Sundays have been the low point of Scottish political journalism for a while now. Traditionally a day when newspapers are heavy on comment and light on news (because politics tends to happen on weekdays), they unleash all the weary old dinosaurs who’ve been driving away readers for the last 30 years.
So you really have to stand out to be noticed for especially appalling hackery on a Sunday, which is probably why nobody from Scotland On Sunday wanted to have their name on this toe-curling piece of second-hand, lifted-from-another-paper garbage.
Professor Ronald MacDonald, you say? That name seems to ring a bell.
MARR: “What would [Theresa May] need to bring back [from Brexit negotiations] to win you over?”
DAVIS: “She needs to bring back a clear ability on the part of the United Kingdom to be able to leave this treaty when it chooses to. There is no other treaty in the world I’m aware of where a sovereign nation undertakes to join up and can only leave when the other side says so.”
We’re pretty sure we can think of an example, David.
Michael Glackin of the Sunday Times is the only serious contender to the Scotsman’s demented Brian Wilson as the most poisonously, blindly instinctive hater of anything even passingly connected to the SNP or independence in the Scottish media. His weekly bilious rants in the paper make even Scottish Daily Express hacks wince and say “Blimey, that’s a bit strong”.
But even by those standards, this week’s column is quite something. So let’s take a little look at just how much of an idiot you can make of yourself if you never allow facts to get in the way of your rage.
Watching the Six Nations rugby tournament every year is usually quite a dispiriting experience – not just because of Scotland’s invariably underwhelming performances (broken up by the occasional false dawn), but because talking about it on social media always results in an extremely tedious flood of comments about how rugby is a sport played and watched exclusively by middle-class Tory No voters.
(That’s Scotland skipper Greig Laidlaw there, with Wings mascot Hamish.)
Speaking as someone whose interest in the tournament (in the pre-inflation days when it was the Five Nations) was first sparked when my extremely working-class Bathgate comprehensive school started taking pupils to Murrayfield in the 1980s – 50p for the bus and 50p for the match ticket, which got you a seat on wooden benches actually on the grass – this attitude has always instinctively felt like complete nonsense.
So when we did our latest Panelbase poll during this year’s competition, we figured we may as well actually find out.
Today is International Women’s Day, and we wouldn’t normally pay much attention to that fact because this is a Scottish politics website, not a feminist one. But the Scottish Government is currently putting itself at odds with women in a way it would have been hard to imagine when Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister, and since what Wings does specialise in is hard data – and at the request of a lot of women – we thought it was worth putting some solid numbers on a few things in our latest poll.
Scottish Labour’s 2019 conference, which starts in Dundee tomorrow, isn’t taking place in the most auspicious of circumstances, to put it kindly. The branch office is trailing a breathtaking 22 points behind the SNP in the latest Holyrood polling, 8 points behind the Tories, and the gap is getting bigger.
Westminster polling isn’t a great deal better, with the SNP 15 points ahead despite having been in power for 12 years and doggedly attempting to commit electoral suicide with a raft of increasingly unpopular policies (more on that to come).
A few days ago we received a reply from the Information Commissioner’s Office, and as a result have sent a letter to the Conservative Party’s compliance department. You can read it below.
We’ve just got the tables from a new Panelbase poll back, and they make grim reading for Labour (North British Branch Office) on the eve of their conference.
Holyrood voting intentions (constituency):
SNP 41% (nc)
Con 27% (+2)
Lab 19% (-4)
LD 8% (+2)
Grn 3% (nc)
UKIP 2% (+1)
(1002 Scottish voters, 2-6 March 2019) Changes from December 2018
That’s getting perilously close to the all-time low of 14% achieved around the tail end of Kezia Dugdale’s disastrous leadership. And the list vote isn’t much better.
Holyrood voting intentions (region):
SNP 36% (-2)
Con 26% (nc)
Lab 19% (-3)
LD 9% (+2)
Grn 6% (nc)
UKIP 3% (+2)
But even with astonishing leads of 14% and 10% after 12 years in power, the SNP have nothing to be complacent about either – according to the Weber Shandwick seat projector, these numbers would give Nicola Sturgeon’s party 57 seats and the Greens just 4, meaning Holyrood’s pro-independence majority would be a goner and the Nats would need backing from at least one Unionist party to pass any bills, meaning no new mandate for an indyref.
