything in its power to obstruct and hamper the women’s claims until the spring of 2017, at which point the union experienced a Damascene conversion and threw their weight fully behind the women and against the council.
Aidan on The Con Merchant: “@George – how is 2026 a vital election? It’s going to lead to either an SNP or a Labour government…” Jun 30, 19:16
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “Ah, c’mon now Chas. It’s the English that are all about the money, not us Scots. Read Confused and learn.…” Jun 30, 19:06
Aidan on The Con Merchant: “@Andrew – I appreciate the optimism, but there are some people here who have a fixed set of views which…” Jun 30, 19:05
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: ““when the people of Scotland *were* eventually asked if they wanted to remain a part of the United Kingdom –…” Jun 30, 18:58
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “OK, Confused, I’ll bite. Who is it that thinks that you and he are “best mates”? I’m calling BS on…” Jun 30, 18:55
George Ferguson on The Con Merchant: “@Sarah 6:23pm I love your infectious enthusiasm for Independence and always look at your posts. I haven’t contacted Liberate if…” Jun 30, 18:52
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “Aye, Scot, and those barstard Spanish and Portugee speaking English in Central and South America were the worst of the…” Jun 30, 18:51
Chas on The Con Merchant: “5 posts one after another. Not that I, or 95% of Wings readers, will take time out to read any…” Jun 30, 18:47
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: ““70% income tax and 500% council tax” “The english are all about the money” Sometimes all further comment is superfluous.” Jun 30, 18:44
diabloandco on The Con Merchant: “Jings ! I’m doing a great deal of scrolling past these days. I do wonder why certain folk continue to…” Jun 30, 18:43
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “Thanks, Alf, but I hadn’t forgotten that. How could I? We all get daily reminders on here I just…” Jun 30, 18:39
Chas on The Con Merchant: “Scots will NEVER vote for Independence until someone/anyone details what this will actually mean. The financial aspects are unknown but…” Jun 30, 18:33
Dan on The Con Merchant: “@ Andy at 4.26pm Ach, piss off you trolling arsehole. What is yer gibberish over the top derogatory and hostile…” Jun 30, 18:32
sarah on The Con Merchant: “George, have you contacted Liberate.scot? They have a lot of relevant information and experience on call and may be able…” Jun 30, 18:23
Scot Finlayson on The Con Merchant: “Before the arrival of English and other immigrants, the Americas had an estimated population of between 40 and 100 million…” Jun 30, 18:22
Young Lochinvar on The Con Merchant: “Hmmm Who to vote for in the 2026 regional ministry of certain devolved powers election? Pointless; just as many are…” Jun 30, 18:12
twathater on The Con Merchant: “Bastard TAX MOAN jumping in to the defence of his fellow Scotland hating Franchise Fanny pal Funnily enough the Franchise…” Jun 30, 18:05
George Ferguson on The Con Merchant: “@Sarah 4:51pm I agree 2026 is a vital election. So why are other Independence Parties and Individuals intending to stand…” Jun 30, 17:51
Andy Ellis on The Con Merchant: “@Dan 9.06am “And yet when similar issues arising from your preferred open borders civic nationalism ideology come into play with…” Jun 30, 16:55
sarah on The Con Merchant: “To those Wings readers who want Scotland to become a self-governing territory again, rather than being a subservient and asset-stripped…” Jun 30, 16:51
Andy Ellis on The Con Merchant: “@Dan It’s always a surprise knowing you can see anything until you’ve wiped the spittle off your screen Dan. Still,…” Jun 30, 16:26
AndrewR on The Con Merchant: “I’m worried by the way the constitutional arguments return. The last time round – only a few days ago –…” Jun 30, 16:25
Andy Ellis on The Con Merchant: “The light, to some, is an unwelcome friend Sam.” Jun 30, 16:23
sam on The Con Merchant: “An apology to Andy Ellis for saying that he’s English. How did I get that idea? I dinnae ken.” Jun 30, 16:06
Confused on The Con Merchant: “more UGLY ANGLOS https://archive.ph/ItXms – that’s what you get for hogging all the sun loungers “cheap holiday in other peoples…” Jun 30, 15:36
Confused on The Con Merchant: “Can you imagine if a bunch of German students at Tel Aviv university were running around calling people “k1k3s” and…” Jun 30, 15:34
Alf Baird on The Con Merchant: ““When a majority of Scots indicate their determination to self-identify as Yoons, over and over again, only a moonhowling dribbler…” Jun 30, 15:29
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “If posters don’t agree with Rev Stu repeatedly showing graphs of Indy support flatlined at 48% then why the holy…” Jun 30, 15:00
Breastplate on The Con Merchant: “Nonsense John, “Democracy” by polling might suit the people whose opinions currently converge with the prevailing consensus in the polling…” Jun 30, 14:36
I just…
