In so far as it’s worth talking about Scottish constitutional politics at all these days, it’s worth taking a moment to analyse the bloodless, anodyne nothingness spouted by the First Minister on The Sunday Show at the weekend.
That clip is less than three minutes long, but it’s so soul-crushingly boring and full of content-free drone and waffle that it’s almost impossible to sit all the way through it, so we’re going to translate and summarise it for you.
Warning: despite the quite zingy title this is actually going to be a very dry stats post, readers. It is, on the other hand, based on a man having something disturbingly close to a complete psychotic mental breakdown, so there’s always that for a bit of colour.
Because the paragraph above, and in particular the highlighted part, is without a doubt the most dishonest, diametrically false and wildly extreme lie about Scottish politics that we’ve ever seen anyone tell in the 13.5 years of Wings Over Scotland’s existence.
And as a rule we don’t bother addressing them because they’re so demented you could spend 5,000 words pulling apart all the individual strands of lunacy every time, and lunatics thrive on attention, but this one does merit a very brief comment.
Because “Vote Labour, get indy” wasn’t our plan. It was John Swinney’s.
As readers may already be aware, my main hobby to distract myself from my day job in the profoundly depressing world of politics is to delve into retro videogaming via my Retropie. It’s an endlessly rewarding fount of discovery and entertainment for many reasons, but sometimes the two spheres collide in extremely unexpected ways.
So let’s talk about GORF.
Midway’s 1981 arcade hit was a pioneering and innovative game. It was the first game to be comprised of multiple highly distinct sub-games, boldly including direct lifts of other people’s coin-ops in the form of Space Invaders and Galaxian. And while it wasn’t the first arcade game to feature synthesised speech – it was beaten to that punch by the likes of Berzerk and Wizard Of Wor the previous year – it was famous for the extensive and iconic vocabulary with which it taunted and goaded the player.
It got numerous conversions of variable quality to various home systems, whether as contemporary licences or later homebrew ports, and that’s where we come in.
Even by the embarrassing standards of The National, the gulf between this morning’s blaring front-page splash and the weak, watery weasel words in the actual article is a chasm so wide and so yawning (in every sense of that word) that it would put the epic planetary scar of Mars’ Valles Marineris to shame.
Coupled with a feebly underwhelming Programme For Government (in which the main policy was the re-abolition of peak rail fares just months after the SNP insisted such a move was unaffordable, with no clue as to where the money had suddenly been found) and a pitiful list of candidates for next year’s Holyrood election featuring the likes of Sally “all aboard the gravy bus!” Donald, Kaukab “DECAPITATE TERFS” Stewart, Kirsten “DECAPITATE TERFS” Oswald, Alison “DECAPITATE TERFS” Thewliss and Alyn “throw anyone who doesn’t want to DECAPITATE TERFS out of the SNP” Smith, the story was an abject vision of a bleak future for independence.
On reflection, we feel we may have not taken this story seriously enough. After all, they don’t put just ANY old guff on the front page of the Sunday Mail.
The less said about the Scottish Government’s toe-curlingly embarrassing “summit” last week, the sooner we can all pretend it never happened. We’ve got little to add to the withering assessments of Robin McAlpine and Kevin McKenna and just about everyone else who’s bothered covering this pathetic waste of everyone involved’s time. (Not that the time of most of these useless quangocrats was worth anything anyway.)
We take a moment only to note something remarkable: the closest Scottish Labour’s hapless branch manager Anas Sarwar has ever come to understanding anything.
Yesterday the Scottish media gave Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman what she’s never willingly given anyone else – a platform on which to make her case.
Most did a very poor job challenging her on her outrageous comments about the Supreme Court, with BBC Radio Scotland’s Drivetime show being an especially wretched example of allowing the interviewee to ignore every question and then just ramble on endlessly about something else entirely, but LBC’s Gina Davidson was on top of her brief and put all the points that reasonable people wanted to be made, while giving Chapman ample time to answer uninterrupted.
