Tory resurgence continues 283
Posted on
March 03, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Archive for the ‘scottish politics’
A trivial omission 265
Posted on
February 27, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Our attention was drawn today to hardcore shrieky Loyalist nutter collective Scotland In Union releasing “new research” on an independent Scotland’s finances, which in fact came out last year but which for unknown reasons they’re touting again now.
Commissioned by the loongroup from a London-based thinktank that we’d never heard of by the name of “Europe Economics”, it predictably produces a doom-and-gloom conclusion that independence would have cost over £10bn in the first year.
There are so many gaping chasms in the logic we could hardly stop laughing for long enough to type, but one in particular was worth wiping the tears from our eyes for.
The morality of nationalism 118
Posted on
February 26, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
No.5: Tom Morton, former BBC broadcaster and No campaigner.
The Weasel 139
Posted on
February 26, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s important to note, firstly, that the version of Sadiq Khan’s speech to the Scottish Labour conference he tweeted on Saturday morning simply flat-out said that Scottish nationalists were the same as racists and sectarian bigots. Its meaning was as clear as crystal to the Daily Record, a newspaper which is hardly hostile to Khan’s party.
“No difference” is a stark and unambiguous phrase. The speech did not contain the hastily-added qualifiers about “in this respect” and “of course I’m not saying the SNP are racist” which suddenly appeared when he read it out onstage that afternoon.
But which version did he really mean?
The pound-shop Ruth Davidson 107
Posted on
February 26, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Yesterday afternoon, Scottish Labour tweeted some comments from Kezia Dugdale’s keynote speech to the party conference that might be the most self-evidently idiotic thing ever said by a Scottish politician.
Now, whether you support independence or not it’s a plain, measurable, empirical fact that it IS all of those things. Saying it’s not “an alternative”, in particular, is roughly on a par with asserting that the Earth doesn’t revolve around the Sun.
We were about to go on a rant about the jaw-dropping stupidity of the claim when it struck us that it might be a bit more interesting to see how the speech, and indeed the conference, had gone down with its intended audience – Scottish Labour delegates.
And as it happened, we had some data on that.
For Sadiq Khan 216
Posted on
February 25, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
What does racism and separatism actually look like? How would we know it if we saw it? What are its defining characteristics? Who are its advocates?
Let’s see if we can find out.
Liars K to B 100
Posted on
February 24, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This is a story in the Herald today.
Thing is, we know it’s a lie. Who says so? Kezia Dugdale does.
A completely different situation 57
Posted on
February 24, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
No.4: file under “Hell actually froze over”.
More questions than answers 130
Posted on
February 24, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We were very pleased to hear Gary Robertson challenge Kezia Dugdale on the curious matter of Scottish Labour’s membership and income figures on today’s Good Morning Scotland. Dugdale flapped and dodged and waffled for as long as she could before diverting the topic onto federalism, and eventually managed to wriggle away from the subject without any sort of proper answer (through no fault of Robertson’s).
(Good Morning Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, 24 February 2017)
.
But what she said just made the situation MORE confusing, not less.
News values depreciate further 133
Posted on
February 23, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Almost a year ago we ran a short piece mocking a Scotsman headline which claimed that “THOUSANDS” of people had signed a Tory anti-referendum petition, when the actual number was a strictly-accurate-but-pathetic TWO thousand.
We didn’t think that could ever be beaten for technically-true hyperbolic exaggeration, but we’d reckoned without the bold boundary-pushing ingenuity of the Daily Express.
Hundreds of thousands? How many hundreds, exactly?
The best news ever 105
Posted on
February 23, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We don’t normally run rumours on Wings, but this one was too good to pass up. We offer it to you on the clear basis that it IS just gossip, but it’s from a source we trust.
Our source says that “he’s selling himself – to any influential figures who’ll listen – as a PR chief for Better Together 2. In my personal opinion I don’t think they will be silly enough to let him back in, frankly, but he seems to be indestructable.”
They also gave us a quote from what they described as “a well-placed insider”:
“McTernan is itching for a comeback.
He’s sniffing around both in London and among Scottish contacts to see if he can carve out a senior role in the inevitable indyref2 campaign, which everyone’s having to pretend isn’t inevitable at all.
Given his track record there’s a fair degree of concern, to say the least. But he still holds sway with some senior figures in London especially. He is disliked by many in Scottish Labour but seems to have charmed some of the Tories. Given the number of lives he’s had few will be surprised if he manages to worm his way in to the upper echelons of Better Together 2.”
We’re crossing ALL our fingers, folks.
