Scotland has 2,174 miles of trunk roads, of which 1.7 miles (that’s just under 0.08%) comprise the Queensferry Crossing. For the next few days those 1.7 miles are going to be subject to some partial lane closures on the southbound side for maintenance.
They’ll cause almost no disruption, because as it happens there’s another very similar bridge conveniently located just a couple of hundred yards away – linked directly to all the same roads – that traffic will use instead.
Not much of a story, is it? We don’t know how many miles of Scotland’s roads have roadworks on them on any given day of any given week, but we suspect it’s quite a lot. It tends not to make the news beyond a few seconds on the traffic bulletin at the end, but today was different.
Cash is tight in Scotland’s Unionist-run councils.
If only there was something they could do to bring more money in, something they’ve been demanding the Scottish Government do for at least the last seven years and which the councils now have the power to do for themselves.
Back in the summer we sang the praises of one of Scotland’s tiny semi-handful of pro-independence print organs, the splendid iScot. So it seems only fair that we should offer the same courtesy to the other one we mentioned at the time, The National. It’s three years old today – how the time’s flown – and its editor Callum Baird wants your support. Over to him.
We wouldn’t say that the Scottish Daily Mail was obsessed or anything, but this is just today’s hysterical coverage of possible changes to taxation in Scotland which haven’t even been PROPOSED yet, let alone actually passed into law.
The efforts by the Scottish Tories to pull off some frankly ambitious shenanigans over today’s Budget continued overnight in increasingly bizarre fashion.
As with the Poppy Scotland funding, the party appears to be quite openly punting the line “We knew all along that this was possible and the right thing to do, but we deliberately punished Scotland for not electing enough Tory MPs”, in what can only be reasonably interpreted as an attempt at blackmailing future electorates.
The Scottish media, meanwhile, is doing its best to sell the issue as “a plague on both their houses”, holding the Scottish Government and UK government equally culpable for the mess. So let’s see what we know.
Yesterday’s edition of the Scottish Mail On Sunday devoted most of a page to a weird column from Ruth Davidson (in which she appeared to believe that Alex Salmond was still the First Minister), crowing about the great deal that Scotland’s 13 Tory MPs have supposedly won for Scotland in this week’s coming budget.
The first alleged fruits of the deal were revealed today.
That tweet is quite disturbing in itself, because what it unmistakeably implies is that if Scotland had voted for more SNP MPs in June and fewer Tories, the UK government would have retaliated by spitefully punishing innocent war veterans.
And Poppy Scotland weren’t too pleased about being weaponised either.
This is Spectator columnist Alex Massie reacting earlier this week to the news of Alex Salmond doing a show for Russian news channel RT.
Alex Salmond is these days a private individual with no responsibilities to anyone, and RT is a legal, Ofcom-licenced UK broadcaster whose output is beamed free into every home in the land.
The first episode of The Alex Salmond Show featured guests from both Labour and the Tories, opened with lengthy discussion and advocation of women’s and LGBT rights, followed by a 15-minute interview with deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont – something which has proven beyond the capabilities of mainstream UK news outlets despite the remarkable events currently engulfing an EU member state.
(BBC Scotland, we should perhaps note at this point, does not currently carry a single dedicated political TV show from a Scottish perspective at all and hasn’t done for more than a year.)
Massie used some slightly more measured language when it came to writing about the show in the Spectator, merely describing Salmond as an “idiot”, a “fool”, a “chump”, “pitiful”, “embarrassing” and “disgraceful”. But when it came to another former Scottish party leader, he was for some reason in a rather more forgiving mood.
We’ll be honest, readers – if this doesn’t make you want to leave the UK all by itself, it may be that there’s nothing that ever will and we should just give up.
(Alternative titles considered for this piece included Live And Please Let Die, Doctor Oh God No, The Barely-Living Daylights and Quantum Of Bollocks.)
This documentary starts a little slowly, but becomes an eye-opening case study of how Labour steamrollered through crippling PFI contracts to build public infrastructure on the never-never when they ran the Scottish Executive from 1999-2007.
Yesterday’s Daily Record (which would increasingly be an accurate three-word name for the paper) ran an innocuous piece of page-filler fluff rubbish, and for once we’re not talking about a David Torrance column.
It featured the “psychic” predictions of a man who, the Record told us – no fewer than FIVE times in the opening few lines – previously predicted Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, and who had a track record of “incredible accuracy”.
