And that’s all very well, but not exactly stop-the-presses stuff – nobody reading this site is going to be terribly surprised at Scottish Labour being caught out in a lie. But the party’s house newspaper the Daily Record went for a subtly different angle on the story that did manage to provoke us to raise an eyebrow.
Alert readers will have noticed that for the last week or so we’ve been challenging some of the conventional wisdom about Labour’s election victories from 1997-2005. While the right wing of the party and commentariat regularly insists that Tony Blair was its most successful leader ever, we demonstrated that over the course of his leadership he lost Labour over two million votes, whereas Neil Kinnock’s reign had resulted in a GAIN of three million.
In short, New Labour’s victories were primarily the result of the Conservatives being in a catastrophic state during Blair’s rule, exhausted by almost 20 years of power and scandal and infighting about Europe. With William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard at the head of a shattered opposition, Labour could have won those elections with Piers Morgan or a Teletubby in charge.
What our research also found was that the most striking thing about the period since Blair became Labour leader in 1994 was a staggering and almost overnight increase in the number of British voters turned off politics altogether.
In 1992 just eight million people entitled to vote stayed at home. By 2001 that number had rocketed to EIGHTEEN million, a 125% increase in nine years, and in May it was still at almost 16 million.
Since Blair, eight million UK citizens who used to vote have simply walked away and washed their hands of the entire political process. That’s quite a legacy, but it’s also an opportunity, because it’s a lot of people waiting for a reason to vote for someone. (Most of them young and/or poor, two traditionally Labour-friendly demographics.)
Bizarrely, it’s an opportunity Labour and its allies seem utterly determined to shun.
Last night we ran a piece about a story in last week’s Daily Record in which a Scottish Labour official was given free rein to make an extended political attack on the SNP in the guise of a “business student” from the University of the West of Scotland, without his Labour identity being revealed, on the flimsy basis of a petition about college cuts with a few hundred signatures.
As it happens, another UWS student also has a petition doing the rounds at the moment. But it got treated rather differently by the Scottish press.
For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, the document at the heart of this insanity has been leaked, so you can now see it for yourself. We’ll have more on it later.
So first of all there’s this (click pic for full story):
…in which the figures appear to show that Iceland’s policy of imposing justice and imprisoning the greedy bankers who caused the world financial crash – rather than just shovelling money at them and letting them carry on robbing everyone – actually saw its economy recover at least as well as anywhere else’s.
Many of you won’t have seen this quite extraordinary performance from the Guardian’s assistant editor Michael White on last night’s Scotland Tonight, and you really should.
This morning we noted the weird double standards of the media when it comes to reporting politics-related violence (and/or the absence thereof) in Scotland. We weren’t expecting such a good illustration of it to come along within two hours.
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Alf, if Scotland is still in large parts a Scots speaking nation, there’s precious little evidence for it on here.…” Jul 12, 16:11
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “If “logically” the UK no longer exists, you’ll have burned your passport and your driving license. Looking forwards to your…” Jul 12, 16:04
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Not too bad a post, NC, but it lacks fundamental clarity. Which union are you discussing? The UK or the…” Jul 12, 15:59
Young Lochinvar on Just Good Friends: “Good post NC. One small correction, the construct was first called Great Britain. The United Kingdom came along later when…” Jul 12, 15:34
sarah on Just Good Friends: “A lot of us do, Dan – just not speaking up much nowadays. I shall mention, again, several things that…” Jul 12, 13:49
TURABDIN on Just Good Friends: “PILE it HIGH, sell it cheap in POUNDLAND. https://archive.is/VLCVd Everything must go!” Jul 12, 13:23
TURABDIN on Just Good Friends: “FALSE FRIENDS. DEMOCRATIC SYSTEMS fail when people with ability don’t have authority and people with authority don’t have ability What…” Jul 12, 12:45
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “Have you done any polling on how important the issue of the formation of the union in 1707 is to…” Jul 12, 12:13
Alf Baird on Just Good Friends: “Yes Hatey, if we “look at voting preferences against geographical areas in recent times” what we find is that the…” Jul 12, 11:49
Dan on Just Good Friends: “Things going on in Scotland… (Not that anybody here seems to give a shit) https://www.isp.scot/july-5th-july-11th-2025/” Jul 12, 10:23
Northcode on Just Good Friends: ““It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t…” Jul 12, 09:52
Northcode on Just Good Friends: “Naebody wid hae thocht hit possible tae uise ersecheeks tae blaff oot Inglis lees oan a keybuird an hae whit…” Jul 12, 08:38
James Cheyne on Too Tight To Mention: “Alf Baird. I apologise for late reply as busy thinking about re- locating.” Jul 12, 08:33
James Cheyne on Too Tight To Mention: “Alf Baird. ” Thus the old Scottish parliament members became [English parliamentarians]when they entered the continued English Westminster parliament resting…” Jul 12, 08:30
DaveL on Just Good Friends: “What the fuck are you talking about? What’s a ‘Da Dews’? I’ve never heard of it. While I’m here you…” Jul 12, 00:28
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “I was confident you were going to morph onto Da Dews there, Confused, but you didn’t. Well done you. Bit…” Jul 11, 23:55
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “@Alf I must hae colonised masel! Partition is a possibility if the kind of eejits currently ruling the roost at…” Jul 11, 23:45
Confused on Just Good Friends: “Deviants are blackmailable. Makes them easy to control. They go to “young leaders” shindigs all round the world and are…” Jul 11, 22:40
Dunx on Just Good Friends: “The SNP might also like to consider whether sixteen year old children are mature enough to vote in any future…” Jul 11, 22:01
Alf Baird on Just Good Friends: “” I think that any kind of extreme dehumanizing and/or hatred of any group of people is a form of…” Jul 11, 20:31
Mark Beggan on Just Good Friends: “Craig Murray? wasn’t he one of the Merry Pranksters in the Koolaid Acid Test.” Jul 11, 19:26
Lorn on Just Good Friends: “I absolutely agree on the alignment. Both groups utilize the exact-same tactics and their aims are very similar. The official…” Jul 11, 18:31
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: ““continually displayed abhorrent behaviour and used derogatory language to describe other fellow humans” Check out the synthetic outrage from Dan.…” Jul 11, 18:15
agent x on Just Good Friends: ““Scottish Government to consult on changing minimum marriage age THE Scottish Government has confirmed it will launch a consultation on…” Jul 11, 18:14
Alf Baird on Just Good Friends: “Manipulation, divide and rule, paternalistic colonialists, and finally partition when all else fails – all are part of the colonizer’s…” Jul 11, 18:12
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “That’s blethers, TH, even for you. If we have a People’s Assembly to sack politicians who don’t do as the…” Jul 11, 17:56
Dan on Just Good Friends: “@Lorn says : “I think that any kind of extreme dehumanizing and/or hatred of any group of people is a…” Jul 11, 17:50
twathater on Just Good Friends: “And THAT is where a REAL people’s assembly would EXPOSE and destroy the REAL purpose of these deviants and perverts…” Jul 11, 17:39
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “You still here, TH? I thought you were near the head of the queue for “assistance”.” Jul 11, 17:38
