Trick or treat 186
Posted on
October 29, 2016 by
Chris Cairns
Archive for the ‘scottish politics’
A matter of competence 809
Posted on
October 25, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Back in May we wrote this:
The prediction duly came true, as most of ours do. Sometimes we hate being right.
Meet The Yoons, Part 2 130
Posted on
October 25, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A member of an MSP’s staff posted an image on Twitter this morning of a flyer that had apparently just been shoved through their office letter box:
But after having a merry old chuckle at the layout, colour choice and language, we wondered what sort of person might produce such a thing. So, ably assisted as ever by a team of alert readers, we decided to see if we could find out.
The stupidest thing ever said 109
Posted on
October 25, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We realise that there’s some stiff competition for that accolade, even if you restrict it solely to things said by Kezia Dugdale, but this needs preserving for posterity.
A couple of questions do spring immediately to mind: (1) how does every country on Earth that isn’t Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland do it, and (2) given that Scotland has now been in the Union for 309 years, how much longer is it going to take before the two things are finally eradicated?
We look forward to hearing the answers from Labour any day now.
A reminder of the obvious 138
Posted on
October 24, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
From the annual report into the state of the UK, published by Deloitte:
It really is remarkable how often that has to be explained to stupid people.
All around the houses 271
Posted on
October 23, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The UK’s decision to leave the European Union has, it seems fair and uncontroversial to say, thrown Scotland’s Unionist parties into something of a spin. With all of them having campaigned for a Remain vote, all are now faced with the unsquareable circle of operating in a country that voted to stay in both the UK and the EU but can now only have one of those things.
Scottish Labour were the first to get themselves into a fankle, unsurprisingly. Their leader Kezia Dugdale first said she might conceivably be able to see herself voting for independence in order to stay in Europe, but then frantically backpedalled as soon as anyone noticed, and is now locked into a position of “never, no chance, not no way, not no how”, even as her own deputy publicly disagrees with her.
(Uncharitable readers pointing out that she took the same view on Jeremy Corbyn, before backing him wholeheartedly when he first won a leadership, then backing Owen Smith a year later on the grounds that Corbyn was useless, then insisting that Corbyn had her fulsome support and could definitely win a general election when he won the leadership again, should be ashamed of themselves. If a leader can’t U-turn three times in the space of 12 months, who can?)
But remarkably, the Scottish Tories seem to be even more confused.
How things are done in the sewer 130
Posted on
October 22, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Many readers spotted a particularly repellent article in the Daily Express this week, penned by its clueless and poisonous hack Siobhan McFadyen.
McFadyen, who rather uncharacteristically failed to insert any violent language into a headline about the First Minister, instead leapt eagerly onto an artificial furore around the actions of Gregg Brain, the Australian father battling his family’s deportation from the Highlands by the Home Office, at last week’s SNP conference.
(Their case is so outrageous that even the Daily Mail and David Coburn have joined the fight to have the family be allowed to stay.)
We got an email from Gregg Brain about how the story had come into being, and (with his permission) we thought you might like to see the exchange which took place between him and Siobhan McFadyen, with the purposes of illustrating how the press distorts, perverts and selectively omits quotes in order to mislead.
The Simple Ruth 391
Posted on
October 20, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
On the contentious and topical subject of what constitutes a mandate for a second independence referendum, we’re grateful to the super-alert reader who unearthed this clip from BBC Scotland’s election night coverage of 2011, in which Ruth Davidson gives a candid and blunt explanation of the criteria required:
We’re just going to write that one down for the record.
A strange interpretation 105
Posted on
October 20, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Count 274
Posted on
October 19, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
An article by Nick Cohen in the Spectator last night fairly had social media ablaze with a heady brew of anger and mockery.
It’s the most extraordinary outpouring of deranged, spittle-flecked arsewash we’ve seen outside of a Daily Express comment thread in a very considerable time, and it merits attention solely because we think it might have broken a world record for the number of empirical falsehoods contained in an article in a respectable media outlet.
Get your clickers out, readers. You’re going to need a fast trigger finger.
