Alert readers will remember that last month we debunked a front-page story from the Scottish Daily Mail about SNP MPs’ expenses, which made the spectacularly untrue claim that they were more expensive than their Unionist predecessors, when in fact they cost significantly less and did far more work.
A couple of days ago the Mail finally ran a “clarification”. And we thought you might like to know exactly how much more the Mail values lies than truth.
The highlighted areas on the picture above occupy 440,107 pixels.
We’ll be honest, there are some bits of this that make us wince, and unfortunately most of them come in the first two minutes where they’ll do the most damage in terms of getting a persuadeable voter to watch the rest of it. But it’s an important piece of work, containing stuff even we didn’t know about, and it should be seen.
I wasn’t going to mention this on the site because it’s basically a personal matter, but as most readers don’t use Twitter or Facebook it probably ought to be briefly filed for the record, given the amount of media coverage there’s been.
As alert readers will know, one of the primary purposes of this website isn’t just to tell people when the Scottish and UK media is lying to them, but to teach readers how to spot that for themselves. And one of the keys to learning that is to ask yourself what a story in the press is leaving out as well as what it’s telling you.
So last week, when several newspapers went on an orgy of shock-horror reporting about SNP MPs’ expenses – focusing mostly on aeroplane flights and only quoting figures for a small handful of MPs who’d allegedly been claiming far more taxpayers’ money than their Unionist predecessors – alarm bells started ringing everywhere.
And just as we’ve taught them to, Wings readers leapt into action to do the hard work that Scotland’s professional journalists don’t want to do, in order to provide Scots with the facts that the media doesn’t want them to know.
This article by US writer Emily Robinson is probably more instructive than anything we could post today (the Sunday papers are a news desert again, frankly). It doesn’t take a very great feat of imagination to transpose the American terms to Scottish ones – for “Berniebros” read “cybernats”, etc. Phantom news, it seems, is universal.
Nobody could ever accuse the Scottish press of underpromoting its grievances – alert readers will still recall, for example, the long procession of articles with near-identical content in the Daily Mail last year about SNP MPs and their “second jobs”. For 2016, though, the media’s obsessive repeating of the exact same story every few weeks has manifested itself over Nat members’ expenses.
There are three separate articles in today’s Sunday Times on the same subject, all containing the same information, of which the below is the most concise.
Yesterday we drew attention to a disgracefully untrue claim made by the leader of the Ruth Davidson No Surrender To A Second Referendum Party at the day’s FMQs.
Davidson had attempted to pass off the personal views of just THREE members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as representing the official position of the august and 125,000-strong body. It’s the sort of bare-faced lie we’re sadly accustomed to hearing from opposition leaders in the chamber, but it was also an illustration of a much wider and depressingly-growing phenomenon.
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “HMcH Well Oi Vey Y’all!! FYI: Mumbling was permitted when swearing-in in divided Glasgow back then.. AI not tell you…” Feb 21, 00:01
Onlooker on When the law breaks the law: “Reply reply reply reply reply reply reply sneer fart waffle baffle babble…if you are a paid bot, you must have…” Feb 20, 23:22
Onlooker on When the law breaks the law: “Forgive my lack of exact recollection of details, but didn’t Nicola Sturgeon recommend Dorothy Bain for the Lord Advocate job…” Feb 20, 23:20
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “Anyone see the irony of Ross Greer attacking Randy Andy (guilty as eff probably) while “its” party was the governmental…” Feb 20, 23:20
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “I recall you claiming you served in the British Army. That will make you one of the very few (perhaps…” Feb 20, 23:14
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “Interesting how quickly, all things considered, that things have moved on since Auld Lizzie the lizard shuffled off this mortal…” Feb 20, 22:53
chic kirk on When the law breaks the law: “i donated but will do so again as needed, we the public must step forwrd to support people like mark…” Feb 20, 22:23
David Holden on When the law breaks the law: “Perhaps we should be running a crowd funder for the world’s greatest living half Greek former prince who has fallen…” Feb 20, 16:07
sarah on When the law breaks the law: “@ Mark Hirst: I donated when you first opened the crowdfunder and will do so again. I note that the…” Feb 20, 15:55
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Well, well! Grudging respect to Professor Baird. Precisely as predicted by Fanon, Memmi, et al, the linguistically colonised YL has…” Feb 20, 15:08
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Hasn’t the world’s greatest living half Scot, President Donald Trump, defunded that useless, toothless talking shop and safe haven for…” Feb 20, 14:38
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “HMcH Eh? Sorry, no idea what you’re talking about. Have you been indulging in self-trepanation again..” Feb 20, 14:35
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on When the law breaks the law: ““The Act of Union at least protected the Scots legal system” ? ————- Worth listening again to the seminal speech…” Feb 20, 14:22
dearieme on When the law breaks the law: “All this is a powerful argument against devolved Scottish government. Scrap the bloody thing, it’s failed. The Act of Union…” Feb 20, 13:27
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Great stuff, Northy. I’d heard of galactic clusters. Now you’re teaching me about galactic clusterfucks.” Feb 20, 12:07
Northcode on When the law breaks the law: “Chris Wormald… former Cabinet Secretary for Great Britain, UK, and England recently replaced by: Dame Antonia Rebecca Caroline Angharad Catherine…” Feb 20, 11:39
McDuff on When the law breaks the law: “Donated. Best of luck Mark as you have been severely wronged and the thugs that targeted you need to be…” Feb 20, 11:20
Northcode on The Future Is Yesterday: “The past is tomorrow… not least because us humans insist on repeating history, and with not a single lesson ever…” Feb 20, 11:17
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Aye, Alf, I guess if the only tool in your armoury is a spoon, every situation must look like a…” Feb 20, 10:48
Alf Baird on When the law breaks the law: ““The case we’re discussing here is entirely home grown” Don’t be silly. Despite the inevitable ‘on-the-ground indigenous agents'(Elkins) operating in…” Feb 20, 10:37
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “There’s something about Fanon makes my hair curl.” Feb 20, 10:28
willie on The Future Is Yesterday: “Rejected by the electorate in the constituency but then perchance a seat at the top of the regional list. Why…” Feb 20, 10:23
Andy Wiltshire on When the law breaks the law: “I’m cheering them on, but no doubt someone will explain that it’s all just something straight out of post-colonial theory…” Feb 20, 10:05
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: ““Movie”, YL? You’re colonised and you don’t even know it.” Feb 20, 08:46
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “Anyone else reckon Bain’s heid has a similar(ish) profile to a movie Predator? Just without the odd breathy way of…” Feb 19, 22:36
robertkknight on When the law breaks the law: “Pay day next week…standby! The alphabets and their party connections are no secret. Nor indeed their motivations. They still enjoy…” Feb 19, 22:01
agentx on When the law breaks the law: “O/T – but the Mens’s curling team are through to the final – guaranteed at least a silver medal and…” Feb 19, 22:01
