One two-hundredth 71
Posted on
August 30, 2017 by
Chris Cairns
Archive for the ‘scottish politics’
What we’re reminded of 89
Posted on
August 29, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This is Kezia Dugdale in the Daily Record today:
But with the greatest respect to Scotland’s pioneering engineers, they’re not the thing we’re reminded of when we hear Scottish Labour talking about the new bridge. This is what we’re reminded of.
Storming the nation 424
Posted on
August 27, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Sunday Times has a breathless account today of Jeremy Corbyn’s triumphant five-day tour of Scotland.
It sounds like quite the event.
Underneath the Goodyear blimp 270
Posted on
August 26, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This site is still hampered by the consequences of TotallyUnbelievableMadnessGate, so until normal service is resumed here’s a quick recap of a few stories from the last few days you may have missed.
The Too Wee Factor 654
Posted on
August 23, 2017 by
Lindsay Bruce
This morning sees the release of another set of GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland) figures accompanied, no doubt, by the usual strange hybrid of sneering and cringing from Unionist politicians braying proudly that we’re too small, too subsidised and too stupid to ever look after our own country.
So as the annual circus act gets under way again, for a little perspective we took a quick look at Scotland’s actual standing in the international community.
The two types of oil 306
Posted on
August 20, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
With this year’s GERS figures imminent, there are two stories about North Sea oil in today’s papers which are markedly different in both tone and honesty.
This, for example, is the front page of the Sunday Herald:
It’s basically a reprise of a Wings story from almost a year ago, noting that despite producing broadly similar amounts of oil to Scotland from the North Sea, Norway has generated tens of billions in pounds in government revenue from it – even during the price slump of recent years – while Scotland has actually LOST money.
The Sunday Times, though, has a rather different take.
British news in British numbers 575
Posted on
August 18, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Number of references to “UK”, “Britain” or “British” in this story about salmon: 17
Number of references to “Scotland” or “Scottish”: 1 (in a quote)
Percentage of “UK” salmon industry that’s actually in Scotland: 96.3%
The truth of the lobbies 140
Posted on
August 13, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
To be honest with you, readers, we’re still trying to make some sort of sense of the whole “vote Scottish Labour to get independence” thing. Because try as we might we can’t think of a single way in which having a Scottish Labour MP is better than having an SNP one in terms of either independence OR socialism.
And it doesn’t take a lot of effort to see why.
The grand sacrifice 251
Posted on
August 12, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The mainstream media is now, by our count, up to at least 13 sizeable articles on the Great Yes-Movement Schism Of 2017 – a minor online spat between a tiny handful of people who’ve never liked each other and most of whom the general public has never heard of – and shows no signs of tiring of gleefully revelling in the subject.
There’s nothing particularly surprising or even diabolical about that. As any reality-TV show viewer will tell you, viewers absolutely love to watch people fighting, and doubly so if it’s the summer silly season and there’s no real news. Most of the stories have attracted large responses and therefore lots of juicy and profitable clicks for tired hacks who long ago stopped having anything of any interest to say but still have to honk out 1000 words a week in order to get paid.
But the more sinister aspect of them is the way they’ve been weaponised to (further) demonise and silence the Yes movement. If someone attacks other Yes figures with a provocative, offensive and dishonest piece, the extra bonus for the media is that any legitimately angry response to it can be used as yet more proof of The Vileness Of The Cybernats: “Look! They even turn on their own if they dare disagree!”
For the Unionist press, that’s a win-win every way up, and there are some on the Yes side who seem only too willing to co-operate with the narrative.
The magic money rigs 388
Posted on
August 10, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A reader sent us an interesting snippet of information today.
That seemed a startling fact, so we looked into it. And it’s true.
