There’s a new hot buzz-phrase in the Yoonstream: “GERS deniers”.
It’s actually been around for quite a few months – coincidentally since this site started exposing the true nature of the figures – but has become a constant mantra recently, in particular since the intervention of an actual proper expert who doesn’t sell cat litter for a living, Professor Richard Murphy.
Ever since he set tongues and tails wagging by writing a series of hard-hitting articles for his widely-renowned Tax Research UK blog last week, rubbishing the quality of the data, Unionists have been in an increasingly shrill flap about it.
We saw this exchange on Twitter this morning, involving left-wing Labour activist Eoin Clarke, a reader, and Scottish Labour list MSP Elaine Smith.
Smith professed to find it “unbelievable” and “scary” that the reader thought he’d had Tory governments for most of his lifetime. (We asked him how old he was and he said 34, which means he’s had Tory governments for 62% of his life, so that checks out.)
But it’s a standard Scottish Labour line that there’s no real difference between Scottish and English voters in terms of favouring left-wing politics, so we thought we’d just quickly check the arithmetic on that. The results are unlikely to shock you.
It’s important to note, firstly, that the version of Sadiq Khan’s speech to the Scottish Labour conference he tweeted on Saturday morning simply flat-out said that Scottish nationalists were the same as racists and sectarian bigots. Its meaning was as clear as crystal to the Daily Record, a newspaper which is hardly hostile to Khan’s party.
“No difference” is a stark and unambiguous phrase. The speech did not contain the hastily-added qualifiers about “in this respect” and “of course I’m not saying the SNP are racist” which suddenly appeared when he read it out onstage that afternoon.
The reliably-wise Stephen Bush of The New Statesman said something perceptive yesterday on the subject of an EU referendum, although it applies much more widely.
It’s a view we’ve held for many years, most often in relation to UK governments ruling with huge majorities won on pretty tiddly pluralities of the vote (often in the mid-30%s), where the bulk of the electorate has no defence against a party it didn’t vote for.
Despite an electoral system that makes such events far rarer, the phenomenon crops up a lot in Scotland too, and both sides are guilty, often on the same subject. Scottish employment figures, for example, alternate with almost metronomic regularity between being higher/lower than those in the rest of the UK, and whichever it is in any given month one side or the other will trumpet it as conclusive and permanent proof that Scotland’s governance is better/worse than that of London.
(Even though Holyrood in fact has almost no power over the economy, so deserves little of either the blame or credit, whichever applies that month.)
Below is part of a segment from Monday’s edition of Good Morning Scotland (from 2h 35m at the link beneath the clip), which featured an interview with Professor Allyson Pollock, an extremely experienced academic in the field of healthcare on both sides of the border who so far as we know has no dog in the Scottish constitutional fight.
These are the comments of UK defence secretary Michael Fallon in a short interview with today’s Herald. We don’t know about you, folks, but to us it feels like Christmas.
We think our favourite line is “There are other voices in Scotland now, not least Ruth Davidson’s”, but there are a lot to choose from.
Cynicus on Looking up at the stars: ““….No invasion that wiped out one group and replaced it. “-Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, 16 March, 2026 at 10:54 am ======== Fearghas,…” Mar 16, 23:47
Geri on Looking up at the stars: ““100%YES: so how do you see it being sorted AFTER independence” Because we’ll have our own parliament. Not a Unionist…” Mar 16, 23:39
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “Championing Scots is an entirely justified and laudable enterprise. There is world-class literature in it. All Scottish children should become…” Mar 16, 23:38
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Dan: I don’t hate you for accusing me of being a Unionist when I was probably a nationalist when you…” Mar 16, 23:28
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Geri: Alec Salmond said no such thing. He ensured that women’s rights were embedded in Alba policy. You, like several…” Mar 16, 23:03
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “100%YES: so how do you see it being sorted AFTER independence? Do tell. Because sorting it PRIOR to independence is…” Mar 16, 22:46
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Aye, Northy, if you start by ignoring the fact that the 2022 census found 5.44 million people in Scotland you…” Mar 16, 22:34
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Not saying any of the blokes in Your Party hate women. But many of them are enthusiastic followers of a…” Mar 16, 22:24
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““keep on making weapons on our soil” FFS, Dan, that ship sailed over 4 years ago. “makes you look obsessed…” Mar 16, 22:19
Northcode on Looking up at the stars: “This from the 2022 Scottish Census: 4.74 million Scots identified as white Scottish/British. 62.4% of that number identified as “Scottish…” Mar 16, 22:13
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “I was told that when you finish a packet of smoked salmon, the most environmentally sound course of action is…” Mar 16, 22:09
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Oh, I think he’s given it a great deal of thought, Sarah. He just has a problem with women who…” Mar 16, 22:04
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Best you keep voting for that Union Jack safety blanket then Lorna. Aye, there’s jist no point in returning to…” Mar 16, 21:54
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “H McH: what are you doing? Destroying the only policy we have? If we can’t top anything England does in…” Mar 16, 21:53
sarah on Looking up at the stars: “@ Lorncal at 8.52 p.m.: I feel very much the same as you. The world as it is being run…” Mar 16, 21:30
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “H McH: Every statistic and every study undertaken shows categorically that a country where women are treated as less than…” Mar 16, 21:04
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Hmm, think I’ll finish my fishing session as some quarries jist aren’t worth the effort… But I’m all but fucking…” Mar 16, 20:59
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Sarah: your faith does you proud; but I very much doubt it would be possible to dislodge them after independence…” Mar 16, 20:52
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “I’m sorry to have disappointed you, but equally I do feel the likelihood was always that it was going to…” Mar 16, 20:29
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““It cannot be Gaelic because only 50,000 people speak the latter” Scots speakers are a minority too, Alf. A bigger…” Mar 16, 20:06
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Lebanon is in for a kicking because they lack the ability to expel the terrorist cuckoos who have been occupying…” Mar 16, 20:00
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Dan says: “Would you eat a wild Scottish caught salmon or trout out of the Tay, when we still pump…” Mar 16, 19:56
Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: ““Gaelic, the language of the actual historical ‘Scots’.” No one can dispute this, Fearghas, however it is only ever part…” Mar 16, 19:45
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “We can’t all be related to Adam and Eve. In the pictures, they’re clearly white, white, white. And, TBQFH, that’s…” Mar 16, 19:44
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““maybe you participate in things like that” Nobody is much bothered that you’re “pig curious”, twathater, but you’re defo on…” Mar 16, 19:41
100%Yes on Looking up at the stars: “I suppose if we go right to the beginning were all related to Adam and Eve.” Mar 16, 19:40
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““Majorities of MSPs and MPs at Holyrood and Westminster have led to absolutely no progress whatsoever in the independence fight”…” Mar 16, 19:34
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Dunno what you’re so bitter about, YL. Thought you were celebrating the English losing the war. Don’t tell me you’ve…” Mar 16, 19:23
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Mark Beggan @ 18.01. Perhaps one of the most accurate and depressing posts on WOS btl recently, Mark. Self inflicted…” Mar 16, 18:59
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “To be clear, I ate it this morning, it didn’t come out of the Tay this morning. It was smoked,…” Mar 16, 18:57