Like everywhere else, Scotland is currently split down the middle and nobody knows which side of the tightrope it’ll fall off in the event of a push.
Captain Caveman on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Heh, well maybe – but not if we’re talking about the Court of Public Opinion? That’s really quite the cliff…” Jul 14, 17:17
Young Lochinvar on Step One: “AI Dun Well you would wouldn’t you! Remember; A is B, black is white and up is down in your…” Jul 14, 16:46
robertkknight on Blue In The Face: “It is becoming clearer by the day that Police Scotland and/or the COPFS have been told this far, (Murrell trial/conviction),…” Jul 14, 16:35
Andy Ellis on Step One: “@Young Lochinbore I see you have comprehension difficulties on top of you other issues. The point of the list is…” Jul 14, 16:33
Young Lochinvar on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Pastor Fagat & 1.51 The classroom creep.. “Please Miss! Please Miss! Please Miss!; Alf used the “C” word!!!!”” Jul 14, 16:30
Aidan on Step One: ““Some English person took the piss out of Scots and therefore we better deny all English people living in Scotland…” Jul 14, 16:28
Young Lochinvar on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Confused Now now, that’s enough of that! Poor AI Dun will have swooned requiring a touch of the vapours after…” Jul 14, 16:25
Young Lochinvar on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Ld Pal Val might have something to say about that!! 🙂 Anyway, it’s widely held that she doesnae like the…” Jul 14, 16:08
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Blue In The Face: “You sure? They’re usually out in August.” Jul 14, 16:05
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Blue In The Face: “I haven’t deleted any comments on this thread.” Jul 14, 16:03
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Blue In The Face: “I have of course already drafted an FOI to that effect 🙂” Jul 14, 16:01
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Blue In The Face: “I think Ian means US holding a fundraiser to bring a judicial review, not the SNP doing one.” Jul 14, 16:01
Northcode on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Those chickens have grown wings and flown off to Portugal, or some similar sunny place, never to return to their…” Jul 14, 15:56
Young Lochinvar on Step One: “Pastor Fagat Meant to say, in reference to one of your other sermons in defence of the infamous “franchise” that…” Jul 14, 15:48
Captain Caveman on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “The phrase “chickens coming home to roost” springs to mind now though.” Jul 14, 15:35
Skip_NC on Blue In The Face: “Are they overdue or just not published by the Electoral Commission? In the past they have tried to publish the…” Jul 14, 15:35
Young Lochinvar on Step One: “Pastor Fagat Many thanks, interesting stuff- at last! So basically the Scottish 2014 franchise was one of the widest, loosest…” Jul 14, 15:19
Ian Smith on Blue In The Face: “It would be worth establishing at what point police became aware the money was spent on general operations, and if…” Jul 14, 15:16
Alastair on Blue In The Face: “SNP 2025 Accounts now one week overdue” Jul 14, 15:13
Ian on Blue In The Face: “I think it very much depends on who is running the fundraiser. If Rev Stu, for this purpose, I’d be…” Jul 14, 15:12
Skip_NC on Blue In The Face: “A short course on the true meaning of the Declaration of Arbroath should be required of all public servants, whether…” Jul 14, 14:54
Mark Beggan on Blue In The Face: “I bet wee McGarry is as sick as a parrot. She only nicked 25 thousand smackaroonies and got dragged in…” Jul 14, 14:54
Northcode on Blue In The Face: “What a bore… I wish Alf Baird would post some interesting stuff about colonialism and how none of the corruption…” Jul 14, 14:51
Mark Beggan on Blue In The Face: “They are still trying to get the first fundraiser back. Don’t you think asking people for money right now is…” Jul 14, 14:45
Kevin Doran on Blue In The Face: “My reading of this is.. we knew this when we did the original investigation, which looked at it, and we…” Jul 14, 14:43
Chris on Blue In The Face: “Could you let me know please why my comment was deleted.” Jul 14, 14:41
Sean Duffy on Blue In The Face: “What DCC Houston does say is that the police passed on the findings of their investigation to COPFS for ‘advice…” Jul 14, 14:22
Chris on Blue In The Face: “It is now looking increasingly obvious that Police Scotland are as corrupt as the SNP. What do they have to…” Jul 14, 14:21
A2 on Blue In The Face: “I’d rather think the important words were. “All of the circimstances were reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal…” Jul 14, 14:08
