We’re on about Day 79 of NoScottishPoliticsNewsGate (today’s big “EXCLUSIVE!” in the Herald is something we told you about last Friday, and was also an “exclusive” in yesterday’s Scottish Sun), so we found ourselves getting diverted by something else in the papers this morning.
The Scottish Daily Mail had a piece on the cost of train journeys from Scotland, and living in Bath you don’t need to tell us how scandalously expensive British railways are compared to almost any other country in the Northern Hemisphere.
But the Mail is the Mail, and it couldn’t help distorting even an open-goal of a story like that until it had almost no relation to reality. And it’s a very useful illustration, should anybody need yet another one, of how this country’s newspapers vastly mislead their readers without actually technically lying.
At a time of unprecedented political chaos and uncertainty, just about the only thing you can still count on is that for any given situation, senior Labour figures will issue proclamations both firmly in favour of it and stoutly opposed to it, usually the same day.
So the stories below, which are respectively from today’s Scotsman and today’s Times, won’t come as much of a shock to anyone.
But against the odds, we think we’ve made some sense of it.
The front page lead of today’s Scottish Daily Mail:
As alert readers of this site will know, the Mail has a particular fondness for presenting statistics bereft of any context so that people have no idea how big or small they really are. So is 1,600 passengers a week receiving compensation for delays a lot or a little? Let’s find out.
All political discourse is plagued with genuine imbeciles, of course. But what’s far more depressing is when educated and normally perceptive people merely act like imbeciles for money, such as the case of Alex Massie in the Sunday Times today.
Because for the last two years, commentators who ought to know better have insisted in presenting Scotland’s choice as between Brexit or Brexit plus independence, and solemnly concluding that the uncertainties and risks of the latter being piled on top of those of the former prove that independence is no solution.
And we don’t care to have our intelligence insulted in that way.
peter on Like Responsible Citizens Do: ““..paid for by her husband Peter Murrell WITH MONEY EMBEZZLED FROM THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY” I presume that needs to…” Sep 14, 14:56
TURABDIN on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “There are plenty of states in the UN who may be termed internally «unfit» nevertheless they are freer than Scotland.…” Sep 14, 14:54
Hatey McHateface on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “Sure, sarah, always the leaders. Never the saps who vote for the same leaders, decade after decade.” Sep 14, 14:50
Hatey McHateface on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “RESPECT! Might I just add that if this is stalled, the next step should be to organise a campaign in…” Sep 14, 14:30
am firinn on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “Exactly, Sarah. We can hardly be expected to clean up these Augean stables with a brush on loan from Westminster,…” Sep 14, 14:22
Andy Wiltshire on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “Anonymous again. Maybe they’re starting to sweat.” Sep 14, 14:13
100%Yes on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “Lets see what action the Police takes now and what her lawyer has to say.” Sep 14, 14:04
Mark Beggan on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “Make Scotland Normal Again. Believe in your country. Never trust a hippy.” Sep 14, 13:37
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “And let’s not miss the above article’s last line link (“not fit for independence”) to KEVIN MCKENNA’s welcomely punchy piece:…” Sep 14, 13:31
Confused on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “google for “is there such a thing as a power of citizen’s arrest under Scots law” – quite interesting. Would…” Sep 14, 13:05
MP on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “Sturgeon said, “nothing that belongs to me should be part of that”. Maybe she will say that the stuff Pete…” Sep 14, 12:48
sarah on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “Well done, Rev, for pursuing this matter. Our public “services” really must be brought back to their duty. However, I…” Sep 14, 12:47
duncanio on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “Well done. I can’t help wondering what services you have to render, and to whom, in order to be exempt…” Sep 14, 12:18
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “Why do you think that post-Independence, Morningside and Craigmillar, Barnton and Leith, or Hillhead and Easterhoose, will NOT vote quite…” Sep 14, 12:16
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “@Alf Baird says: 14 September, 2026 at 11:00 am A heck of a lot of your posts these days could…” Sep 14, 12:06
Alf Baird on A Long Hard Think: ““That doesn’t sound like the Scotland that i live in.” Mebbe depends on whaur ye bide yersel, an whaur ye…” Sep 14, 11:57
Alf Baird on A Long Hard Think: ““What does Cesaire say about Muslim colonization or Communist or Dynasty takeovers.” Not a lot aboot the former. The Communist…” Sep 14, 11:00
Southernbystander on A Long Hard Think: “Caveman you read my post but ignored the bit about ‘fascism’ so you could show-horn in your attack on ‘woke’,…” Sep 14, 10:43
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “I was a Trump fan, MH. He did some good things in his first year, including getting the hostages out…” Sep 14, 09:57
Minceheid on A Long Hard Think: “Hatey McHateface says: 14 September, 2026 at 8:38 am Trump’s approval no longer what many (including myself) thought it was.…” Sep 14, 08:58
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “All very well, Northy, but let’s sort G@za first. Indy can wait. But to be serious for a mo. Excellent,…” Sep 14, 08:50
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “Trump’s approval no longer what many (including myself) thought it was. If they give him an atlas and a marker…” Sep 14, 08:38
Rev. Stuart Campbell on A Long Hard Think: “Done, and if there’s any more of it there’ll be a visit to the pre-mod queue.” Sep 14, 08:24
Alf Baird on A Long Hard Think: ““Great Britain was the greatest colonial power the world had ever seen. They sowed the seeds of their own destruction.”…” Sep 14, 08:08
Oneliner on A Long Hard Think: “He plays them on an (of)Fender Rhodes” Sep 14, 07:49
Captain Caveman on A Long Hard Think: ““When the right start claiming anything they see as left is ‘communist’ you know they have lost the plot and…” Sep 13, 22:55
