The Unionist parties are taking such a kicking in the polls for next month’s Holyrood election that you could forgive them for not always knowing where they were.

The above tweet does indeed have the potential to be “astonishing”, given that (a) Ruth Davidson isn’t standing in Carnoustie, and (b) the 2011 result suggests that there are only around 700 Labour voters to find in the entire town behind the “1000s” of doors that 20 Tories have impressively managed to knock by teatime.
(Indeed, the area is so Labour-unfriendly that the Tories actually managed to come 2nd five years ago, getting over 50% more votes than the Labour candidate.)
But it’s not the only piece of geographical confusion afflicting the UK parties.
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Category
comment, scottish politics, wtf
Poor old Daily Record.

What a distance to fall.
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Tags: ticktock
Category
analysis, media, scottish politics, wtf
From the Scotsman tonight:

As previously, we’re having quite a lot of trouble understanding the difference between “independence” (39%), and “the Scottish Parliament should make all the decisions for Scotland” (51%). We’re going to drop the SSAS a line and see if they’ll ask for us.
Tags: and finally
Category
investigation, scottish politics, wtf
Even by the low, low normal arithmetical standards of the Scottish media, yesterday’s Scottish Sunday Express humiliated itself with the most stupendously factually wrong articles we’ve seen in a newspaper for some time.

James Kelly on Scot Goes Pop! has already eviscerated its comically inept bumbling in detail, but we thought we’d just quickly give you a visual version.
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Tags: arithmetic failflat-out liesmisinformation
Category
analysis, comment, debunks, idiots, media, scottish politics, stats, wtf
Here’s a tweet from Fraser Nelson of the Spectator this morning:

Now, we already know that’s complete drivel for at least five reasons. But it’s not the maddest thing about the point Nelson’s trying to make.
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Category
comment, idiots, wtf
This headline appears in The Times today:

It’s an absolute lie. But that’s not the interesting thing.
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Tags: flat-out liesheadline ferretmisinformation
Category
debunks, media, scottish politics, wtf

(The GERS figures actually showed Scotland’s revenues in 2014/15 dropping by ONE PERCENT as a result of the oil price collapse. Non-oil revenues were UP by 3.2%.)
Category
comment, media, stats, wtf
Goodness gracious.

Tags: britnats
Category
culture, uk politics, wtf
Last night, MP Natalie McGarry made another heavily-qualified semi-apology to the popular abusive-tweeter enthusiast JK Rowling, because that’s how bullying works. (As far as we know McGarry has still refused Rowling’s demand that she make a sizeable donation to Rowling’s charity under threat of legal action.)

One of George Orwell’s most-quoted lines is “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
We wonder who was trying to silence the torrent of drivel below, then.
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culture, media, wtf
Without a doubt our new favourite Unionist website is this one:

And it’s not just for the snazzy badges.
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Tags: flat-out liesmisinformation
Category
comment, media, scottish politics, stats, wtf
There’s nothing unusual about reading something in the Scottish media that makes your eyes widen. But a piece we saw in the Courier earlier today stretched ours out to Clockwork Orange-like proportions.

Now that’s a pretty intriguing opening (as the bishop said to the actress). At first we took it to mean that an independent Scotland could effectively take over Britain’s EU membership in the event of a Leave vote, ending any debate about whether and when it would be admitted on its own.
But then the punchline arrived.
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analysis, comment, europe, scottish politics, uk politics, wtf
Something kept nagging at the back of our minds as we read today’s front-page lead story in Scotland On Sunday about a battle between finance secretary John Swinney and a number of Scottish councils.

And then we remembered what it was.
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Tags: hypocrisy
Category
analysis, scottish politics, wtf