We were very pleased to hear Gary Robertson challenge Kezia Dugdale on the curious matter of Scottish Labour’s membership and income figures on today’s Good Morning Scotland. Dugdale flapped and dodged and waffled for as long as she could before diverting the topic onto federalism, and eventually managed to wriggle away from the subject without any sort of proper answer (through no fault of Robertson’s).
Almost a year ago we ran a short piece mocking a Scotsman headline which claimed that “THOUSANDS” of people had signed a Tory anti-referendum petition, when the actual number was a strictly-accurate-but-pathetic TWO thousand.
We didn’t think that could ever be beaten for technically-true hyperbolic exaggeration, but we’d reckoned without the bold boundary-pushing ingenuity of the Daily Express.
Hundreds of thousands? How many hundreds, exactly?
Today seems a good day to bring up the latest snippet of data from our poll.
Less than a third of Scots of all parties and persuasions think BBC Scotland provides “balanced” political coverage. Even among Unionists, twice as many feel it’s biased in their favour as the frankly unhinged group who think it’s pro-independence.
Remarkably, more Tory voters think the Beeb is biased in favour of independence than think it leans towards the Union, which is quite some feat of self-delusion. Among Labour and Lib Dem voters it’s three-to-one the other way, and more than 17-to-1 among SNP supporters.
Meanwhile, 5% of respondents claimed to have “never heard of” the state broadcaster, which just goes to prove what Panelbase regularly tell us about how you can get 5% to 10% of people to vote for ANY answer you put in a poll, up to and including “Would you like us to come round right now and shoot you in the face?”
The Scottish media has today leapt all over the front-page lead story from yesterday’s Sunday Times, in which “top economist” Douglas McWilliams of right-wing thinktank the Centre for Economics and Business Research made an apocalyptic prediction of a huge deficit turning an independent Scotland into “a Third World country”.
The Express’ customarily restrained coverage is pretty typical.
We wondered if Mr McWilliams used to have a more optimistic view.
There’s a truly abominable piece of hatemongering in today’s Times. A grotesequely dishonest Nat-bashing smear job based on stupendously misrepresented fragments of quotes, it’s penned by Patrick Harkness, someone who the paper identifies as “a past co-chairman of the RSE [Royal Society of Edinburgh] Young Academy of Scotland”.
For some reason it’s chosen to leave a few lines off his CV.
Alert readers will of course be aware that a recurring theme on this site is looking for the alleged abusive behaviour by supporters of independence which gets regularly reported in outraged terms by newspapers but is mysteriously almost never supported by any actual evidence of the supposed abuse.
In every case the papers and/or alleged recipients of all these dreadful separatist haranguings screamed “VILE ABUSE!”, swooning at the horror of it all, then suddenly turned deaf and dumb when asked to provide any examples.
So we were quite surprised yesterday when a previous complainant – brutal stickering victim and lonely Scottish Labour MP Ian Murray – actually came up with the proof.
Five minutes and 51 seconds, to be precise, is how long David Mundell, Secretary of State for Scotland, spent frantically quacking out meaningless noise on this morning’s Sunday Politics Scotland in order to avoid answering a simple Yes/No question until the interview ran out of airtime.
We could quibble with presenter Gordon Brewer making the assertion that a Section 30 order would in fact be necessary for a second referendum (something which has never been established in law or conceded by the Scottish Government, with strong and genuine legal opinion on both sides of the argument), and with him letting Mundell get away with the blatant falsehood that an overwhelming majority of Scots don’t want another referendum – in fact, 50% want one within the next two years.
But sometimes you have to let some smaller things slide to avoid distraction and stay focused on your main point, and in our view this was one of those occasions.
Should we check out that link and find out whether the then-FM really DID “claim that the Scottish NHS would be privatised if Scots voted No”, readers? Let’s do!
Readers familiar with our standing advice to newspaper customers that the headline is nearly always a lie might like to consider today’s Press & Journal.
The word “pyre” comes from the Greek word “pyra”, meaning “fire”. Surprisingly, it’s NOT the same root as “Pyrrhic”, as in “Pyrrhic victory”, meaning one that’s achieved by metaphorically burning your own city down. (Which in fact is named after the Greek general Pyrrhus of Epirus.)
