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More stuff that doesn’t matter 193

Posted on June 17, 2014 by

The big story in most of today’s papers is the British Social Attitudes survey, which has discovered a whole bunch of things of absolutely no importance whatsoever.

eardog

The Scotsman, for example, highlights the fact that while Scottish people don’t want the UK to have nuclear weapons, if they’re going to exist then a sizeable number of Scots want them – and the hundreds of jobs dependent on them – to stay on the Clyde. (Though just as many want them to leave.)

None of which, of course, will have the slightest effect on anything.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics, uk politics

Another paranoid cybernat 163

Posted on June 17, 2014 by

Charlie Brooker in the Guardian, 17 June 2014:

“David Cameron has responded to [the ‘Trojan Horse’ schools] crisis by declaring we need to celebrate ‘Britishness’ with more enthusiasm.

More enthusiasm? More? We’ve been celebrating Britishness with the strained determination of a man desperately trying to shit a cricket ball for the past five years. There’s a Union Flag on every cushion, bedspread and Rimmel commercial. Twee cartoons of the London skyline adorn packets of biscuits. TV can’t shut up about Britain. The Great British Menu. The Great British Summer. The Great British Sewing Bee. The Great British Bake Off. The Great British Bayou. The Great British Bull Run. The Great British France.

We had the Olympics, for Christ’s sake. We spent the whole of 2012 waving flags like a semaphore dictionary on fast-forward. And that wasn’t enough? Now, years later, just as the Keep Calm and Carry On posters are finally starting to yellow and peel and fall from the wall like scraps of torched parchment, now Cameron wants MORE of that bullshit?”

Nice to know it’s not just us noticing.

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Category comment, media, uk politics

The evolution of tone 180

Posted on June 15, 2014 by

WEDNESDAY: Panini “politics sticker album” jokes are evidence of vile abuse:

abuse

SUNDAY: Panini “politics sticker album” jokes are light-hearted comedy material:

The BBC: you have to pay for this or you go to jail, readers.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics, uk politics, video

In the public interest 131

Posted on June 06, 2014 by

We got another letter from the government today. After a sudden outbreak of candour last week with regard to the civil service writing Buzzfeed articles, this is more the sort of thing we’re accustomed to from Freedom Of Information requests.

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Category analysis, scottish politics, uk politics

OBAMA INTERVENES IN REFERENDUM 581

Posted on June 05, 2014 by

Yeah, whatever.

Category uk politics, world

We don’t need your pity 131

Posted on June 05, 2014 by

One of the most commonly-occurring arguments proffered by the left side of the No camp (regardless of how often it’s comprehensively debunked) is that should Scotland decide to leave the Union, it would condemn the English to perpetual Tory rule.

mrt

It’s essentially an appeal for Scotland to give up the chance of self-governance in order to mitigate someone else’s problem. But it could be even worse than that.

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Category comment, scottish politics, uk politics

Startled like a fox 72

Posted on June 03, 2014 by

We’ve had so many Freedom Of Information requests knocked back that we’re still a little bit wrongfooted when one comes in that doesn’t try to wriggle out of it and actually answers the questions we asked. So we’ll just let this one speak for itself.

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Category scottish politics, uk politics

An Englishman not abroad 143

Posted on May 30, 2014 by

Why would an Englishman vote for Scottish independence? Why would a whole group of English people vote Yes? It’s a question I’ve been asked many times, and which the group I helped to co-found last week, “English Scots for Yes”, intends to answer.

engscots

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Category comment, scottish politics, uk politics

Just so you know 109

Posted on May 30, 2014 by

From today’s Guardian:

“Labour cannot afford to undo the coalition’s cuts in the next government and must expect to be unpopular, one of the party’s most senior finance spokesmen will say on Friday.

Chris Leslie, the shadow chief secretary to the treasury, will say some of the spending decisions ‘will be the toughest faced by an incoming Labour government for a generation’ if Ed Miliband wins the next election.

‘We won’t be able to undo the cuts that have been felt in recent years, and I know that this will be disappointing for many people. A more limited pot of money will have to be spent on a smaller number of priorities. Lower priorities will get less.'”

And as well as being bad news for the whole UK, we already know what that means for Scotland too. Because Labour has openly said, over and over, what its plans are.

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Category analysis, reference, scottish politics, uk politics

A good point well made 245

Posted on May 26, 2014 by

We’re rather kicking ourselves for not having spotted this one when it was staring us in the face, so kudos to Welsh professor of political science Roger Scully for the catch.

In the 2009 European elections, UKIP got 16.5% of the vote in the UK as a whole, and 5.2% in Scotland – a gap of 11.3%. In this year’s election the tallies were 27.5% in the UK and 10.5% in Scotland – a gap of 17%.

fraserukip

In other words, despite all the bluster from Unionists about how Scotland can no longer claim to be different to the rest of the UK in terms of supporting Nigel Farage’s party, in fact the degree of difference has substantially increased, by a whopping 55%.

It just seems worth pointing out.

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Category comment, scottish politics, stats, uk politics

Friends and enemies 178

Posted on May 26, 2014 by

According to Mandy Rhodes of Holyrood Magazine, this afternoon Johann Lamont issued a press release bizarrely calling on all supporters of “progressive” politics to unite against the SNP and UKIP. Now, that’s fairly mindboggling in itself in all sorts of ways, but we can’t help wondering whether she ran it past her deputy first.

prouk

Because that tweet raises a whole host of questions.

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Category comment, disturbing, scottish politics, uk politics

Let’s talk about last night 189

Posted on May 26, 2014 by

Some considered thoughts on the evening’s events, then.

faragelaugh

Yeah, nice work, Britain.

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Category analysis, comment, europe, scottish politics, uk politics

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