The Observer, for example, blamed the stat on “neo-Nazis”.
But even if that were true, it wouldn’t of course disprove the claim. A stopped clock is right twice a day, and something isn’t intrinsically false just because a neo-Nazi says it. Hitler had some pretty messed-up ideas but the world didn’t become flat just because he said it was round.
The Cass Review into gender medicine, which has been almost six long years in the making, was finally published this morning, and despite the fears of some – including us – that it was going to be watered down, it’s turned out to be an absolutely explosive document even on a quick skim. (It’s 388 pages long.)
The most damning aspect, though, is almost certainly this one:
Those quotes annihilate any concept of an “innocent good intentions” defence for the gender clinics. Because if you genuinely believe that you’re doing good, you don’t try to bury all the evidence.
Ruth Davidson finally emerged today from a summer of hiding from press stories about her racist and sectarian councillors and MSPs to give a bizarre, nervy and gabbling interview to Good Morning Scotland.
Highlights included calling Show Racism The Red Card an “anti-Semitic” organisation and proposing the building of eight entire new towns in Scotland (the funding source and potential locations for this colossal undertaking were not specified), all filled with social housing which would nevertheless be for sale under Right To Buy.
(Which if it could somehow magically be done would of course lead to the homes being quickly sold at heavy discounts, leaving councils insufficient money to fund their replacements and creating another massive housing bubble and crisis.)
But our very favourite bit was when (at 2h 17m) she said this:
To be honest, readers, if we encountered a 30-sq-foot drunk waving a broken glass around in a pub, we’d just be looking for the door as fast as possible. But clearly Ruth Davidson frequents different sorts of bars to us.
So just for a bit of light-hearted Friday fun, we thought we’d ask: what WOULD you say to that person in that situation?
This is amazing, readers. It’s an extract from this afternoon’s The Big Debate on Radio Scotland, in which a journalist – the BBC’s Gordon Brewer – finally gets round to asking someone from Scottish Labour how they can make the extra £500m they need to fund their tax-credits “policy” while keeping all taxes the same.
You might have to listen through a few times to get your head round it, because that really is what a grown woman actually tried to get away with in front of a live audience.
An alert reader pointed us today to this audio clip of Jim Murphy. It’s not tagged, but we THINK it’s from a Radio Clyde interview about three weeks ago which oddly didn’t seem to get picked up at the time by anyone in the media.
Below is a clip from today’s “Morning Call” on BBC Radio Scotland. Speaking (from 16m 24s on the full show) are SNP MSP Mark McDonald, presenter Kaye Adams and Labour MSP Lewis Macdonald. There are a couple of noteworthy moments.
A caller named “George” had rung in concerned that the SNP might be giving up on their goal of independence, and Adams invited Mark McDonald to set his mind at rest. Here’s what happened in the next three minutes.
Today we’ve become quite obsessed with Jim Murphy’s pathological avoidance of a straight answer to the question of whether income tax should be fully devolved to the Scottish Parliament or not. The BBC now has a report on his much-trailed speech in Glasgow, but we’ll get to that in a moment. First it’s worth having a listen to this.
It’s an interview taken from the “Pienaar’s Politics” podcast on Radio 5 Live earlier this month. And it makes for an intriguing study of the art of evasion.
We know some readers hate listening to audio (we do too), so here’s a full transcript of this interview from this morning, with some brief added commentary.
