This post is mostly here to give people somewhere to chat about the council election results as they come in. But this song, with a hat-tip to alert reader SparkleMonkey, is dedicated specifically and personally to the now-former Scottish Labour councillor (and one-time leader of Aberdeen City Council) Willie Young, who was ejected by the electorate earlier today.
Today is going to be a day of realignment in Scottish politics, in which the Tories will formally become the main opposition to the SNP. (Having already pipped Labour to second at Holyrood and having as many Westminster MPs as them.) Expect modest SNP gains and big Tory ones, both mainly from Labour, who have already lost overall control of Glasgow, their last stronghold.
Everything’s different after today, folks. Scotland’s choice will never have been more stark: extreme Tories in the UK for years and years to come, or self-governance. Let the chips fall where the people choose.
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.
The votes for “God Save The Queen” being driven by Tories, English-born residents and supporters of a particular football club probably won’t come as the biggest shock in the world to anyone.
(Alert viewers will of course have noticed that due to MI5 INTERFERENCE in the poll, there were actually two votes for Hoots Mon, which have been suspiciously rounded down to one. We are conducting an investigation, by which we mean brutal purge.)
An interesting and illuminating exchange has taken place in the last few days between the First Minister and Times columnist Kenny Farquharson, one of the many senior journalists who’ve recently jumped from the sinking ship of The Scotsman to take up less prestigious but more secure positions elsewhere.
It started on Saturday night, when Farquharson tweeted this:
Put your hands on your hearts, readers, and tell us that in the event of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin leading the USA and Russia a year or so from now, you can’t see this actually literally happening. [EDIT: The fight, not nuclear apocalypse. Obviously.]
Look us straight in the eye and tell us there’s a 0% chance.
It’s been such an exciting, action-packed week for Scottish Labour since a dynamic and thrusting PPB launched the 2015 branch-office conference that we worried there might be a danger people had forgotten it already. So we’ve brought it back for a curtain call, in a version a bit more appropriate for what remains of their core vote.
sarah on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “I don’t know the facts, I just read somewhere about it. I got the impression that it wasn’t that the…” May 27, 23:51
sarah on Off-topic: “Hello, Peter! The time I saw the goldcrest was from a caravan which was in a wood and was right…” May 27, 23:38
gm on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Sarah. why on earth would a 70odd yr old man, who has gone through years of stress want to put…” May 27, 23:35
gm on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “I don’t know but many of us were frustrated at the time it was taking and asked the same thing.…” May 27, 23:31
gm on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Sarah, its strange indeed. I would put money on him retiring was shocked when i saw he was standing again.…” May 27, 23:28
Andrea on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “I tried to leave a comment a couple of hours ago, but it is not there, so I am trying…” May 27, 23:20
sarah on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “It cost him £20,000 to his local branch in order to get the nomination as candidate. Something very, very odd…” May 27, 23:08
Ian Smith on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Why did Beattie stand again? He’s well past retirement age and clearly a clown. There was a massive likelyhood this…” May 27, 22:29
Hatey McHateface on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Economists will say anything to avoid being grilled like that boy you were writing about yesterday, Geri. Any sarnies left?” May 27, 22:28
Hatey McHateface on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Don’t knock being fiddled, Geri, you might have an organism So Maggie killed of the Clyde did she? And there…” May 27, 22:21
Ian Smith on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Better than the Herald did, just mentioning a ‘website’.” May 27, 22:19
Geri on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Leading economists say GDP is a pants way to measure a country by because it adds in things like rents…” May 27, 22:15
Hatey McHateface on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Sounds like Mr Gibson wasn’t paying attention when it was explained to him that a shortfall in the separation of…” May 27, 22:07
Hatey McHateface on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “@Northcode 8:18 Thanks for that rare peep into your personal life and habits, Northy. You’re a sly dog! All this…” May 27, 21:46
Geri on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Scotland is being fiddled. You can quote all the figures you like. Unless they hand over the full accounts you…” May 27, 21:45
Aidan on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Yes but we’ve been round this roundabout before, the data was wrong when you published it and now it’s both…” May 27, 21:45
Andrea on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Slightly OT, but has anyone got any idea why the investigation lasted for so many years and why it took…” May 27, 21:36
Hatey McHateface on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “After hundreds of posts, all hoaching with outright lies, why should we choose to believe your latest one, Geri? I…” May 27, 21:35
Andy Wiltshire on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “This whole business is just one more example of how the institutions of Scotland work nowadays.” May 27, 21:32
Hatey McHateface on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Havers, Northy. A handful of beads, a mirror or two, and a pint of fire water and you’d be the…” May 27, 21:24
Alf Baird on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “My article identifying ‘the cost of colonialism’ for Scotland was published a couple of years ago and was therefore based…” May 27, 21:18
Bill Scullion on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “I heard Colin Beattie on TV yesterday and he looked like startled deer when asked if perhaps he should have…” May 27, 20:47
Aidan on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Why would you be using figures from 5-years ago when for at least part of the period the U.K. was…” May 27, 20:45
Northcode on No Money Back, No Guarantee: ““We all know the answer, colonial plunder and economic under-development.” I am convinced by Alf’s argument, which is supported by…” May 27, 20:18
Onlooker on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “We have a precedent. Poe did spend some childhood time in Ayrshire, Nicola’s home gaff, after all. Maybe he’s where…” May 27, 20:17
Sheepshagger on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “If nailed on evidence of either Sturgeon’s or Beattie’s culpability were to emerge could Police Scotland reopen the case?” May 27, 19:48
Alf Baird on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “GDP-PER-CAPITA BY COUNTRY, 2021/22 Norway – $106,149 Ireland – $104,039 Switzerland – $92,101 Denmark – $60,345 Scotland – $40,325 The…” May 27, 19:13
Tommo on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Those who ask the former FM to ‘come clean’ are whistling into the wind I know nothing of Scots law…” May 27, 19:07
Izzie on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “It doesnt seem to be r esonating with the folk I speak to People seem to think that it is…” May 27, 19:06
Izzie on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “It doesnt seem to be r esonating with the folk I speak to People seem to think that it is…” May 27, 19:05
