Point and counterpoint 202
Posted on
September 10, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Archive for the ‘media’
A list of nothing 261
Posted on
September 09, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Daily Record today outlines what it’s pushing hard as a triumphant intervention from Gordon Brown which justifies a No vote in the referendum. (It also claims the credit, comically suggesting its Monday front page drove Brown’s announcement.)
It lists “12 new powers” in Brown’s plan. Let’s take a look.
We don’t think we understand 329
Posted on
September 08, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We just watched, jaws agape, as the BBC news channel gave Scottish Labour an uninterrupted 50-minute party political broadcast for no immediately obvious reason. It mainly took place at Loanhead Miners’ Welfare, and featured speeches from a warm-up man, then Johann Lamont, and finally Gordon Brown.
The ostensible event justifying this extraordinary coverage lasted just 2m 36s.
And having sat through the whole circus, we still have no idea what it was for.
The quality press 50
Posted on
September 08, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
You have to laugh.
Anyone would think WE were the ones who’d had to remove, apologise for and pay compensation for defamatory articles about THEM.
A theme develops 238
Posted on
September 07, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Kicking the dog until it bites 326
Posted on
September 06, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Today’s Daily Mail carries a dismal article under a hysterical essay of a headline reading “Homes vandalised, accused of stealing jobs and an atmosphere of discriminatory intimidation: The savage racism turning Scotland into a no-go zone for the English”. (It actually describes a couple of minor incidents, spread over several years, affecting a single elderly couple in Stirling, without a shred of evidence that they were in fact motivated by their Englishness.)
There are undoubtedly small pockets of anti-English racism to be found in parts of Scotland, like there are small pockets of every kind of racism and prejudice found in every country in the world. But why would any Scottish person ever be driven to feel animosity towards the English – our friends, our family and our neighbours?
Not just because of a few isolated nutters on Facebook, surely?
Brian Wilson is a liar 167
Posted on
September 06, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers will already be aware that former Labour MP, minister and nuclear-power lobbyist Brian Wilson is one of our least favourite figures in the independence debate.
A man utterly consumed by tribal hatred of the SNP – even by the standards of Scottish Labour, which is no mean accolade – his Scotsman columns are some of the most mendacious, bilious propaganda to be found in the country, to the extent that we don’t even link to them in our “Zany Comedy Relief” section.
Today, however, he’s outdone himself in spectacular style.
If you can’t say something nice 502
Posted on
September 04, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
…you probably write for the Express.
Yesterday we posted a couple of tweets observing the fact that the Scottish media had conspicuously ignored the phenomenon that is The Wee Blue Book. (We’d have made more of the total blanking had we been even a little bit surprised.)
Despite having extensively reported almost every other document published about the referendum debate (such as Sir Tom Hunter’s almost-impenetrable digital-only effort), the press saw nothing at all newsworthy about a 72-page book that’s been downloaded over 400,000 times online and which a small team of complete amateurs had managed to fund, print and distribute more than 250,000 physical copies of in a matter of days, with demand still far outstripping supply.
But it turned out we were being a little unfair.
Assessing the earthquake 750
Posted on
September 02, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
If anyone was still harbouring any doubts as to the significance of last night’s poll news, they would surely have been dispelled by this serious, thought-provoking and perceptive analysis on the BBC news channel’s “The Papers” roundup last night.
Of course, the poll might be a rogue. It might just be a temporary bounce from the second Salmond-Darling debate. And it still shows No in front. The Yes campaign will have to redouble its efforts in the last couple of weeks, not start congratulating itself.
But the one thing we can surely all agree on, right across the political divides, is that the most important aspect is whether someone might at some point have been slightly rude to Andrew Lloyd Webber on Twitter or not.
Bringing the smackdown 123
Posted on
September 01, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We thought this deserved a wider audience after the Herald’s appalling front-page lead scare story today by Michael Settle and Kate Devlin, channelling Jim Murphy MP:
“SCOTTISH POLICE FEDERATION
5 Woodside Place, Glasgow, G3 7QFTo: News Editor
Date: 1 September 2014
Subject: Independence Referendum
Oooft. ‘Nuff said.
Brass neck polished again 130
Posted on
September 01, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Daily Record, 27 Aug 2014:
And Mr Brown again in the Observer, 31 August 2014:
They want to cut corporation tax by 3p in the pound. That’s less for health and pensions, not more.”
Veteran readers will know where we’re going next.
