The whether report 104
Posted on
December 13, 2014 by
Chris Cairns
Archive for the ‘scottish politics’
English votes for Scottish laws 235
Posted on
December 11, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
One of our ever-alert agents uncovered this for us today. Published quietly last week by the House Of Commons Library and completely unremarked-upon by the Scottish media, it’s a document whose introductory text makes the relevant point concisely and eloquently without any need for elaboration or explanation on our part.
The emphasis is ours. England gets what England’s MPs vote for more than 99% of the time. Scotland gets what Scotland’s MPs vote for less than a quarter of the time. We’ll leave it at that.
A number of complaints 82
Posted on
December 10, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Just keeping you in the loop, readers.
Why won’t he just die? 382
Posted on
December 09, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alex Salmond as the Terminator. Any way you slice it it’s a remarkable mental image from the mind of a clearly distraught James Kirkup of the Telegraph.
Apparently death wouldn’t stop him anyway. We’ve actually cut this clip before the point where the woman from the Economist calls the former First Minister a “zombie who just keeps on powering through to the end of the horror movie”. Of course, if you think of the Union as the horror movie, it’s not the worst analogy we’ve ever heard.
The Conservative And Labour Party 258
Posted on
December 09, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This is Tory activist Sarah Robb. She’s not a very nice person. (We don’t feel too bad about saying that, as she’s no fan of ours either.)
But, y’know, Tory activist, not a nice person – no news there, right?
The cream of the crop 262
Posted on
December 08, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
With polls almost all predicting a hung parliament at next year’s UK general election, every seat counts. So the beleaguered Labour Party must have had hopes of securing a constituency like Gordon in Aberdeenshire.
The Lib Dem incumbent Malcolm Bruce is stepping down, almost certainly taking his substantial personal vote with him, and the party’s choice of replacement, ex-BBC journalist Christine Jardine, managed to pull in just 1,940 votes in neighbouring Aberdeen Donside when she stood there for the Scottish Parliament last year.
In 2010 Labour came third in the seat, but just 1,016 votes behind the SNP, and with Scots traditionally inclined to back Labour at Westminster elections Gordon would surely have had to be down as a winnable target for Ed Miliband.
So the Labour candidate selected to contest the seat – before Alex Salmond had declared an intent to stand, making the Nats hot favourites – is quite an eye-opener.
In with a bullet 186
Posted on
December 08, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The latest sales figures for newspapers in Scotland are out today, most of them showing the now-traditional hefty year-on-year declines. (The Scottish Daily Express was the biggest loser, shedding a hefty 14% of its readership in the last 12 months, with the Guardian, Daily Mirror and Daily Record close behind.)
What the stats throw into striking relief, though, is the pent-up demand for a Yes-supporting paper. Despite having been created in just three weeks on a shoestring budget and not being distributed by some of the biggest supermarket chains, The National – on the worst day so far recorded for its sales – would nevertheless crash straight into the chart in seventh place, already neck-and-neck with its 231-year-old sister paper The Herald and just a few thousand behind the Star and the Express.
The full ordered table is below.
The best-laid plans 195
Posted on
December 07, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Social media has been alive in recent days with No voters concocting a fiendish plan to vote tactically against the SNP at next year’s general election. Labour supporters are urging people to vote Conservative rather than let the SNP take any new seats which might be used to secure a better devolution settlement for Scotland.
We’re not sure the Nats have too much to worry about.
MP For Vendetta 205
Posted on
December 07, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve noted on a number of occasions that the BBC is fond of using the late-night papers review show on the News channel as a sneaky little Nat-bashing section in which London-based broadsheet journalists (always, always Unionists) get to display the full depth of their arrogant cluelessness about Scottish politics.
Last night’s, however, was quite something even by the usual standards.
The definition of redundancy 236
Posted on
December 06, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Ladies and gentlemen, it gives us great pleasure today to present to you the most unnecessary words ever printed in the history of Scottish political journalism.
On current polling, it won’t be long before Ms Curran emulates her script.
The future, coming soon 150
Posted on
December 05, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
One more twist of the corkscrew 96
Posted on
December 05, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Herald, 1 June 2014:
Scottish leader Johann Lamont will be joined by former prime minister Gordon Brown at the event.
We’ll let Johann’s rather shaky grasp of the UK and Scottish population sizes slide on this occasion – she taught English, not maths or geography. The important thing is that the No vote in the referendum assured that benefits would remain a central, shared and uniform facet of British life. Right?
