Boris Johnson’s move to prorogue Parliament for most of September and a chunk of October actually only represents a couple of weeks of extra holiday time for MPs – Westminster would be shut for most of the time in question anyway for party conference season.
The Commons would open for business again on 14 October, in time to debate the outcome of a crucial European Council summit on 17-18 October. If that meeting doesn’t provide any new deal – and it’s vanishingly unlikely that it will – then there’ll be no time for anything other than a no-deal Brexit.
We see Gordon Brown is celebrating his 500th article promising “federalism” in the Scottish media today. Which is nice. We always enjoy hearing about the stuff Labour pretends it’s going to do when it’s in power.
But like everyone who’s been waiting 100 years and counting for it to abolish the House Of Lords (a pledge which also gets another runout in Brown’s latest intervention, bless him), we won’t be holding our breath.
If you’re a writer for a living and you want to check if something you’ve written might be embarrassingly stupid, there’s an easy and quick technique you can use.
By way of example, here’s Kenny Farquharson in the Times today, on the subject of the supposed similarities in the relationships between the Tories and the Brexit Party, and the SNP and the potential new Wings party:
So here’s the trick: switch the protagonists around.
We really can’t be bothered with having the GERS “debate” again, in which all the same people make all the same exactly opposite spins on the exact same data. Minor annual fluctuations aside, the core reality is the same as the one we repeat every 12 months, and serious economists on both sides of the political divide still treat the figures with the disdain they properly merit.
One such person is Richard Murphy, and in an excellent piece today he posted a version of this graph which did catch our jaded eye. It purports to show the share of UK debt supposedly accounted for by Scotland – which has, let’s remember, just 8% of the UK’s population – in each of the last 16 years, and which immediately prior to the SNP’s 2011 majority stood at almost exactly that of our population share.
How very remarkable, some readers may feel, that the extent of Scotland’s supposed responsibility for the UK’s debt should have rocketed so very dramatically at the exact point when independence became a live political question.
It does rather make you wonder why the UK government, scraping as it is for every penny of possible savings, seems more and more desperate to hang onto Scotland as the terrible economic burden we become on the rest of the country grows ever heavier.
Truly, our partners in this great equal and bountiful union must be the most generous and forgiving people on Earth. We don’t deserve them.
This poll from Opinium came out a few days ago, but didn’t get as much attention as people might normally have expected, possibly because it was presented in a very difficult-to-follow graphical form. So we’ve sorted it out, and also added in the missing Lib Dem voters.
The takeaway is that a clear majority of voters both in Scotland and the UK now believe that the UK government should accept the Scottish Government’s request for a second independence referendum.
We thought readers might possibly like to hear the unexpurgated audio of our interview with The Times this week, so that they could judge the tone of our “expletive-ridden condemnations” and whatnot for themselves.
Other than a few bits of minor tidying-up – such as me umming and aahing trying to remember the name of a song, or when the manager came round to ask if we wanted more drinks – this is the whole of the “official” interview.
(In conversation with Kenny Farquharson of The Times, 1 August 2019) .
The interview was an interesting one in itself that we might talk more about later this weekend, but let’s leave that aside for now and talk about the headline take, because as usual the Scottish media is presenting it in a remarkably dishonest manner.