gregor on Eyes Full Of Beams: “Elon Musk: “Massive creep”: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1878173703428587974 #MassiveStatePedoNetwork” Jan 12, 00:21
gregor on Eyes Full Of Beams: “Gunther Eagleman™ @GuntherEagleman: “A former Labour Minister did this interview last week slamming Elon for mean posts. He was just…” Jan 11, 23:47
gregor on Safeguarding Is Not Right-Wing: “Labour MP Dan Carden: “This is not an obsession of the far right. I am speaking out because over the…” Jan 11, 23:27
Mia on Eyes Full Of Beams: “The quote below have been taken from the “Letters of George Lockhart of Carnwath, 1698-1732” I apologise for its length.…” Jan 11, 23:11
gregor on Safeguarding Is Not Right-Wing: “Mhairi Black (@SNP): Bad guys run the town in social media wild west: “ELON Musk and Donald Trump make my…” Jan 11, 23:07
sarah on In Ruins: “Wow – the first link to Vivian’s btl re the USA’s choice of Scottish politicians to be invited for [“programming”…” Jan 11, 22:41
gregor on Safeguarding Is Not Right-Wing: “Sally Bee @SallyBee644023: “CPS?????”: https://x.com/SallyBee644023/status/1878206164720091539 https://www.cps.gov.uk/ #Ouch” Jan 11, 22:39
gregor on Safeguarding Is Not Right-Wing: “Elon Musk: “Wow”: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1878199811750379742” Jan 11, 22:33
gregor on Safeguarding Is Not Right-Wing: “William, 3rd Earl of Wan Chai @CX252HKG: “Then you see his audience”: https://x.com/CX252HKG/status/1878192819178983447 #LabourGovernmentSexCult” Jan 11, 22:32
gregor on In Ruins: “#MakeScotlandGreatAgain2025” Jan 11, 22:25
gregor on In Ruins: “Keep proving the point, people…” Jan 11, 22:18
gregor on Safeguarding Is Not Right-Wing: “Queen Natalie @TheNorfolkLion: “I can’t believe a former MP @ivorcaplin would post these kind of comments brazenly and openly on…” Jan 11, 22:08
gregor on In Ruins: “Errol is protected by Preston Watson and his marvelous flying machines… Preston Watson… The Flying Scotsman: https://medium.com/the-dundonian/preston-watson-the-dundonian-who-became-the-flying-scotsman-b2cdfd5b69e” Jan 11, 21:53
gregor on Eyes Full Of Beams: “Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: Jan 6, 2021 “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No…” Jan 11, 21:33
Dan on In Ruins: “Practicing my searches for Vivian’s past posts gets plenty hits. A lot of interesting detail in this one from a…” Jan 11, 21:06
gregor on In Ruins: “I don’t need to talk about my kingdom (power) – I’m showing you, Scotland: #FreedomKing” Jan 11, 21:03
sarah on In Ruins: “With independence we wouldn’t have these people in sole control. All our systems and institutions would be opened up as…” Jan 11, 21:03
PacMan on In Ruins: “If only the Electric soup comic was still alive today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Soup” Jan 11, 21:03
sarah on In Ruins: “BAP – yes, I’m sure I remember that. As a Keynesian I find it impossible to stomach the economic line…” Jan 11, 20:58
Dan on In Ruins: “No problem, the longer this protracted stasis goes on the harder it is to recall the ever-growing list of dubious…” Jan 11, 20:51
gregor on In Ruins: “Talking Heads: Little Creatures: Road To Nowhere: “Well, we know where we’re goin’ But we don’t know where we’ve been…” Jan 11, 20:48
sarah on In Ruins: “Fair points, Dan. I had forgotten the “not voting because on maternity leave” episode.” Jan 11, 20:44
Dan on In Ruins: “Not entirely so Sarah. Aside from Freeports, with her fiscal remit she must have had some inkling around the ScotWind…” Jan 11, 20:42
Mia on Eyes Full Of Beams: “This is another quote from the lord Balmerino – Maule letters. This quote is from 31 January 2012, still in…” Jan 11, 20:37
gregor on In Ruins: “Brainwash: “Make people believe only what you want them to believe by continually telling them that it is true and…” Jan 11, 20:35
Jan Cowan on In Ruins: “NONE of our taxes should leave our country!” Jan 11, 20:25
Lorna Campbell on In Ruins: “Many politicians are career politicians with no actual intention of doing anything. That is not the worst of it. The…” Jan 11, 20:17
sarah on In Ruins: ““wee plucky countries…”? For heavens sake, I know that Mrs [I forget her married name] has a young child but…” Jan 11, 20:14
Jan Cowan on In Ruins: “Yes, Alf. You pointed that out to us some time ago. I only wish all you worthwhile, honest people would…” Jan 11, 20:09
100%Yes on In Ruins: “We’ll never stop them seeing the pension pot is more important, its just who the SNP leadership has become. So…” Jan 11, 20:05