On a dark desert highway 129
Posted on
October 26, 2019 by
Chris Cairns
Archive for the ‘uk politics’
The unbreakable lock 664
Posted on
October 21, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s Monday morning, readers, so welcome once again to the world’s favourite situation comedy, the United Kingdom.
The current position is that absolutely nobody has the slightest idea what’s going to happen this week, or today, or by lunchtime. The Prime Minister is as we speak being taken to court (again), and a whole series of votes in the House Of Commons may or may not take place and may or may not determine anything.
But there’s one particularly interesting thing going on.
The ultimate Scotlanding 304
Posted on
October 20, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
So, almost a third of you are bloody idiots and we’ll just have to deal with that.
The good news is that at least there couldn’t be any unforeseen consequences.
Brooks Was Here 190
Posted on
October 18, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As we write this, Boris Johnson’s new Brexit deal appears to hang in the balance. According to Sky News this morning the arithmetic is poised on a knife-edge.
The four “in play” groups down the middle of the graphic are, from the top: three Tory “Spartans” (hardcore Brexiters who might yet back the deal), 19 Labour MPs who’ve suggested they might do so for various reasons, 20 former-Tory “rebels” who had the whip removed by Johnson for voting to block no-deal, and 14 independents, mainly from the “Change UK” wing or whatever they’re called this week.
The government needs 36 of the 56 to vote with it to get the deal through, and can probably count on most of the 20 former Tories. Labour sources are suggesting, quite plausibly, that double-figure numbers of their 19 will also back the deal. So it’s close.
If it passes, England and Wales will get what they voted for (Brexit), Northern Ireland will – after a fashion – get what it voted for (effectively staying in the EU), and Scotland will get shafted. It’ll be placed at a significant economic disadvantage to NI, at a likely severe cost in jobs and investment. The nation which voted the most decisively on Brexit (for either option) will be the only one not to get its democratic wishes respected.
And slightly surprisingly, the whole UK thinks that’s unfair.
Levers of power 422
Posted on
October 17, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
16 votes, up to a maximum of 31, you say?
If only there was a party with enough MPs to turn that round, eh?
The grand strategy 373
Posted on
October 16, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Yesterday we finally got to hear the infallible top-secret plan for independence.
Oh. Oh well, that’s okay then. That should sort it all right out.
The problem of England and Wales 131
Posted on
October 14, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As we write this, in between bouts of weeping with exhausted misery, frustration and rage, Her Majesty’s Opposition’s interminable will-they-won’t-they game of attempting – maybe, one day, perhaps – to bring down the government and force a new election leading to a new EU referendum continues.
And as the SNP in particular devotes huge amounts of energy to trying to stop Brexit, against the wishes of its own voters, we wondered how the public not just in Scotland but in the two constituent nations of the UK that voted Leave felt about that.
Uh-oh.
Priority boarding 173
Posted on
October 09, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s been quite the week so far. For the vile and sickening crime of [check notes] finding out what SNP voters were thinking about the important political issues of the moment, we’ve had (especially on Facebook) a two-day barrage of stuff like this, and worse:
So, y’know, on with what we always do: reporting the facts.
Honest dirty hands 320
Posted on
October 08, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Yesterday’s poll results attracted quite a surprising amount of anger from people who apparently don’t consider it at all important to the cause of independence to find out what people intending to vote SNP at the next Holyrood election think.
They’re probably not going to like these ones much either.
A third of SNP voters are unconvinced by the First Minister’s constant assurances that a second indyref will be delivered in the next 18 months. But the related question posed by several readers yesterday was “If you don’t think the SNP has a coherent strategy for securing a new vote, what would YOU do, Mister Smartypants?”
Which is annoying, because it’s a question we’ve answered in various contexts half a dozen times in the past year and a bit. So we thought we’d see if voters had been paying any more attention.
The contaminant 123
Posted on
September 27, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Remember this guy? Go on, give it a minute, it’ll come to you.
He popped up today to chuck in his tuppence-worth about inflammatory language in politics, and how – like everything else bad – it all started with vile cybernats in 2014 (because as you’ll of course remember, it was Yes supporters who never shut up about “surrendering”) and has now sullied even the dignified halls of Westminster.
We wonder how that can have happened.
Going down a bad road 57
Posted on
September 27, 2019 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
You now have less than 24 hours left to secure your copy of our intermittent cartoonist Mr Cairns’ latest beautifully-crafted volume of biting political satire featuring a cute lion. (No, not the one pictured below.)
For the love of God please don’t upset him or we’ll get more like this.
