This shouldn’t take long. Since 1997, and particularly since 2001, what passes for the political ideology of the Labour Party in Britain could be accurately summed up in one short phrase: be the smallest possible single step to the left of the Tories.
Protected by the grossly undemocratic First Past The Post electoral system – which discriminates massively against third parties and ensures that Labour or the Tories can secure huge, unassailable majorities on barely more than a third of the vote – Tony Blair’s brilliant, ruinous flash of political inspiration was the willingness to fully grasp the implication of that fact: that Labour could effectively all but become the Tories and still capture the left-wing vote, because that vote had nowhere else to go.
A bit like when there’s someone breathing right down your neck on a crowded train, that sent the Tories shuffling ever further along the political spectrum in an attempt to put some distance between them and their opponents, only to be confounded as Labour doggedly matched them step for step, constantly pressing their manifesto-groins into the Tories’ rear like some sort of hideous nerdy sex pest.
We don’t really want to spend all day discussing things from a single rapidly-declining minority-interest Unionist newspaper, but we spent 69p this morning buying a copy of the Scotsman in order to check some facts on the Susan Calman story, so we’re going to flipping well get our money’s worth.
The paper runs a rather odd piece today, in which the Labour-linked Centre for Public Policy for Regions is called upon to analyse a single Yes Scotland press release relating to the Scottish economy. (A boxout at the end promises a similar treatment for a “Better Together” leaflet at an unspecified point in the future.)
We’ve screenshotted the entire piece here if you want to read it without giving the Scotsman any traffic. But just to give you the flavour of the overarching (or underlying, depending on how you like to look at it) tone, below we’ve stripped out everything except the CPPR’s considered professional assessment.
We weren’t exactly shocked to see the Scotsman still trying to flog the “evil cybernats” routine this morning with another story about Susan Calman, with the paper seizing on some comments from Fiona Hyslop as their excuse to keep the issue alive.
Today’s article, though, is noticeably more restrained than yesterday’s. It’s liberally sprinkled with disclaimers and caveats noting that the threats and abuse had been alleged, rather than reporting them as empirical facts. It even notes that Ms Calman has declined to comment further on the supposed events, implying that there were questions to be answered.
Then we got to the comments, and things started to get a bit weird.
Several weeks on, we still await answers from the No camp to several serious questions about their biggest donor, Ian Taylor of Vitol. But the ongoing furore (we’re really not sure issuing the Herald with a legal threat worked out the way Mr Taylor hoped it would) over his £500,000 donation has kept attention away from the other substantial contributors to the “Better Together” campaign fund.
Aberdeen local paper the Evening Express has decided to put that right, though.
We’ve spent a fair bit of time over the course of this website’s existence documenting the multi-media witch-hunts that invariably arise in the Scottish media whenever some obscure and/or anonymous independence supporter on the internet says something slightly intemperate (or even just expresses an unpopular opinion).
We especially enjoy contrasting it against the way that the elected, taxpayer-funded representatives of major political parties can get away unremarked with comparing the First Minister to dictators and genocidal mass murderers (of the sort “Better Together” donors like to give hundreds of thousands of pounds to).
The vast difference in the amount of media weight given to abusive behaviour from British nationalists and that from the independence side (the infamous “cybernats”) has long been a feature of Scottish political debate, but over the last 12 hours the phenomenon has seen an intriguing new twist.
We had to be out most of yesterday, so we didn’t have time to cover a story which broke in the morning in several UK papers. 24 hours later, though, we can still find no mention of it in the Scottish media, which remains fully occupied in filling its pages with recycled wittering drivel about the pound.
This is a worrying state of affairs, because yesterday’s story is of direct concern to an awful lot more Scots than a hypothetical scaremongering fantasy about currency.
Weirdly, the front-page lead story of today’s Herald newspaper is (at the time of writing) completely absent from the online edition. We did a little digging and found that it had been somehow fused into a piece about three women and a baby being involved in a car crash, with no text.
Hopefully the Herald will fix the glitch soon, but in the meantime we’ve managed to get a hold of this low-resolution but (just barely) legible image.
An alert reader pointed something interesting out to us this morning. STV News, the Telegraph and the Paisley Daily Express all carry an almost word-for-word-identical story (the only one with a byline is the Telegraph’s version, which credits it to the grumpy-looking Josie Ensor), all three of them headlined with slight variations on the phrase “Over 60 per cent unconvinced on Scottish independence”.
It refers to a poll conducted for the “Better Together” campaign, and reports its findings accurately. Or to be more precise, reports some of its findings.
We stumbled across this quite by accident yesterday. We think you’ll enjoy it.
The clip is from last year, and was aired on Canadian national news channel Sun News. Douglas Murray is a British writer who claims to be half-Scottish on account of unspecified links to Unionist breeding ground the Isle of Lewis, popular haunt of No-camp luminaries like Alistair Darling, virulent Labour anti-devolutionist Brian Wilson and controversial “Better Together” donor Ian Taylor.
Murray studied at Eton and Oxford and writes for august UK journals like the Spectator and Guardian, as well as appearing on numerous BBC political shows. For some reason, the Canadians consider him an expert on Scottish politics, qualified to inform and enlighten their viewers. See what you think.
The Scottish Co-operative Party’s 2011 manifesto is one full of co-operative and mutual solutions to the challenges faced in Scotland, issues of independence, devolution or the constitutional settlement did not feature. The annual Co-operative Party conference has passed motions which promote a view of Scotland playing a vital role in a United Kingdom.
