Here’s Ed Miliband, giving a speech this morning to literally at least 20 Labour MPs, Labour MSPs, journalists and possibly a stray member of the public who accidentally walked through the wrong door in Clydebank, a place where Labour leaders used to address gatherings of thousands.
Unusually, Miliband took a few questions from the hacks, all of whom promptly wasted the opportunity by lobbing completely pointless softballs about coalitions and deals, all of which (a) have been asked a hundred times already, (b) were rendered moot by Alex Salmond on the Marr show yesterday, and (c) were only ever going to be batted away non-committally.
So here’s an actually worthwhile one they can ask instead next time.
We have to give Jim Murphy credit – on this week’s Sunday Politics he started off with the subtle, misleading but technically-accurate version of Labour’s line about the “biggest party forming the government”, which involves making the true but irrelevant observation that in the past it’s usually been the case. (Mainly because UK elections almost always give the biggest party a comfortable majority.)
But it only took a couple of minutes of questioning for the Scottish branch manager to lose his cool and resort to the comprehensively debunked flat-out lie again.
We thought you’d enjoy this clip from this morning’s Andrew Marr Show, readers. It came after a very sensible interview, in which Salmond had calmly and reasonably laid out the SNP’s view on events should there be a hung parliament this May with the former First Minister’s party holding the balance of power.
Tory minister Anna Soubry seems to be experiencing a degree of regret about having begged Scots to stay in the UK. The body language says as much as the words.
Sometimes the UK media is so soul-crushingly moronic, readers, that it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. Nevertheless, we’re pretty sure we haven’t nodded off and woken up in 2017, so today’s papers must be even more idiotic than usual.
The Scottish Sun is around 80% the same newspaper as the English edition (with the bulk of the difference being accounted for by football coverage) so presumably the south-of-the-border version has a broadly similar view, right?
If we’re honest, readers, we almost never bother with BBC Scotland’s televised political coverage any more. We suspect the viewing figures for Scotland 2015 are down to fingers-and-toes territory now, and if last night’s edition – which we gritted our teeth and watched after noting the incredulous response on social media – is anything to go by, the state broadcaster is now using it to try out work-experience kids.
But we can cut fresh-faced new boy David Henderson (who suffered the indignity of being billed as Sarah Smith) a bit of slack for being outmanoeuvred by an experienced operator like Jim Murphy, who at one point in the show was actually interrogating the presenter rather than the other way round.
Kirsty Wark, regular anchor on the Corporation’s current-affairs flagship Newsnight, on the other hand, has no such excuses whatsoever.
A lot of people this week quoted a line supposedly from the former Labour cabinet minister Roy Jenkins, which runs “a statement is only interesting if a sane man could say the opposite”. We haven’t been able to verify if he ever really said that or not, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s true either way.
Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “We know as well, CC and Hatey that those figures are wrong for the following reasons: – the figure for…” Oct 7, 17:16
Onlooker on There May Be Justice: “Anybody got any idea what’s happening with the Alex Salmond case? Not heard anything for a while. Thanks in advance.” Oct 7, 16:00
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Love Of Big Brother: “EQUALITY WATCHDOG CHIEF DEMOLISHES MYTHS ABOUT SINGLE-SEX GUIDANCE The Chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has dismissed…” Oct 7, 14:43
Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Yet another spectacular pic in the MSM this morning. An oil tanker ablaze on the Black Sea. If the sea…” Oct 7, 10:04
Captain Caveman on The Love Of Big Brother: “Yup, seems totally legit, Hatey. Silly me. Who could doubt it, given such extensive, compelling evidence, watertight arguments and citation…” Oct 7, 10:01
Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Guardian of the people. Lord protector. Supreme leader. Head of state. There’s always one. All the arguments, and wars, ultimately…” Oct 7, 09:38
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: “@CC 9:04 You’re misrepresenting what’s being claimed. It’s for everybody, not just those of working age. And it’s not just…” Oct 7, 09:24
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: “Superb copying and pasting there, James. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen better. Let me know which words, ideas and…” Oct 7, 09:13
Captain Caveman on The Love Of Big Brother: “Imagine believing that the mere act of gaining independence (method TBC) you would, overnight, magic up an EXTRA £60,000 per…” Oct 7, 09:04
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on There May Be Justice: “Transcription of part of Q&A exchange translated into English by app… QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: You’ve spoken again about the Lieutenant…” Oct 7, 01:48
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on There May Be Justice: “PAUL ST-PIERRE PLAMANDON du PARTI QUÉBÉCOIS (PQ) présente ses priorités | Élections Québec 2026 « Le Parti québécois (PQ) a…” Oct 6, 23:58
willie on There May Be Justice: “Ah so this will be why the Standards Commission destroyed all the case records. In the light of Lord Sandison’s…” Oct 6, 21:44
James on The Love Of Big Brother: ““Humiliated and defeated”. LOLZ, aye that’s right, Adrian ya clown. And here’s your wee ubiquitous pal arrived, Adrian. All day,…” Oct 6, 21:32
Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “You make it sound like you’re gonna be depriving “them” of some invincible, merciless, super-fit, highly efficient, killing machine. Somehoo…” Oct 6, 20:12
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: “Ye cannae whack a guid wang oan an oan aboot some cant who’s never coming back (Thatcher) and some dosh…” Oct 6, 20:06
Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “A common tactic of people like yourself, get totally humiliated and defeated on one subject and rather than admit your…” Oct 6, 19:47
James on The Love Of Big Brother: “So, “naw it disnae” then. LOL. Here’s yin for you and yer Tory bedfellows. “After £100 billion has finally been…” Oct 6, 19:17
Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “lol 2/10 – managed to copy and paste some relevant material, so let’s look closer: “Scotland appears to fall into…” Oct 6, 18:20
James on The Love Of Big Brother: “That would make you clowns repetetive, abusive Unionist trolls then, aye? Unsurprising then,that an eminent Scottish KC, and others much…” Oct 6, 17:37
Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “Now this is really gets hard because we have two opposing views, the first which I’ve copied below is written…” Oct 6, 16:37
James on The Love Of Big Brother: “Soubds good but it’s not right….. In fact it doesn’t even sound good. Must try harder, “troops”.” Oct 6, 15:50
Marie on There May Be Justice: “Correct. I’ve not long finished reading Dr Jim Swire’s book on Lockerbie and his efforts to seek justice for the…” Oct 6, 15:27
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: ““having hoovered up our votes” Zat so, James? More fool you then.” Oct 6, 15:04
Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “@Alf – even if we took your somewhat suspect view of a foreign military occupation in the 1700’s (rather than,…” Oct 6, 14:55
Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Professor Baird demonstrating correct use of the royal “we” there. I’ve noticed its increasing use by many, these days. Always…” Oct 6, 14:31
James on The Love Of Big Brother: “Adrian wouldn’t know a fact if it punched him in the face, chum. Who are you anyway, his carer? “Their…” Oct 6, 14:27
Alf Baird on The Love Of Big Brother: ““outside of a military occupation or colonialism (neither of which apply in Scotland)” Who told you this, colonial history books?…” Oct 6, 14:25
Captain Caveman on The Love Of Big Brother: “Let’s put it this way, if he was any thicker he’d need watering twice a week.” Oct 6, 14:23