Mark Beggan on The Land Of No Laws: “International Law. Who comes and arrests you if you break it? Where’s the International Law prison? Who decides what is…” May 19, 00:37
Geri on The Land Of No Laws: ““Football clubs that pay exorbitant transfer fees for prima donnas then complain that they are skint andhave to up their…” May 18, 23:54
Young Lochinvar on The Land Of No Laws: ““Homo” Sacer.. Bound to have peeked Hateys attention that one, and then right on cue.. 🙂 Votes for Reform peeps…” May 18, 23:53
Young Lochinvar on The Land Of No Laws: “I hope Undertaker John Swinney* has read this and actually understood it before going off on one on yet another…” May 18, 23:43
Young Lochinvar on The Land Of No Laws: “Fair point Dan However.. Enjoy driving west on the M8 when a Knockhill Sunday has just wound up? Not really.…” May 18, 23:19
Young Lochinvar on The Land Of No Laws: “TH Sounds like a sound analysis there. What about footie in Engerlund! Engerlund!! Engerlund!!! though? Isn’t that the definition of…” May 18, 23:11
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““its collapse is expected to set off a domino effect in the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, ultimately resulting in…” May 18, 22:43
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““offshore tax haven colonial corporates” Do you reckon their boardrooms have libraries of the collected works of Fanon and Memmi,…” May 18, 22:14
Alf Baird on The Land Of No Laws: ““the city is finished” The port certainly is, done in by Westminster privatisation and offshore tax haven colonial corporates, much…” May 18, 21:30
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Land Of No Laws: “BMA U-TURNS ON CASS REVIEW OPPOSITION The British Medical Association (BMA) has backtracked on its opposition to the Cass Review,…” May 18, 21:23
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““Correspondences with the plight of Scotland (though far less stark) will be obvious to any reader of Wings” Crivens, Fearghas!…” May 18, 19:11
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““being a colonial nation of porridge wogs has internalised angst, violence and sectarianism” Sure. When we look at former colonies,…” May 18, 19:07
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: “So is this a good week to be looking to restore the Stuarts to the throne, Confused? You know you…” May 18, 18:59
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““It’s not the eighteenth century any more” Quite a lot of the time, on Wings BTL, it is. As Northy…” May 18, 18:40
twathater on The Land Of No Laws: “YL I wish people in Scotland had the same enthusiasm and desire for independence as they do about fucking football…” May 18, 18:14
Dan on The Land Of No Laws: “You should try to get along to Knockhill racing circuit and support Scottish motorsport. There’s just been an excellent weekend…” May 18, 15:06
Mark Beggan on The Land Of No Laws: “The Special Needs Party are to scared to condem the Celtic Thugs. Well let me condem them. Scum!” May 18, 13:24
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Land Of No Laws: “Stuart Campbell writes: THE LAND OF NO LAWS: « But every single person reading this knows that despite the situations…” May 18, 13:03
Confused on The Land Of No Laws: “Hearts are identifying as “trans champions” and holyrood is issuing them a certificate. – there’s a lot of folks “clutching…” May 18, 12:54
Owen Mullions on The Land Of No Laws: “I may be wrong but I don’t think the clock is stopped after a goal is scored so the 30…” May 18, 12:48
Alf Baird on The Land Of No Laws: ““without England’s help we’d have remained a religiously-intolerant backwater.” Should that not read: “with England’s help we remain a religiously-intolerant…” May 18, 12:44
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: “Since there’s fuckall going on in here I thought I’d follow my last braw comment with a mair chirpy upbeat…” May 18, 12:26
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: “Ken McGoogan offers a balanced view without ever retreating into neutrality. His work is honest, evidence?driven, and capable of holding…” May 18, 12:06
David Ferguson on The Land Of No Laws: “You claim to be a ref and you appear to know nothing of the laws of the game. The clock…” May 18, 11:56
David Ferguson on The Land Of No Laws: “Here’s an alternative scenario from Saturday: Ni-nil going into eight minutes of added time. 1 substitution and four yellow cards…” May 18, 11:19
Maxxmacc on The Land Of No Laws: “I used to watch Formula 1 until it became obvious that Sky TV were gerrymandering the races to ensure the…” May 18, 11:00
Bilbo on The Land Of No Laws: “Don’t want to be hitting on Glasgow but the city is finished. The main attraction of Glasgow was shopping and…” May 18, 07:52
Willie on The Land Of No Laws: “A most topical article by the Rev. And many very interesting comments thereafter too. Football most certainly invokes popular interest…” May 18, 07:33
Robert Hughes on The Land Of No Laws: “hahahahahaha what joy, seeing all the Glesga haters trying desperately to undermine/tarnish Celtic’s brilliant late season recovery and ultimate League…” May 18, 06:55
GM on The Land Of No Laws: “The richest club in Scotland by a massive distance and that’s 15 out of 16 titles in a row. 15…” May 18, 00:22