We have noted the personal comments made by Mary Lockhart, a long serving Co-operative Party and Labour Party member. Mary has been a great advocate for co-operative and mutual solutions. Whilst we recognise that members of political parties hold differing, sometimes opposite, positions the views Mary has expressed are not shared by the Party. Mary has offered her resignation from the role of Chair of the Scottish Co-operative Party and the Scottish Executive committee has accepted this.“
The BBC’s flagship satirical programme “Have I Got News For You” is, of course, comedy. The tone of the opening minutes of last night’s episode was a little uglier and nastier than the usual friendly inter-regional jibes (normally delivered by the likes of Jeremy Clarkson and accompanied by rebukes from the rest of the panel), but it really wasn’t anything to get overly worked up about. Comedy isn’t always cuddly.
It must have been a little uncomfortable for the No camp, though.
twathater on The Modern Politician: “@ Young Lochinvar 12.32am, Well said and as usual the POLITICIANS and deviants pushing this ideology are avoiding any responsibility…” Feb 12, 02:30
Young Lochinvar on The Modern Politician: “Well said. An example of how feminisation of society, nihilistic ideology and care in the community/ abandonment of the clinically…” Feb 12, 00:32
Young Lochinvar on The Modern Politician: “Chas Try reading top to bottom and left to right. Things will make more sense.. If you don’t agree with…” Feb 12, 00:06
willie on The Modern Politician: “Tragic, tragic, tragic the death of six killed and the twenty seven is just that. Who know what was in…” Feb 11, 22:38
DaveL on The Modern Politician: “Aye, and the BBC still don’t know that…” Feb 11, 22:24
Andrew scott on The Modern Politician: “O/T shooter in canada a tranny Quelle surprise” Feb 11, 20:17
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Grangemouth closed because the SNP/Green wreckers at HR voted for virtue signalling Scottish Nutt Zero by 2045. 5 years ahead…” Feb 11, 19:45
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: ““The deindustrialisation of Thatcher has ruined the health of much of the Scottish population and of the North of England”…” Feb 11, 19:36
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: ““explain what you mean” If politicians get re-elected time after time, then in the eyes of the voters, they’re not…” Feb 11, 19:17
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: ““girls fed testosterone” Crivens! I’d heard of maneaters. I’d never realised it was a literal description.” Feb 11, 19:11
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Form an orderly queue, Insider. I’m still waiting to hear how Alf presents the passport issued by an imaginary country…” Feb 11, 19:06
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Great stuff, Alf. Could have been better though – needed something from Fanon to add that little bit extra. BTW.…” Feb 11, 19:01
Insider on The Modern Politician: “Alf ! Still waiting for an answer to my query yesterday concerning your fascinating comments about how “different animal species”…” Feb 11, 18:01
Chas on The Modern Politician: “As usual, I read the comments starting from the bottom up. I note 6 in a row from Cheyne, all…” Feb 11, 16:02
Alf Baird on The Modern Politician: ““Scottish politics is different” Indeed so, but we must understand why this is the case. Its because we are talking…” Feb 11, 15:04
PC Foster on The Modern Politician: “Ha . A woman ‘in a dress’ is code for ‘we are too scared to mention it was a trans.!” Feb 11, 14:24
James Cheyne on The Modern Politician: “The awful governance and policies of Tories, Labour, Greens, libdems and the SNP are the worst of the worst applied…” Feb 11, 13:42
James Cheyne on The Modern Politician: “Psyops and psychology worked on the democratic voters.” Feb 11, 13:08
James Cheyne on The Modern Politician: “Making your options so awful, they can guide you into making the choices they aways wanted you to make.” Feb 11, 12:37
Lorna Campbell on The Modern Politician: “Yes, exactly. The media twists itself out of shape to try and not hurt the feelz of this dangerous lobby.…” Feb 11, 12:31
James Cheyne on The Modern Politician: “The replication of reducing Scotland to a one party system is being done in England, Wales and Ireland, Nobody worth…” Feb 11, 12:31
James Cheyne on The Modern Politician: “Labour moved into the SNP for a reason, The next step is to reduce the ability people having the right…” Feb 11, 12:12
sam on The Modern Politician: “She, like every other leading politician, reacted to public pressure. She abolished the poll tax and did not introduce the…” Feb 11, 12:07
James Cheyne on The Modern Politician: “We do know what two tiers beliefs are, and he follows them to the letter. Reduce the success and workings…” Feb 11, 11:59
James Cheyne on The Modern Politician: “The Scottish experiment. Trick them into believing they are in a union treaty with England. Get rid of the Scottish…” Feb 11, 11:47
100%Yes on The Modern Politician: “AYE, YOUR WRONG he’s got his own mind and he’s no one lap dog. He’s a British politician who in…” Feb 11, 10:41
TURABDIN on The Modern Politician: “FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS… “The true interests and desires of a society are embodied in what Rousseau called its…” Feb 11, 10:30
Marie on The Modern Politician: “I wondered that when I saw media reports saying that the shooter was a woman “in a dress”. Immediately smelled…” Feb 11, 10:22
Ian Smith on The Modern Politician: “We cannot forever keep financially hitting the successful to keep the subsidised in business. I prefer the German/Austrian type model…” Feb 11, 09:35
Willie on The Modern Politician: “As an aside this Wednesday morning I’ve just read an article in the Telegraph reporting outrage at new government letter…” Feb 11, 09:31
