When it comes to oil and gas, Scots are used to being treated like backwoods yokels by Westminster, deemed incapable of looking after this valuable resource and lied to about its value. Oil and gas is a priceless treasure to the UK, and Westminster is terrified of losing control of it.
That’s because not only are the billions of pounds in oil and gas tax receipts valuable in and of themselves, but they also halve the balance of payments deficit, thereby protecting the value of the pound.
But how exactly does Scotland turn oil and gas into money?
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Tags: Scott Minto
Category
analysis, scottish politics, uk politics
About 1,000 more and LFI will be bigger than Scottish Labour’s actual membership.
Category
comment, scottish politics
Surely that must be Project Fear at the bottom of the barrel now?
The lead story in today’s Herald, folks. If “story” isn’t putting it much too strongly.
Tags: project fear
Category
media, scottish politics
We had to give the BBC a nudge before it replied to the last of our three Freedom Of Information requests, but at least this time we didn’t just get the standard fob-off.
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Category
comment, media, scottish politics
Well done to everyone who correctly guessed that our Mystery Guest last night was indeed Ruth Davidson. If you’d like to listen to Ruth’s 2009 demo reel for voiceover work which accompanied the letter, click the image below.
From that to the leader of a major Scottish political party in just two years. Hats off.
Category
audio, comment, media, scottish politics
An alert reader sends in this letter received by their company in 2009:
“Hello,
[identifying paragraph removed]
I’ve now taken the plunge to set myself up as a freelancer and am looking for voiceover work in commercials, documentaries and corporate films as well as scripting and media training.
I’m [redacted] years old with a warm, rich voice which has both light and shade. A long history of factual programming means I can convey information with authority, combined with an openness and accessibility which encourages interest; the unexpected world of live broadcasting means I’ve learned to be equally adept at putting across humour. My accent is a neutral blend of central Scotland tones.
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Tags: and finallylight-hearted banter
Category
media, scottish politics
If we’re being honest, Irish Times, it’s not the phrase we’d have chosen:
Category
media, scottish politics, wtf
Today’s Sunday Herald has a rather low-key piece (it’s just the 7th-placed story in their “Referendum News” section) on the ramifications for a Yes vote of the 2015 UK general election. It comes the day after several papers carried vitriolic attacks from Unionist politicians on the SNP’s Angus Robertson for suggesting that the UK government ought to consider delaying the vote for a year to enable independence negotiations to be completed.
“This is yet another brazen stunt by the SNP to drive a wedge with Westminster”, raged the Scottish Conservatives’ Jackson Carlaw. “It is highly presumptuous of Angus Robertson, a man with clear delusions of grandeur, to be talking about postponing the next general election”, he continued, while Labour’s shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran bleated about an extra year of Tories.
But it’s rationally almost impossible to make any other argument.
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Category
analysis, scottish politics, uk politics
The realisation that the No camp’s reaction to the independence White Paper has been based on a massive, scarcely-believable misunderstanding/misrepresentation of reality has thrown a new light on all sorts of things from the past week.
The most recent “BLACK HOLE!” story is a case in point.
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Tags: black holecaptain darlingmisinformation
Category
comment, media, scottish politics
This morning we’ve been double- and triple-checking our story from last night, because we were so sure we must have missed something. Even given the low esteem in which we hold the integrity of the hapless “Better Together” campaign, we felt that they surely couldn’t have made such an idiotic and fundamental error, and that instead we must have misinterpreted a word or a sentence somewhere along the way.
But no. We were wrong in that assumption. They really ARE that dim.
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Category
analysis, idiots, scottish politics, stats, stupidity
