With the greatest of reluctance, and only in the absence of anything even remotely more interesting, then, let’s have a few words on Scottish Labour’s latest solemn and sincere declaration of its full, total, complete and utter autonomy.
Because while the media is reporting the development that UK Labour has decided to extend a few extra inches of lead to Kezia Dugdale’s branch office as if it had the slightest importance to anything, it seems oddly reluctant to ask the obvious question.
Admittedly at first we were chiefly doing it in order to embarrass the increasingly angry and belligerent BBC presenter Andrew Neil, who insisted repeatedly last year that there’d been no real-terms cut to the Holyrood budget since the Tories came to power.
That claim put Neil at odds with all manner of people pointing out that the opposite was true, to which we can now add the FoAI:
But we already knew Andrew Neil was an idiot, so that was no big deal. It was another chart in the document that caught our eye and made us think.
Fear and lies work. Over many decades (and really for centuries) the Unionist parties and the media have succeeded in persuading a large percentage of Scots that they’re beggars, scroungers, vagrants and “subsidy junkies” dependent on the ever-generous charity of England to keep them from starvation.
And in terms of the facts, that hasn’t always been an easy sell.
This is the demented, McCarthyite state of madness the Labour Party has reached:
This is a party now openly rejecting anyone as a member who has ever supported any other party. We’d take a minute to try to explain to them how the arithmetic of that one works out, but they’re a long, long way beyond the grasp of reason now.
So let’s be absolutely clear: if Jeremy Corbyn wins the Labour leadership election next month, as almost everyone expects him to, the UK (and therefore Scotland) is doomed to Conservative rule until at least 2025.
That’s not our view, but the official public position of the leader of Scottish Labour.
Should there be a second independence referendum in the next few years, Scotland’s choice will be a clear one: a generation of brutal Tory austerity, isolated from Europe (losing out on billions of pounds in funding) and the protections of the Human Rights Act, or taking responsibility for ourselves.
And every time Kezia Dugdale or her Labour colleagues in Better Together 2.0 protest that there’s another option she’ll be contradicted not by angry nationalists, but by her own words. So we’re sure everyone on all sides of the debate in Scotland will be watching the outcome of the leadership contest with interest. There’s a lot at stake.
The Scottish media has worked itself into an indignant froth over the last few days about the appearance of Sputnik News – an Edinburgh-based arm of a publicly-owned, state-run Russian news agency, fronted by (among others) former Dateline Scotland and NewsShaft stars Jack Foster and Carolyn Scott.
(Any resemblance to publicly-owned, state-run national news agencies of questionable impartiality in other countries is of course entirely coincidental and totally different.)
The Sunday Herald ran a bizarre smear piece yesterday on the pair’s past fundraising initiatives for their two previous projects (which were obviously completely unrelated to Sputnik), and today’s Times has an even weirder column by Melanie Reid in which Foster and Scott are directly and startlingly compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis:
We tried, for the purposes of satire, to think of another country that played host to nuclear missiles that were controversially imposed on it by an external government, but unfortunately we couldn’t come up with anything. Sorry about that.
Marie on Yelling at the tide: “The USA is NO friend of us – certainly no friend of the Scottish working class men and women sent…” Jan 24, 11:13
James Cheyne on Yelling at the tide: “The illegal governance of Scotland as a Scottish parliament or any parties sitting therein comes from the parliament England, due…” Jan 24, 10:38
TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “@ CYNICUS much thanks for the Ubykh link. fascinating the varieties of human expression, our humanity is depleted when these…” Jan 24, 10:26
James Cheyne on Yelling at the tide: “It is strange how non Scots think of the Snp compared to the majority of grass roots Scots, In this…” Jan 24, 10:18
TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “a form of pre aspiration occurs in modern Welsh e,g, LL & RH & TH & CHW re the latter…” Jan 24, 10:09
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “Guid mornyng tae aw ye wha daunder aboot this place. A howp ye aw hae a grand Seturday day the…” Jan 24, 09:27
sam on Yelling at the tide: “Katie Beardie had a coo, Black and white about the mou; Wasna that a dentie coo? Dance, Katie Beardie” Jan 24, 09:24
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “@factchecker I appreciate and recognise the good work you do here. Nevertheless, as I am sure you realise yourself, Wings…” Jan 24, 08:57
factchecker on Yelling at the tide: “This relates to the Statutes of Iona; my post referred to the Scottish Privy Council Establishment of Schools Act of…” Jan 24, 08:31
factchecker on Yelling at the tide: “Well researched and accurate as usual, Fearghas. This Privy Council decision was reinforced by several Acts of the Scottish Parliament…” Jan 24, 08:25
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “The SNP have been leading the polls for what seems like forever and are comfortably placed to be the biggest…” Jan 24, 08:24
Cynicus on Yelling at the tide: “TURABDIN says: 23 January, 2026 at 5:09 pm “Language is more than the sum of its functional utilitarian communication capacities,…” Jan 24, 01:19
James Barr Gardner on Yelling at the tide: “John Swinney’s party will go into the Holyrood Election with a new Chief Executive and new head of communications as…” Jan 24, 00:47
Bilbo on Yelling at the tide: “@ Main Got some shares in your portfolio of certain American Pharmaceutical companies?” Jan 24, 00:11
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Yelling at the tide: “Regarding Norse pronunciation effects on Gaelic, the late Professor Derick Thomson wrote: « In phonology Scottish Gaelic differs from Irish…” Jan 23, 23:08
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: ““Or am I missing something?” That’s my conclusion. Only one reply – this one. Please don’t shoot the messenger.” Jan 23, 22:48
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Sorry, Sven, too late in the day for yet another language. Besides, Hobbit Boy beat you to it.” Jan 23, 22:43
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: ““how many woman think Trans woman are woman” I wonder how many women (and men) think the plural of woman…” Jan 23, 22:41
PC Foster on Yelling at the tide: “Lorna – I could not agree with you more- I will not vote nationalist until the woke/trans are well defeated…” Jan 23, 22:12
Bilbo on Yelling at the tide: “Trumps only interest and only audience is the people of the United States of America.” Jan 23, 22:01
Run the Border on Yelling at the tide: “You would get a more coherent set of responses from a formal complaint about your energy supply. This is a…” Jan 23, 21:53
Run the Border on Yelling at the tide: “Happy to write.Get the Rev to organise it.” Jan 23, 21:41
Marie on Yelling at the tide: “Oh that fool will still be calling Donnie the worlds greatest living half Scotsman. Pitiful really.” Jan 23, 21:40
Bilbo on Yelling at the tide: “I wonder how many woman think Trans woman are woman as well?” Jan 23, 21:21
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: ““While social media is much maligned, it does give us a more realistic viewpoint of American society” No shit, Sherlock!…” Jan 23, 21:19
Sven on Yelling at the tide: “Kundi foroyskt vera upprunaliga skotska máli? ?” (Could Faroese be the original Scots language ?). Or mayhap it was Norn.…” Jan 23, 21:18
agentx on Yelling at the tide: “Sturgeon issued a statement on Friday evening, saying: “I understand Ms Darroch’s determination to get answers, and my thoughts are…” Jan 23, 21:18
Lorna Campbell on Yelling at the tide: “David Rodgers: as a male, a man, that is your privilege. It is not mine or that of every woman…” Jan 23, 21:16
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “The SG foresee the day, when Scotland leads the world in woowoo and every Scot is trans, when babies will…” Jan 23, 21:05
Lorna Campbell on Yelling at the tide: “Precisely, Ian. Feed in what you want to be regurgitated as ‘fact’ and you have the kind of dog’s breakfast…” Jan 23, 21:00
