If we were to write an article every time Murdo Fraser said something moronic, we’d have to rename this site Wings Over Murdo Fraser, and drink an awful lot of Red Bull to be able to cover it all.
Stuff like this, for example, is almost too easy.
43% (actually 45.3% excluding Don’t Knows) is considerably more than Murdo Fraser has ever achieved in an election, either himself or as part of a party. His average over the seven elections he’s contested and lost since 1999 is just 30.1%, and until a blip in 2016 it had been falling lower and lower each time, as people have watched how he performed as an MSP and got less and less keen on the idea.
That’s still actually slightly more than the 28.6% his party secured in Scotland at the last election, though, in what was nevertheless generally regarded as an unusually impressive performance. Two years earlier they gathered just 14.9% of the votes cast.
Yet neither Fraser nor the Tories disappear for a generation every time Scotland tells them to go and get stuffed. Fraser keeps trousering an MSP’s fat salary despite two decades of unbroken and unequivocal personal rejection from the electorate, even as he demands that the independence movement gives up after losing ONE vote.
But in his defence, his leader’s not setting him much of an example.
Only an idiot would try to write anything today about the epic mess currently unfolding in British politics. You’d barely get to the end of typing a sentence before events had rendered it obsolete. But there’s one thing we’d really like to know, which bewilderingly nobody is mentioning.
The primary root cause of Brexit was idiots complaining about immigration. The core supposed aim of leaving, no matter what anyone said, was to reduce the number of foreign people coming to live and work in the UK. The issue of immigration regularly topped polls of what voters were most concerned about, and a 2017 study showed it was the biggest factor in the Leave vote.
But yesterday the UK government, after two and a half years of quite spectacularly inept negotiation, produced for the approval of the electorate a Brexit deal which did precisely NOTHING about immigration, and nobody in the media even mentioned it.
Ever aware of its need to deliver informed enlightenment to the populace, the state broadcaster has recently put up a “BBC Brexit Jargon Buster” page on its website. We’re not sure it was meant to be quite this candid.
This piece ran in the Telegraph – a newspaper with no Scottish edition and almost no Scottish sales – on Friday. Click to enlarge.
Our favourite line is:
“Think of what the UK would be like without the vast wealth generated by the 44bn barrels of oil pumped from British territory over the last 40 years.”
(Curiously, this is a rather different line to the one Critchlow took during the indyref, when he was the Telegraph’s full-time business news editor penning a string of articles about how bankrupt an independent Scotland would be despite possessing an asset that’s now apparently big enough to prop up an economy 12 times Scotland’s size.)
It’s worth keeping in mind whenever Unionists tell us (a) how volatile and worthless and used-up oil is, (b) how much Scotland depends on the kind benevolence of the UK to survive, and (c) why we can’t have another referendum until years after Brexit.
Northcode on Blue In The Face: “I should have said for clarity that although the 2014 Scottish independence referendum used the local-government franchise that franchise is…” Jul 15, 01:38
robertkknight on Blue In The Face: “Not that it’s going to happen in my lifetime, but if Indyref2 was ever to be held, only those entitled…” Jul 15, 00:34
Northcode on Blue In The Face: “This is a long one… scroll on by if you can’t be bothered ;earning something interesting and informative. I feel…” Jul 15, 00:16
Young Lochinvar on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “SHM I served then, but not in the Falklands, indeed I remember seeing the remnants of the Argentinian debris of…” Jul 15, 00:03
StrangerHereMyself on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Cheering on the Argentinians and not the exploits of the Scots Guards at Tumbledown? This self-identification lark is good, eh?…” Jul 14, 22:23
Young Lochinvar on Step One: “Pastor Fagat Wow! And you suggest I am thick? Phew you’ve got a nerve. Read again your own summaries against…” Jul 14, 22:21
robertkknight on Blue In The Face: “Sorry… Should say “got” not “hot”. Either way, it’s not in the interests of the British State to see the…” Jul 14, 22:00
Andy Ellis on Step One: “@ Young Lochinbore Not even close, no cigar…soz. Any variations are minor. The principle remains: all of them used broad,…” Jul 14, 21:29
Innocent bystander on Blue In The Face: “Within the second paragraph of PS response they apologise that reference was made that they had been advised HOW to…” Jul 14, 20:50
robertkknight on Blue In The Face: ““Would be sweet karma if Nicola bust the SNP by self-obsessed accident.” I’d say by design rather than by accident.…” Jul 14, 20:19
Dan on Blue In The Face: “Aye, indeed it is a rather self-induced wretched state of affairs, but I’m not sad, more frustrated and somewhat angry…” Jul 14, 19:41
Young Lochinvar on Step One: “Pastor Fagat 2nd attempt to post this reply, fingers crossed this time. I am using your numbered list, see below…” Jul 14, 19:39
sarah on Blue In The Face: “Urgent and Important: Scotland’s independent legal status has just been directly denied by the UK government in the Court of…” Jul 14, 19:35
Chris on Blue In The Face: “Apologies Stuart,, I was a bit impatient, sorry.” Jul 14, 19:18
James on The Interests Of The Many: “Aye, just like you, petal. Why don’t you three get a ‘family room’ somewhere for a night?” Jul 14, 19:00
James on Blue In The Face: “Light bulb moment, Inglis?” Jul 14, 18:56
Wally Jumblatt on Blue In The Face: “I don’t know the details of the SNP’s Articles of Association or whatever, but I suspect that they are now…” Jul 14, 18:44
MP on Blue In The Face: “Worth the follow-up Q’s, but I think that they are saying (1) they knew that the money had been spent…” Jul 14, 18:44
agentx on Blue In The Face: “Those Bloody English!” Jul 14, 18:40
Alf Baird on Blue In The Face: “Aye Robert, for a people who are out of the game, “all roads lead to Rome”. The native seldom looks…” Jul 14, 18:32
Eric on Blue In The Face: “There seems to be more buck passing here. It states these “matters were … reported to the COPFS for guidance”.…” Jul 14, 18:25
barelybare on Blue In The Face: “I agree, Houston leaves us hanging by ending the story with report to COPFS. One could conclude he is saying…” Jul 14, 17:54
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