Effijy on Narrowing the options: “I’m sure the Flat Earth Society are guiding these people through this corrupt embarrassment Perhaps signing for the Neds by…” Jul 4, 08:34
Aidan on Fob, Fob, Fobbing Along: “The reality of course is that Scotland is a wealthy country, GDP per capita is higher in Edinburgh than Oslo…” Jul 4, 07:39
Aidan on Fob, Fob, Fobbing Along: “Well done in the copying and pasting a huge body of text from somewhere else with or without any paragraph…” Jul 4, 07:30
Willie on Narrowing the options: “And just to add to the earlier comment about how rotten and corrupt Police Scotland and COPFS are and how…” Jul 4, 07:11
Willie on Narrowing the options: “That is a very good point that I have never, or at least ever been aware of any comment on…” Jul 4, 06:44
Angus on Narrowing the options: “Cynicus says: 3 July, 2026 at 5:10 pm “Whatever the demerits of COPFS, none of us, surely, would wish to…” Jul 4, 02:46
Angus on Narrowing the options: “Meanwhile, Sturgeon, poor estranged wife of the jailed embezzler Murrell, enjoying life in London: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15947289/Nicola-Sturgeon-tipple-london-husband-SNP-embezzlement.html” Jul 4, 02:37
David Ferguson on Narrowing the options: “I’d be pretty confident in securing a conviction for fraud on the basis that no ring-fenced account was ever created,…” Jul 3, 23:54
BLMac on Narrowing the options: “Maybe we’ll see the Augean Stables cleaned before the next election.” Jul 3, 23:05
Skip_NC on Narrowing the options: “Sturgeon had no clue what she was parroting when she said that. It’s a minor point but I am curious…” Jul 3, 22:34
McDuff on Narrowing the options: “Your tenacity in this matter is a credit to you rev and I am reminded of a recurring line in…” Jul 3, 21:37
BH on Narrowing the options: “Looks like mate in 1. Neat zugzwang. Well played. Will they really play knockboardover?” Jul 3, 21:03
Iain Ross on Narrowing the options: “If, as Sturgeon says, the accounts are prepared on “a cash flow basis”, why do the notes to accounts show…” Jul 3, 20:58
Alf Baird on Fob, Fob, Fobbing Along: ““Cheap leccy!” In my analysis I found that most of the world’s oil rich nations also have the lowest energy…” Jul 3, 20:47
Stephen Cowley on Narrowing the options: “Nicola Sturgeon stated on camera that the SNP accounts were prepared “on a cash flow basis”. Presumably this means that…” Jul 3, 20:31
Hatey McHateface on Narrowing the options: “You can’t know that for sure, Mark, until you’ve worked your way through the OnlyFans directory. I hear Snooty Cow…” Jul 3, 20:28
Mark Beggan on Narrowing the options: “Did you see my clever use of words there? That snooty cow will never show her Blips. So we will…” Jul 3, 20:05
Andrea on Narrowing the options: “@cynicus, Actually “outwith” is a word I come across quite regularly, and I use it myself. I think I saw…” Jul 3, 20:04
Stuart MacKay on Narrowing the options: “I can just imagine the reply… It wasn’t in the public interest to prosecute someone for embezzling the public.” Jul 3, 19:57
Confused on Fob, Fob, Fobbing Along: “main, unless you understand the market auction process and can explain what a CFD is, you need to STFU about…” Jul 3, 19:54
robertkknight on Narrowing the options: “Dripping with sarcasm….love it!” Jul 3, 19:52
TimePilot on Narrowing the options: “Meanwhile in London readers, looks like someone has turned to comfort eating and drinking…. (caution advised this is not pretty)…” Jul 3, 19:05
Hatey McHateface on Narrowing the options: “Surprised you’re still here. Thought you’d be at the funeral. Lasts until Thursday so there’s still time.” Jul 3, 19:01
Hatey McHateface on Fob, Fob, Fobbing Along: “So true, Wally the Winking Walrus. All over Scotland, facts fall into line to suit the first deployer of “bum…” Jul 3, 18:56
Hatey McHateface on Fob, Fob, Fobbing Along: “Cheap leccy! Two words that tell us you haven’t a scooby what you’re wanging oan aboot. If you really, really…” Jul 3, 18:44
twathater on Fob, Fob, Fobbing Along: “As always Confused, bang on the money , the only things holding us back is the progressive “Be Kind arseholes”…” Jul 3, 18:30
Captain Caveman on Fob, Fob, Fobbing Along: ““Keep believing your own prejudices.” Wow, that’s rich coming from you pal. 😀 Odious apologist.” Jul 3, 17:24
