There’s a curious column in today’s Scottish Sun on the subject of the Smith Commission. We’re going to have to quote quite a large chunk of it to make our point.
Here’s Jim Murphy, a self-proclaimed “socialist” and the hot favourite to be the next “leader” of Scottish Labour, interviewed in today’s Mail On Sunday while doubtless still fresh from his regular early-morning run-through of The Red Flag:
To the barricades, comrades!
…are closer than they appear, runs a (slightly depressing) inscription that must by law be engraved on the door mirror of cars in the USA.
Objects in the Telegraph, though, follow different rules. (Thanks, we’re here all week.)
As the Unionist press and parties indulge in orgasmic paroxysms this week about how “The Vow” has allegedly been delivered and exceeded, it rings even stranger that absolutely nobody wants to claim the credit for authoring the historic document that saved the UK. Our investigations continue.
It needs saying as much today as it did last month.
The coverage of the Smith Commission findings in today’s press is woeful pretty much across the board, regardless of where each paper’s allegiances sit. Right-wing Tory papers fume about the poor suffering English (without ever quite pinning down how England would lose out from the proposals) and rage bitterly at what they bizarrely interpret as hypocrisy on the part of the SNP for signing off on the report but then criticising it as inadequate.
(If it helps, chaps, try picturing yourselves as creditors of a bankrupt business being offered a CVA settlement of 10p in each pound owed. It’s better than getting nothing at all and you’d accept the offer, but you’d still be pretty unhappy, right?)
Meanwhile, the Daily Record continues its blitzkrieg bombardment of breathtakingly barefaced bullshot, attempting to simply overwhelm gullible readers by virtue of the sheer volume (in both senses of the word) of its spin and flat-out lies.
We mentioned this story (about David Cameron pushing ahead with “English votes for English laws” legislation that would exclude Labour MPs from budget votes, despite the Smith Commission report categorically saying he wouldn’t) earlier today, but one particular line from it deserves a post of its own.
He said: ‘This is the Prime Minister’s view, it is not government policy.’”
You heard it right, readers: a never-seen dimwit in a job so pointless he himself stood in the last election on a policy of abolishing it altogether really just said “Don’t listen to anything this idiot says about government policy, he’s only the Prime Minister.”
It’s been that sort of day, folks.
You have to hand it to David Cameron – he doesn’t hang about. Barely two hours had passed after the declaration of the result of the independence referendum when he started tying new devolved powers into legislation on “English votes for English laws”, in a slick knifing of his unsuspecting hitherto-allies in Labour.
And just as hot on the heels of the Smith Commission’s final report, he’s at it again.
It’ll be a brave Yes voter who buys a newspaper (other than The National) or switches on their TV or radio today, because Scotland is already enduring an outpouring of concentrated spin and outright deception that perhaps even exceeds that seen in the last few weeks before the independence referendum.
Blood pressures will be soaring across the land as people are told things about the final report of the Smith Commission that are flatly at odds with the reality, by journalists and broadcasters who either know perfectly well that what they’re saying is false or haven’t bothered to try to find out.
Below, you’ll find the facts.
We’re going to hold off full scrutiny and analysis of the Smith Commission report on devolution until it’s actually released and we’ve read it, rather than going on pure speculation like most Scottish newspapers this morning.
But what we CAN talk about is this.
We’ve had another letter from the government.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
