We’ve just had a fascinating email from Scottish Labour forwarded to us, from a concerned reader who’d written to them to ask if Labour would really refuse to form a government if they weren’t the largest party. The answer might not be the one anyone who’s seen the party’s election literature (below) would be expecting.
We’re still not tired of these.
Although we can’t help thinking that maybe internal email is the more appropriate medium for resolving this particular workplace dispute.
Respect to John MacKay of STV, who on last night’s Scotland Tonight asked Labour MSP James Kelly the question this site has called for about whether Labour would stand aside and let the Tories rule if the latter were the largest party after May’s election, but Labour had enough seats to win a confidence vote and form the government with backing from the SNP and/or other parties.
Kelly, unsurprisingly, flapped and blustered and totally evaded it. But then we doubt he has the authority to make the tea in Scottish Labour, let alone speak for the party on key policy issues. If the question isn’t put repeatedly by all of the media to more senior Labour figures until an answer is produced, we’ll be wanting to know why.
…having just spent the last three years in bed with them.
Zounds, the irony.
We have to give Jim Murphy credit – on this week’s Sunday Politics he started off with the subtle, misleading but technically-accurate version of Labour’s line about the “biggest party forming the government”, which involves making the true but irrelevant observation that in the past it’s usually been the case. (Mainly because UK elections almost always give the biggest party a comfortable majority.)
But it only took a couple of minutes of questioning for the Scottish branch manager to lose his cool and resort to the comprehensively debunked flat-out lie again.
Scotland on Sunday on Labour’s latest Scottish election strategy:
We’re not making that up. Go and check for yourself. And when you’ve prised your jaw off the floor, acquaint yourself with the truth, as told by Jim Callaghan himself.
Because we know you love a conference gallery.
Here’s the Scottish Lib Dems in Aberdeen.
The Daily Record, still smarting from the humiliation of being forced to very quietly admit it told its readers a £20 billion lie about the Smith Commission late last year, has been in a demented overdrive trying to provoke Yes/SNP supporters this week.
It started on Tuesday with an echo of the paper’s infamous “Vow” cover, clearly aimed at winding up its detractors but which passed without much comment as social media users merely raised a brief weary eyebrow and got on with their day. But then the Record started turning up the volume.
Sometimes the UK media is so soul-crushingly moronic, readers, that it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. Nevertheless, we’re pretty sure we haven’t nodded off and woken up in 2017, so today’s papers must be even more idiotic than usual.
The Daily Record, five days before the independence referendum:
The Times, earlier this month:
Phew! Thank goodness for that No vote, eh readers?
For those of you who missed it, me ringing in to the Kaye Adams show this morning.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