Let’s break down how that went, with the help of our handy Bullshit Buzzer.
sarah on The Pit Of Vipers: “@ Effijy: Vote for people who aren’t party politicians. And have integrity and principles. There’s quite a few standing as…” Apr 19, 15:39
shug on The Pit Of Vipers: “Never forget the part the BBC played in their programme, where only the prosecution evidence was reported. Where they openly…” Apr 19, 15:33
Confused on The Pit Of Vipers: “this really is massive the whole jenga pile could go I expect there is more to come” Apr 19, 15:33
Patsy Millar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Your last sentence says it all.” Apr 19, 15:24
panda paws on The Pit Of Vipers: “Some nuSNP idiots online are saying “msm are trying to discredit the SNP before an election”. Well duh! And of…” Apr 19, 15:23
Effijy on The Pit Of Vipers: “It looks like you really need to be immoral, corrupt and incapable if you wish to be a politician I…” Apr 19, 15:17
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: ““Admitting you’re racist is step one” Indeed but it is difficult for the colonizer to admit their racism or that…” Apr 19, 14:33
Dave on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Admitting you’re racist is step one. Step two is realising God’s not your co-signer.” Apr 19, 14:01
Young Lochinvar on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Beggars Try as you will you aren’t going to be able the rehabilitate the reputations of Oswald Mosley and Enoch…” Apr 19, 13:44
Young Lochinvar on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Aidan 10 motorways or 10 bits of motorways? And I think the point was that life exists beyond the central…” Apr 19, 13:40
Young Lochinvar on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Now now Dan Don’t be bitter.. The wee parish cooncil of certain devolved powers has been around for nearly 30…” Apr 19, 13:36
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: ““There are ten motorways in Scotland connecting the central belt” Aye richt, Aden. An the muin is makkit o cheese.…” Apr 19, 13:11
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: ““At least they have a unified group and a realistic plans of action and the latest Yougov poll is interestingly…” Apr 19, 12:55
Mark Beggan on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “The geopolitical situation has turned the Left upside down and left them standing on the wrong side of history. The…” Apr 19, 12:53
Northcode on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Guid day tae aw ye sinfu synners oot ther on this blessit Saubath, this wan day o the week set…” Apr 19, 12:36
Red on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “It’s a tough choice for left of centre voters. Do we vote for the noncey LGBTQ pervert mass immigration Net…” Apr 19, 12:28
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: ““This is wholly a male thing” Yes Lorncal, in ‘The Intimate Enemy’, Nandy’s study of the psychology of British colonialism…” Apr 19, 11:44
Confused on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “I see the hunday mail has got hold of the (some, at least) of the whatsapp messages … this could…” Apr 19, 11:35
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: ““why does Scotland not appear to have Epstein compromised individuals” As a colony we are ‘out of the game’, willie,…” Apr 19, 10:57
Bilbo on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “The right by it’s very nature, one whose only purpose is to converse, is never radical. It only appears as…” Apr 19, 10:56
willie on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Listening to Laura Kuennsberg this morning the prog is all about why Sir Keir Starmer allowed Peter Mandelson to be…” Apr 19, 09:43
willie on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “A timely article in today’s Sunday Mail publishing emails in relation to the Alex Salmond attempted stich up. https://archive.is/oavLF” Apr 19, 09:31
Aidan on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Again that’s more total bollocks from the both of you, the motorway network does not “mostly stop at Carlisle” does…” Apr 19, 09:22
MaryB on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Nobody will ever agree with every policy of any one specific political party, especially in the current political climate. But…” Apr 19, 09:11
Alf Baird on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Excellent point Dan. The same might be said for motorways which mostly stop in Carlisle, and all other essential infrastructure…” Apr 19, 08:46
John McNab on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “You don’t need ‘none of the above’, as by definition, it will be at the bottom of the ballot paper,…” Apr 19, 08:41
Nicky T Naquetti on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Something I forgot to mention about Sheridan – his waste of public funds, by claiming legal aid in order to…” Apr 19, 08:18
Nicky T Naquetti on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Tommy Sheridan? I suppose it may be possible to enjoy the services of prostitutes while still “respecting women” – he…” Apr 19, 07:29
Dave on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Wow, a demonstration that grammar, punctuation, and spelling are entirely optional if conviction is high enough. ‘you’re blinkers’ ? ‘your…” Apr 19, 07:06
Mark Beggan on The Narcissism Of No Differences: ““I never thought I’d live to see the day when the right wing would become the cool ones giving the…” Apr 18, 23:25
