The reaction of the Scottish media and political opposition to Audit Scotland’s annual report on the NHS today has been nothing if not predictable. But we thought you might like an instructive and enlightening look at the two very different types of approach they’ve taken to trying to mislead the Scottish people about it.
First up is the non-specific Scottish Labour apparatchik (as far as we’re aware he has no official role in the party since Jim Murphy quit – indeed we don’t know what he does for a living at all any more) Blair McDougall:
This is what we in the writing trade call a “flat-out lie”.
This month we’ve been noting a sudden avalanche of factually-questionable articles in the media attacking the SNP’s record in government. At the weekend and yesterday we also picked apart a highly misleading and disingenuous claim by Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Sunday Politics that there had been no cuts to the Scottish Government budget since the Conservatives came to power in 2010.
At the weekend this site noted that on the BBC’s Sunday Politics, presenter Andrew Neil claimed that the Scottish Government’s budget had not been reduced in real terms in “the last five or six years”, and that therefore Scotland has not faced cuts.
But as we pointed out, the Scottish Government budget HAS been cut, year-on-year, since the Tories took office. The independent Fiscal Affairs Scotland assessed the cumulative reduction at a hefty 10%, or a little over £3bn a year.
Okay, so we’ve tried everything. We’ve read all the papers, we’ve been through all the emails, and we’ve even gone out for a walk, which usually never fails to trigger some cataclysmic political upheaval or animal-sex scandal.
As spectacular and mindboggling as some of the coverage undeniably is – most notably Alex Massie’s barking-mad, lie-filled howlatribe “J.K. Rowling and her heroic attack on the wicked cybernats” (whose title, remarkably, does not appear to be ironic) in ultra-right-wing loonzine CapX – even we’re fed up of reading people going on about us, so to pass the time we’re going to do something else instead.
We weren’t going to take Professor Adam Tomkins’ hysterical “NATMAGEDDON!” article for this week’s Spectator seriously enough to pull it apart line by line.
But once we’d wiped the tears from our eyes we thought we’d better do our job.
Alf Baird on Shield Of The Phantom: “Having followed more rapid and longer delivery voyages of profitable private operators over the years, this over-relaxed loss-making taxpayer-subsidised CalMac…” Jan 31, 09:31
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: ““becoming more and more obvious that Trump is a Child Rapist” It has long been obvious how the dark forces…” Jan 31, 08:46
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “@Cynicus In reply to your two posts: One is, one isn’t.” Jan 31, 08:25
Iain More on Shield Of The Phantom: “I am not going to hold my breath that Swinney will stop appeasing Trump even though it is becoming more…” Jan 31, 03:25
Cynicus on Shield Of The Phantom: “Indeed! You may have encountered this before: in the heyday of ‘ordinary- language philosophy’ at the University of Oxford, student…” Jan 31, 02:07
Cynicus on Shield Of The Phantom: “Indeed! You may have encountered this before: in the heyday of ‘ordinary- language philosophy’ at the University of Oxford, student…” Jan 31, 02:06
Willie on Shield Of The Phantom: “Thanks for the comments Sven. I wasn’t aware that David Toshack’s daughter now lives as a male. That may well…” Jan 30, 23:31
DaveL on Shield Of The Phantom: “…silence came the reply… Although he did manage to spew some nonsense in a later post of mine concerning his…” Jan 30, 22:44
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Here you go, Bob. Ben Bulbin (Sligo) Ben Lugmore (Mayo) Ben Gorm (Mayo) Ben Baun (Galway) – part of the…” Jan 30, 19:21
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Naw, Dave, that’s nae richt. I’d hae wrote Camel Shaggers. And ye forgoat ane. In an Independent Scotland, the untermenschen…” Jan 30, 19:00
robertkknight on Shield Of The Phantom: “The Picts, christened thus by the Romans who were apparently impressed by their tattoos, left plenty of evidence of their…” Jan 30, 18:35
DaveL on Shield Of The Phantom: “Choice! And that coming from the man who’s variously named vast populations as: Covid spreaders Orcs Camel jockeys Rag heads……” Jan 30, 18:14
DaveL on Shield Of The Phantom: “Wee Adolf! You never cease to amaze. You wrote ‘Chinese’, that’s probably a first and way off your standard referencing…” Jan 30, 18:03
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Beautifully painted windows on her! She’s sailing under the flag of the UK, a fictional country. Hope the Ukies don’t…” Jan 30, 17:43
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “It’s an interesting idea, Lorna. But it comes up against the unimpeachable fact that no parliament can bind its successor.…” Jan 30, 17:36
agentx on Shield Of The Phantom: “For anyone interested the new ferry built in Turkey – Isle of Islay is currently sailing down the east coast…” Jan 30, 17:26
Lorna Campbell on Shield Of The Phantom: “100 to 200 women die at the hands of men each year in the UK – considerably more than ‘trans’…” Jan 30, 16:19
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: ““So what have you ever achieved?” No mirror needed, James, to see I’ve achieved the writing of a simple statement…” Jan 30, 16:15
Lorna Campbell on Shield Of The Phantom: “Absolutely agree, James. Any changes to the basic Treaty Articles is tantamount to resiling the Treaty because the changes have…” Jan 30, 16:05
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: ““communicate the kind of neutrality that taxpayers expect of civil servants” Odd. I thought we all understood that Scottish civil…” Jan 30, 15:40
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Shield Of The Phantom: “PEER: CI CIVIL SERVICE CASE HIGHLIGHTS DANGERS OF ‘POLITICISED POLICING’ Baroness Fox of Buckley has commended The Christian Institute’s legal…” Jan 30, 15:24
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “I believe that one of the Voyager spacecraft has just marked a major and unique achievement. It is now one…” Jan 30, 15:24
sam on Shield Of The Phantom: ““In our study, we looked at how genetically similar the Pictish genomes were to other ancient genomes from Britain and…” Jan 30, 13:57
sam on Shield Of The Phantom: “There was frequent contact between the Gaels and the Picts. The Gaels brought Christianity from Ireland into the west of…” Jan 30, 13:46
