Joke’s on you, suckers 161
Posted on
June 12, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A little over five years ago.
Strengthen, destroy, what’s a little slip of the tongue between friends?
The people betrayed 171
Posted on
June 12, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Sun (English edition only, the Scottish one goes for a domestic murrdurr story) has an inflammatory front page today, as Parliament debates the most important series of votes so far on Brexit, including one to overrule devolution.
It’s a rerun of a(n in)famous previous front-page illustration from the paper, which you can see below. But there’s something odd about it.
The Buckaroo Principle 432
Posted on
June 10, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s probably fair to say that the voters of Scotland have been feeling a little put-upon lately. In the last decade they’ve been sent to polling stations on no fewer than 12 occasions (Holyrood elections in 2011 and 2016, UK elections in 2010, 2015 and 2017, council elections in 2012 and 2017, European elections in 2009 and 2014, and finally referendums on AV, independence and the EU).
And they’ve been subjected to endless weeks, months or even years of campaigning and haranguing each time. One woman – who only had to endure nine of those 12 – had famously had enough of it.
Yet Scots face possibly three more in the next 12 months or so, if various factions get their way, taking the total to 15 major votes in a decade. And if we want to secure the desired outcome in any of them, we’re going to have to ease the load on folk a bit.
The magnifier 75
Posted on
June 08, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This Wings story from April about a wildly untrue Scottish Daily Mail front-page splash has been entirely vindicated by a correction in the paper today, conceding both of the key complaints we made in our piece.
The Mail has, as you’d imagine, printed the correction rather smaller than the original story, so we thought we’d blow it up a little here for easier reading.
Because we’re sure they wouldn’t want anyone to miss it.
Times of change 139
Posted on
June 07, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Some new data from the long-running Scottish Social Attitudes Survey was released tonight, and it makes for fascinating reading.
The headline stat is that for only the second year in the 18 years the study has been running, independence is the most popular option for the governance of Scotland:
This doesn’t, however, mean that it’s the majority view, because while independence is backed by 45% the “No” option is split into two – support for devolution (41%) and those ultra-Yoons who want Holyrood abolished (8%).
Now, considering that as recently as 2012 those figures were independence on 23%, devolution 61% and no Parliament 13%, that’s still a remarkable shift in Scottish public opinion in a very short space of time – support for indy has DOUBLED in five years while devolution has dropped by a third.
And indeed, when the survey asked a straight Yes/No question the results came out even closer, at 48% Yes to 52% No – a 3% swing to Yes from the 2016 figures.
No wonder the Unionists are extra-twitchy lately.
Logic in reverse 134
Posted on
June 07, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re having a lot of trouble with this one, to be honest.
The Record, along with Scottish Labour and a lot of the left of social media, are up in arms that a mystery benefactor has donated a £230,000 Rolls Royce to Glasgow City Council for the use of the Lord Provost. But nobody can quite manage to explain why they’re so angry about it.
That Went Well Department 207
Posted on
June 05, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
November 2009: “at the end of the day the banks will be paying money to the British people and not the other way round”.
Shall we take a look through the arched-eyebrows window, readers?
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough 74
Posted on
June 05, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ll shortly round up the last pieces of data from our Panelbase poll of English voters last month, but this one merits singling out, we think.
Wait, what?
A whiff of something fishy 297
Posted on
June 02, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We must admit, folks, that our initial reaction to this Scotsman headline from a couple of days ago was simply a weary sigh of “Oh FFS, here we go again”.
Blaming the Scottish Government for a private company’s decision to close down its plant and make hundreds of Scottish workers redundant is just the sort of ludicrous negative spinning we’ve come to expect from the country’s press over the past seven years, so this latest example just seemed like nothing more than par for the course.
But there turned out to be a little more to it than that.
Walking like a peasant 136
Posted on
June 01, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
So this story is the front page of tonight’s Evening Times.
It’s a pretty slim piece deploying a Glasgow mother to attack the SNP-run city council over a recent increase in nursery fees, and it sounds like the new higher cost might be a pretty big deal to her.
