The dogged determination of Scottish Labour to insult the Scottish electorate is a source of constant slack-jawed astonishment to us. Over the years we’ve lost count of the number of times the party’s politicians have effectively said “People are just too stupid to vote for us”, in the apparent belief that abuse is the way to win back support.
But it’s not always so overt. The subtler ways in which the party treats voters like morons include the assumption that people’s memories only go back to yesterday’s newspapers, and there can surely be no more stark illustration than its recent adoption of the attack line that the SNP are standing “shoulder to shoulder with the Tories”.
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:
In what may be a new all-time low for the broadsheet press in Scotland, this morning’s Scottish edition of the Telegraph makes a front-page lead story out of a petition with a pathetic 4500 signatures, put together by some extremist Yoon nutters to express their rage that there might be a peak-time news show actually made in Scotland.
The idea of a so-called “Scottish Six”, whereby the main six o’clock news bulletin would be a single programme made by BBC Scotland and covering Scottish, UK and world news – rather than the current half-hour London-centric UK programme followed by 30 minutes of regional murdur’n’fitba in Reporting Scotland – has been exercising the media (and pretty much nobody else) for the best part of 20 years.
But now it’s become a constitutional battleground, and the funny thing about it is that the two sides are fighting bitterly over something neither of them actually really wants.
Newspaper sales figures in Scotland now come out in a patchy and unco-ordinated sort of way, with different frequencies and at different times of year, so we thought it’d be worth collecting them together for easy reference.
The numbers below are the most recent figures for each title that we know of – for papers classed as “national” that means November last year, and for those counted as “regional” (which includes the Scotsman and Herald titles) it’s this month.
Figures have all been rounded to the nearest 100, and increase/decrease stats refer in all cases to the corresponding sales for one year previously.
So just to clear that up: four times £12 million is £200 million. The mystery of why people are increasingly reluctant to believe what they read in newspapers continues.
So after all the kerfuffle and commotion and comedy, a deal was done, of sorts. The unsquareable circle wasn’t squared, but the day of facing up to it was punted down the line for five years, by which point everyone hopes that it’ll be someone else’s problem. (Which is certainly the case for David Cameron.)
Every newspaper in Scotland tomorrow will look like this:
It’s quite incredible that someone with Jim Sillars’ political experience should be so naive about the tactics surrounding the EU referendum. Regardless of your feelings on the EU itself, there’s absolutely no point in any supporter of Scottish independence voting Leave this June, and here’s why.
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Sorry YL, I dinna understand your post. Stormy Daniel’s what? Haha, bet you could tell a tale or two about…” Jan 30, 09:29
Aidan on Shield Of The Phantom: “Of course YL, and as with any nascent technology you would expect unit costs to come down as it becomes…” Jan 30, 09:21
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “You might want to consider that AI could already be sufficiently smart to be able to detect when it has…” Jan 30, 09:18
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Not by comparison with your lifetime’s achievements, no. You do well to disparage those so much less successful than yourself,…” Jan 30, 09:09
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Just off the top of my heid, I believe the peat in Scotland’s peat bogs has the capacity to generate…” Jan 30, 09:06
Young Lochinvar on Shield Of The Phantom: “H McH I doubt Stormy Daniel’s would agree (philandering), nor the worlds news editors who have to try and make…” Jan 30, 09:04
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Sure, we can run data centres on intermittent wind power. Once our entire economy is dependent on AI (because human…” Jan 30, 08:47
Young Lochinvar on Shield Of The Phantom: “I note with some degree of irony that many politicians while eulogising the passing of Jim Wallace claim he pretty…” Jan 30, 08:42
Young Lochinvar on Shield Of The Phantom: “Aidan Got to start somewhere.. Hey ho, once it’s up and running a pints bet on how the energy cables…” Jan 30, 08:10
Young Lochinvar on Shield Of The Phantom: “Good luck David Toshak. Yet another victim of the woo woo deviancy/ degeneracy agenda placed high up on the list…” Jan 30, 07:27
Aidan on Shield Of The Phantom: “Okay, but in his opinion on the subject Lord Hope of Craighead said explicitly that the treaty did extinguish upon…” Jan 30, 06:14
Young Lochinvar on Shield Of The Phantom: “AI; The nadir of the intelligent, talented, capable, skilled and thinking person IMO. Zero effort, zero time spent mastering a…” Jan 30, 01:30
willie on Shield Of The Phantom: “One thing to also consider is that with the rapid development of AI the industry needs two very key things…” Jan 30, 00:42
Alf Baird on Shield Of The Phantom: ““Over time their cultures merged.” Linguistic evidence rather suggests divergence. In most former Pictish areas from the lowlands to the…” Jan 29, 21:31
Saffron Robe on Shield Of The Phantom: “If a judgement is selective rather than objective, it ceases to be a judgement of law and becomes merely an…” Jan 29, 20:58
Lorna Campbell on Shield Of The Phantom: “Aidan: the Treaty could not have been spent on the accession of the two states into the one state, the…” Jan 29, 20:54
Cynicus on Shield Of The Phantom: “I have just encountered an “AI detector “ online: it is called justdone.com. I am afraid I cannot recommend it…” Jan 29, 20:32
Aidan on Shield Of The Phantom: “Do please tell us all about this sea power Northcode, is there any large-output tidal energy project anywhere in Scotland…” Jan 29, 19:46
Cynicus on Shield Of The Phantom: ““..the new evidence aqq A” ====== Sorry for this gibberish in my long post above. The phrase should read, “the…” Jan 29, 19:37
Northcode on Shield Of The Phantom: ““Scotland already possesses key competitive advantages in marine energy, including abundant natural resources and dedicated enterprise agencies. The country’s marine…” Jan 29, 18:50
sam on Shield Of The Phantom: “Gaels and Picts combined to face the threat of the Vikings. Over time their cultures merged.” Jan 29, 18:42
Cynicus on Shield Of The Phantom: “Lorna Campbell says: 29 January, 2026 at 2:12 pm “AI spews out according to that which you put in, Cynicus.…” Jan 29, 18:39
sam on Shield Of The Phantom: “It is not 25% of the Scottish population, It is a turnout of at least 50% of those registered to…” Jan 29, 18:36
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “So you don’t even grant them the basic courtesy of calling our ancestors by their own names? Preferring to use…” Jan 29, 18:35
Northcode on Shield Of The Phantom: ““In summary, Scotland’s marine energy resources have the potential to significantly contribute to its energy output, aligning closely with the…” Jan 29, 18:34
Northcode on Shield Of The Phantom: ““Indeed so, these are immense energy surpluses that would be earning Scots around £100 billion a year…” Yes, Alf. The…” Jan 29, 18:27
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Some good points made by David Davis and yourself, factchecker. My view is that if people can’t be arsed to…” Jan 29, 18:26
Northcode on Shield Of The Phantom: “Long before the arrival of The Christ the sixteen tribes held sway across the northern lands. So effective were their…” Jan 29, 18:16
agentx on Shield Of The Phantom: “@ Saffron Robe – interesting – thanks.” Jan 29, 18:15
factchecker on Shield Of The Phantom: ““Our view is that a reasonable level for the threshold that determines a settled will is that at least half…” Jan 29, 18:00
