Earlier today we made an observation about the overblown way the media has been covering the Scottish Government’s underspend of 1.3% of its budget (a figure about which the David Hume Institute today cooed approvingly “Even Mr Micawber could not budget more accurately”).
To nobody’s great amazement, Scottish Labour rentahonk Jackie Baillie – fresh from making a complete idiot of herself over the Michelle Thomson case – couldn’t resist jumping on the bandwagon.
Quite aside from the fact that it means no such thing – there’s no less money, it’s just that some of it will now be carried over and spent this year instead – we suppose the tweet does at least mean that Scottish Labour’s policy position is clear: the Scottish Government should always spend every penny of its budget. Right?
The media and Unionist politicians (we really need to come up with a word to describe that single entity), when not concocting hysterical frothing diatribes against Michelle Thomson or complaining about the Scottish Government giving money to T In The Park – a position we must confess we find ourselves in some sympathy with – have recently been loudly protesting about last year’s “underspend” in the Holyrood budget.
There’s an extremely good article here by Dr Craig Dalzell of the Scottish Greens dealing with the broader issue of why such complaints are idiotic, so rather than go over the ground again we thought we’d look at another angle.
We apologise for another post on the subject of The Wright House, everyone, but we do love getting our teeth into a puzzle, especially when it comes with a side order of lots of juicy evidence of the Scottish media telling people outright lies.
This should be the last one for the forseeable future, and we’ve actually got some solid info to impart this time rather than just a confused expression, so buckle up.
Even the alertest readers will probably already be confused by the baffling tale of Douglas and Jacqueline Wright, who sold their home to Edinburgh West MP Michelle Thomson. We certainly were last night, but on delving a little more into the media coverage of their story, things got a whole lot worse.
Older readers may remember an ITV show called The Krypton Factor, which had an “observation round” section in which contestants were shown a short video clip and then asked a series of questions about it.
The newspaper is a fantastic concept. A cheap, accessible product, it’s a brilliant way of keeping yourself broadly abreast of current affairs. You turn a page and are presented with a diverse selection of interesting stories, often on subjects you’d never have thought to go and seek out in the self-refining echo chamber of the internet.
(Theoretically links on websites serve the same purpose, but dodging “sponsored” advertorial, gutter-level clickbait, pop-ups, autoplay video and pages that judder and leap around so much while loading all this rubbish that you’re about 50/50 to have an epileptic fit before you can read the story, has made clicking on one into a game of Russian Roulette fewer and fewer people are willing to take a chance on.)
This site has never believed that the ongoing steep decline in newspaper sales is a fundamental problem with the format. Rather, the truth is that people stop buying papers because they’re full of garbage.
Most of Scotland’s news outlets, including the Times, Herald, Daily Record, Daily Mail, Express and the BBC, run today with the story that one in three Police Scotland officers intend to leave the force in the next three years, according to a recent survey for the Scottish Police Authority.
(The print edition of the Scotsman makes it the front-page splash, although the article has mysteriously vanished from its website.)
But a couple of pieces of important information are inexplicably missing.
You might have thought that the publication of the “Project Fear” book last month was an embarrassment for the motley collection of highly-paid but hapless Labour and Tory apparatchiks who ran “Better Together”, but it turns out there was worse to come.
Politics Home today reports what sounds like some alarming news:
sarah on Shield Of The Phantom: “Rev, coincidentally Persephone Books [8 Edgar Buildings, Bath] highlights this week a book on this exact same topic. “In my…” Jan 31, 14:17
Anthem on Shield Of The Phantom: “OT, bit a uk company investing around £11bn in China for max profit, yet zero investment from China to the…” Jan 31, 13:53
Oneliner on Shield Of The Phantom: “Anyway, Hatey – how are the wife and kids?” Jan 31, 11:32
Sven on Shield Of The Phantom: “Cynicus @ 02.06/02.07 The classic answer being, I seem to recall, ” Only if this is an answer “.” Jan 31, 10:15
David Holden on Shield Of The Phantom: “Not as if ferry cock ups are anything new. Our soon to be retired ferry The Isle of Mull when…” Jan 31, 09:48
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