100%Yes on There May Be Justice: “Who can blame him, I wish him well and thank Bruce for all he’s done. grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com is no longer available.…” Oct 5, 20:43
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: “The cheek of her to complain. When she’s looking so well, hale and hearty on the very fare she’s complaining…” Oct 5, 19:59
Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Your selectively cropped quotation is blindingly obvious, Alf. Not quite the best way for an academic to impress his peers.…” Oct 5, 19:54
Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “The right to self-determination is indeed universal and inalienable, but outside of a military occupation or colonialism (neither of which…” Oct 5, 19:49
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: “Which is going to break up first then, Alf? The UK or Orcland?” Oct 5, 19:14
Alf Baird on There May Be Justice: ““Scotland is the mess it is because it isn’t independent” Indeed so. Colonialism is ‘a Manichaean world’ (Fanon) where light…” Oct 5, 19:14
Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Don’t waste your time. The list of independent, corrupt countries is longer than both your arms.” Oct 5, 19:10
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: “Very happy indeed to be a white man, Confused. Equally happy for you to self identify as something inferior. Long…” Oct 5, 19:00
Al-Stuart on There May Be Justice: “. The whimpering sound of something curled up in a mingin, damp, dirty corner is wee James Kelly crying himself…” Oct 5, 18:55
Alf Baird on The Love Of Big Brother: “” Article 2 guarantees the territorial integrity and political independence of all member states.” Which only applies if the state…” Oct 5, 18:50
Lorncal on The Love Of Big Brother: “H McH: we have had a nationalist government for around 20 years of over 300 years in the Union, so,…” Oct 5, 18:38
Dave on There May Be Justice: “The SNP’s entire raison d’être and defining mission should have always been about just one thing: independence for Scotland. However,…” Oct 5, 17:32
100%Yes on There May Be Justice: “Well done Rev. Hopefully history being made.” Oct 5, 17:21
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on There May Be Justice: “Attempt at a Gaelic version of the above – AN RÒS BEAG GEAL Chan eil mo shùil air ròs an…” Oct 5, 17:12
Northcode on There May Be Justice: “For those interested, a Scottish judicial review typically takes 6–18 months from lodging the petition to a final decision, depending…” Oct 5, 17:05
Rev. Stuart Campbell on In The Eyes Of The Law: “For the reasons explained in last week’s post about it. Does anyone bother reading past the fucking headline?” Oct 5, 16:22
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Love Of Big Brother: ““I thought the introduction of these rules matched those already in place in England and Wales from a year ago.”…” Oct 5, 16:20
holymacmoses on There May Be Justice: “The Scottish people owe yourself, Roddy, David and Lynne and no doubt a few more ‘good men’, a huge debt…” Oct 5, 15:44
Gordoz on There May Be Justice: “Q- Why do I always end up agreeing with Rev Campbell ?? A- Turns out he is pretty much the…” Oct 5, 15:44
Northcode on There May Be Justice: ““This is about being a country worthy of independence…” It could be argued that Scotland is the mess it is…” Oct 5, 15:28
panda paws on There May Be Justice: ““So please don’t donate any more money at this stage, unless you ARE one of said eccentric billionaires” I’m not…” Oct 5, 15:22
TURABDIN on There May Be Justice: “There are two mindsets. The one that operates from the general to the particular and one that operates in the…” Oct 5, 15:01
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on There May Be Justice: “Willie writes (5 Oct 2026 at 1:09 pm): « This one’s for Moira…Democracy is a fragile flower » —————- Brings…” Oct 5, 13:53
Terry on There May Be Justice: “Proud to be part of this – especially when I complained to the police about the donations I gave, got…” Oct 5, 13:25
Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “Yes “Confused” – an accurate and concise description description of the formation of Great Britain is “irrelevant pedantry”, whereas your…” Oct 5, 13:23
Ian on The Love Of Big Brother: “People in glass houses……. https://archive.ph/3OAhZ” Oct 5, 13:12
Willie on There May Be Justice: “This one’s for Moira. Yes, that struck a cord. Justice has to be served for what was done to Alex…” Oct 5, 13:09
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Love Of Big Brother: “SARA SALYERS: NO KINGDOM NO UNION (3 Oct 2026) www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l6XDoIg4uI” Oct 5, 12:30
Northcode on The Love Of Big Brother: “For clarity: Q: Is Scotland a country? A: YES Q: Is England a country? A: YES Q: Is Scotland a…” Oct 5, 11:58
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Love Of Big Brother: “Professor ROBERT BLACK KC GENEVA SPEECH (18 Sept 2025) www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGvHUWYNyGM” Oct 5, 11:42
