We wouldn’t like to suggest Unionists are clutching at straws this week, but:
Number of words actually spoken by David Bowie about independence: 4
Number of words written about it so far by major news outlets: 3,916
To be honest we stopped counting after that.
So we just got this a few minutes ago (click pic to enlarge):
And now we’re really starting to think a licence-fee avoidance campaign is a good idea.
Another scrupulously balanced panel from the state broadcaster.
The papers-review slot is turning into quite the little regular treat.
As we’ve noted before, the Independent is by a large distance the most English of all the UK’s “national” newspapers. Alone among its peers, it has no Scottish edition, no Scottish news section, no Scottish editor, not even a full-time Scottish correspondent. It struggles to shift 3,000 (not a typo – THREE thousand) copies a day in Scotland.
So if we were conducting a panel debate about Scotland on a news channel, we’re not sure that the paper’s chief political commentator Steve Richards is the guy we’d call for expertise. But the BBC, bless it, has other ideas.
That notwithstanding, today’s edition of Dateline London was an interesting watch. Correspondents from the USA, China and Greece, and host Gavin Esler, offered some largely insightful comments, only occasionally interrupted by Richards butting in in a desperate attempt to get the discussion back on the standard UK-media line.
Can’t wait to read these two stories in the morning.
Goodnight, readers.
Britain and Scotland’s journalists have set a high bar for stupid today, but this might take the biscuit. Almost every half-cut hack and so-called expert who talks about the currency options open to Scotland casually mentions that Scotland “could join the Euro”. Whether such people are doing so through ignorance of the rules of the Eurozone or through malicious intent is for observers to decide, but either way, this particular piece of witless misinformation just will not go away.
So, let’s make it nice and easy for all the lazy people who can’t be bothered Googling “Eurozone Convergence Criteria”, shall we?
It would do our blood pressure no good at all to analyse in detail the extraordinary parade of dishonesty and naked bias that made up last night’s edition of Newsnight Scotland (RIP pending). Instead, we’ll just show you these two super-short clips of one of the show’s “expert” guest analysts, former Labour spin doctor John McTernan.
Here he is last night:
We’ve speculated on a few occasions recently on the effect on Scottish public opinion of almost the entire Scottish media being owned and controlled from outside Scotland. So we thought it was time we actually put some facts and figures to it.
This sort of thing really shouldn’t be so startling and unusual that we feel we need to preserve it for posterity, but here’s someone on a BBC current-affairs programme giving a fair and balanced analysis of Scottish politics:
Based on the BBC’s track record this section will be missing when it goes out on the iPlayer, so we thought we better grab it while we could.
Here’s the Herald today on YouGov’s latest independence polling:
All absolutely true. But is it the whole truth?
The Sun’s editions on both sides of the border today go in heavy with the results of a YouGov poll showing a dramatic turnaround in the percentage of English (and Welsh) people who want Scotland to leave the UK.
Or at least, SOME of the results.
We were a little perplexed this morning by the Daily Record’s banner headline.
And not just because of the unusually generous use by the Labour-supporting paper of the term “SNP Government” (rather than “Scottish Goverment”) on a good-news story.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
