This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.
It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.
My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.
Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.
It’s almost – almost – worth voting SNP in May because of this:
Because it would be at least momentarily absolutely hilarious watching Swinney try to explain why his “100% guaranteed” second indyref didn’t happen if the SNP actually did get a majority on 30% of the vote (which is narrowly feasible on current polling).
This week The National published a poll it commissioned from Find Out Now for this May’s Scottish Parliament election, alongside a seat projection from Sir John Curtice. Here are the list-vote figures from the poll.
The seat projection calculated that the election would result in 59 SNP MSPs (six short of the number John Swinney says is the minimum needed to force a second indyref), 25 for Reform, 13 for the Greens, 12 each for Labour and the Tories and eight for the Lib Dems.
It didn’t specify how many of the seats were constituency ones and how many were list ones, so we dropped Sir John a line and asked him.
Yesterday we noted in passing that independence support now outstrips that of the SNP by more than 20 points, making the party into a gigantic liability as the vehicle for enabling Scots to leave the UK. Put simply, even when voters want independence (as most now do), they’re not willing to vote SNP to get it.
(Not, of course, that they WOULD get it if they voted SNP – the party still having no coherent or credible strategy to achieve it – but more than 40% of would-be Yes voters are no longer prepared to even try giving them the benefit of yet another mandate.)
And since what everyone loves most of all on New Year’s Day is a good old wade in some political stats, we thought we’d take a little more detail on that.
With Reform now pretty consistently miles in front in polling for the next UK election, logically this is brilliant news for the Scottish independence movement, isn’t it?
So can anyone explain why the SNP is so desperate to stop them?
There’s a post on the superwoke poll-analysis account Ballot Box Scotland today bemoaning the lack of interest in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election from polling companies, and presenting it as some sort of anti-Scottish conspiracy.
The real reason nobody’s very interested, of course, is that as things stand the election is an obvious foregone conclusion in which the party that’s been in power for the previous 19 years will stay in power for another five, and nothing will change.
The only minor intrigue around the election is to be found at the edges and is only of real interest to politics nerds, but since we ARE politics nerds we may as well take a look at it.
Something very odd happened when the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal delivered its judgment – and it wasn’t just the made-up quotes and mangled law.
Call it institutional bias, ideological capture, or just the law doing its job, but what Employment Judge Sandy Kemp’s tribunal delivered was the most one-sided outcome since Butch and Sundance decided to come out shooting.
Because, y’know, you can call us old-fashioned purists or sticklers or whatever if you like, but government ministers probably shouldn’t openly lie in prepared statements to the High Court in order to pervert the course of justice.
As recently as this weekend, the Scottish Government claimed that it has “made clear it accepts the Supreme Court ruling [in For Women Scotland] and is taking forward the detailed work necessary”.
But as with so much the Scottish Government says, it’s a barefaced lie.
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Ach, Mark, you’re sore cos the hope hasn’t reached your postcode yet. Give it a day or two.” Jul 21, 18:10
TURABDIN on The Wheels Of Industry: “in the UK parliament is sovereign not the people. there is no concept of popular sovereignty within the Anglo-British (unwritten)…” Jul 21, 18:04
Mark Beggan on The Wheels Of Industry: “They can always be found around children. It’s clear now that Trans is a shield for abusing children. Fully supported…” Jul 21, 17:32
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Wheels Of Industry: “GIRLGUIDING STAFF STILL FEAR VOICING GENDER-CRITICAL VIEWS Girlguiding staff are still afraid to air gender critical views due to the…” Jul 21, 16:24
Mark Beggan on The Wheels Of Industry: ““A communist slop of low caliber, low IQ, feckless, unprincipled clowns.” The new Labour administration. Being a government take 2.…” Jul 21, 16:08
100%Yes on The Wheels Of Industry: “Is it plausible if asked by the police, I had a whole in my purse and the I lost the…” Jul 21, 15:51
robertkknight on The Wheels Of Industry: ““I don’t think it’s feasible or reasonable to disenfranchise the non-Scots in Scotland”. The British Government had no problem disenfranchising…” Jul 21, 15:09
factchecker on The Wheels Of Industry: ““As British MPs are not deputies, that is representatives of the people but accountable only to parliament and its notion…” Jul 21, 15:02
Vestas on The Wheels Of Industry: “I remember Gordon, he used to be quite active BTL here at one point in time (2014-16??). Maybe getting himself…” Jul 21, 14:40
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Professor Baird lacks a time machine so we have to deal with Scotland as it is today. I don’t think…” Jul 21, 14:31
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “I maintain a balanced neutrality on that question by being very careful to not read anything written by Sturgeon, Swinney…” Jul 21, 13:57
robertkknight on The Wheels Of Industry: ““You should be able to rely on the support of near 50% of Scots”. Point of order… 52.7% of Scots…” Jul 21, 13:52
Hatey McHateface on These Words Are My Own: “Missing a trick there, Northy. Demand billions in compensation from the Scots for the genocide of the Picts.” Jul 21, 13:51
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Sorry, Alf. If you think the UN should prioritise “being out of the game” over being blown to bits in…” Jul 21, 13:46
Northcode on These Words Are My Own: “Southernbystander. You’re right, that the practical side matters more than the abstract principle. When I talk about “sovereignty of the…” Jul 21, 12:19
TURABDIN on The Wheels Of Industry: “BURNHAM became Brit PM by a system that is not directly accountable to the people, it was a internal westminster…” Jul 21, 12:15
Southernbystander on These Words Are My Own: “Yes this is all possible and the sentiment is sound, though as others have asked what does deriving sovereignty from…” Jul 21, 11:17
Oneliner on Progressing To Oblivion: “Angus Robertson was a member of the Defence Select Committee. Imagine how disturbing that must have been for his fellow…” Jul 21, 10:39
BLMac on The Wheels Of Industry: “Do any of these polls restrict their canvassing to the only people who should be allowed to have a say…” Jul 21, 10:29
Alf Baird on The Wheels Of Industry: “We know that denial is part of the colonial condition, so no surprise you twa canna, or rather winna see…” Jul 21, 10:11
100%Yes on The Wheels Of Industry: “Swinney Speaking to the Press Association at Bute House, said he wanted Burnham to devolve energy and economic powers to…” Jul 21, 09:58
robertkknight on The Wheels Of Industry: “The biggest trick the colonial oppressor ever pulled was to convince the oppressed that their presence was entirely benevolent in…” Jul 21, 09:47
Minceheid on The Wheels Of Industry: “Just on the side, the collected body of Aurelius’ writings which came to be known as “Meditations” reveals a rather…” Jul 21, 09:35
desimond on The Wheels Of Industry: “All the money spinning conventions will move the dial not one iota..but will help the bank balance of a choice…” Jul 21, 09:33
100%Yes on The Wheels Of Industry: “The SNP/Scottish government has no power they even took it to court to prove it to themselves. So the new…” Jul 21, 09:19
Chas on The Wheels Of Industry: “They must have a huge amount of paper clips to be counted and pencils to be sharpened at the UN.…” Jul 21, 09:17
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Is it that you write your best posts between 2 and 3 am? But what’s that got to do with…” Jul 21, 08:18
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “I suspect that most Scots are blissfully unaware of their “colonial oppression”, Alf. Not having to worry about the “colonial…” Jul 21, 08:12
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “Everybody had better wheesht about the £150+ billion per annum. Extraordinary, though, how even two professors together can contrive to…” Jul 21, 08:03
Young Lochinvar on The Wheels Of Industry: “Just pondering history, with some links to (what would be) Scotland. Emperor Hadrian (of wall fame) listed his successor as…” Jul 21, 02:55
