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One story, two spins 78

Posted on June 27, 2018 by

Part 1: the story.

This year’s Scottish Social Attitudes Survey has found, yet again, that Scottish people trust their government in Holyrood vastly more than they trust the one in Westminster. The figures transcend party loyalties, with far more people saying they trust the Scottish Government than vote for the SNP.

Trust in both governments was down by five points, which meant the Scottish Government had lost 7.6% of its trust (66 down to 61) while the UK government had lost 20% of its trust (25 down to 20).

Now let’s see how two newspapers owned by the same company reported the news.

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Whose mayhem is it anyway? 402

Posted on June 25, 2018 by

Leaflets being given out by Labour today in Scotland and England respectively:

But for some reason there don’t seem to be any going around in Labour-run Wales.

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Being our own media, part 26 12

Posted on June 25, 2018 by

Michael Gray and Robert Somynne’s Scotia Live, episode 1:

To have and to have not 171

Posted on June 24, 2018 by

The Sunday Times puts some poll results in an interesting frame today:

And readers who’ve learned anything at all from this site over the last six years will be looking at that tweet and immediately wondering “what AREN’T we being told there?”

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Sauces for the geese 159

Posted on June 23, 2018 by

Willie Rennie in the Daily Record today:

And to be absolutely fair to the Scottish Lib Dem leader, he’s always been consistent in his beliefs, such as the view that elected members should be given a second chance when they’ve committed a minor misdemeanour, and NOT have to (for example) stand down and face re-election.

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Heads up 63

Posted on June 23, 2018 by

Deja news 116

Posted on June 22, 2018 by

Oh joy, it seems it’s time for the Scottish media’s annual cretinous non-story about the Scottish Government’s (entirely necessary and intrinsically unavoidable“underspend”.

So as we’re busy today we’ll just refer you to some of the previous occasions we’ve covered it, because literally everything about it is exactly the same now as it was then.

See you same time next year, folks!

A funny kind of Unionism 274

Posted on June 20, 2018 by

In all the excitement of the torching of the devolution settlement, we forgot to mention a curious piece of data from our recent poll of English voters.

Of all the people south of the border who would gladly throw Scotland and Northern Ireland under the bus (and more to the point, out of the UK) in order to ensure England left the EU, by far the most willing were the voters of the only UK party which expressly identifies itself as standing FOR the Union – the Conservative And Unionist Party.

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The Day Before Tomorrow Today 31

Posted on June 20, 2018 by

They’re back to save us all.

Wait, correction, that should read: they’re back – God save us all.

Way back then 125

Posted on June 19, 2018 by

Ah, those were the days.

That’s a relief, at least.

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The false starters 544

Posted on June 16, 2018 by

Although this site is blacklisted by the press regulator IPSO and therefore unable to file complaints about inaccurate and misleading newspaper articles, our alert readers sometimes pick up the baton from Wings articles and do the job themselves.

We reported one such example a week ago.

But the reader who took up that complaint has furnished us with a bit of interesting background to the story, and also news of a rather more alarming outcome.

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The shifting sands 100

Posted on June 16, 2018 by

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