Remember that time, barely over a decade ago, when the readers of the Scottish Daily Express came out for independence despite national polls only showing support in the 20s, the paper sold over 80,000 copies a day (now just 38,000) and Severin Carrell of the Guardian reported that it was about to adopt independence as its official position?
(Which we don’t think ever actually happened.)
Because nothing is weirder than Scottish politics.
We’re at the halfway point of our 2018 fundraiser, and the all-sources total so far is a thumpingly impressive £103,266 in just two weeks. But while that’s a tremendous sum, it’s sobering too.
Firstly because with an average monthly readership of nearly 304,000 people it comes to an average contribution of slightly under 30p per reader. As with most crowdfunded ventures, fewer than 1% of the site’s users have actually backed it financially so far.
And secondly because for perspective, the average Scottish adult – independence supporters included – sends the BBC about £72 a year. (£323m from 4.5m adults.)
While obviously a minority of folk do boycott the licence fee, that still means that the average Wings reader gives the BBC 240 times as much money every year as they give Wings to fight it.
We’ve been scouring our picture archives all afternoon for something more surprising than the fact that the UK government has screwed over the Scottish fishing industry again after it voted Brexit and Tory in 2016 and 2017, and we found this one.
See also: literally anything else that has ever happened on Earth.
A new Scottish Labour propaganda website called The Red Robin attracted some attention at the weekend by claiming that new polling had shown Labour closing the Westminster voting gap on the SNP to just 4 points.
To try to lend some credibility to this rather dubious assertion – the SNP’s average lead is currently around 15 points – it pointed out that the polling company’s owner was the Vice-Chair of the British Polling Council.
Readers would quite reasonably infer from that that Moonlight Research was a BPC member, and BPC rules state that if figures from a poll enter the public domain, the full data tables concerning those figures have to be released within 48 hours so that people can scrutinise them and ensure that the methodology (sample size, weighting, question wording etc) is fully up to scratch and above board.
So since the blog post is now five days old, we dropped Moonlight a line asking if we could see them, and quickly got an interesting reply.
So here’s a headline from the (Dundee) Evening Telegraph.
You know how we’re always pointing out how newspapers love to lie to readers without actually saying things that are untrue? Let’s have a quick case study.
Southernbystander on The Nobodies: “Right, so before much was known about it and no-one was reporting accurate numbers because they were not known, and…” Aug 2, 20:44
TURABDIN on The Nobodies: “according to stats the majority of not scottish born imigrants are white many of them elderly English. personally, without a…” Aug 2, 19:48
Northcode on The Deaf Eyes: “You’re referring to a different case. The question here is whether a trust existed for the SNP ‘ring-fenced’ money. It…” Aug 2, 19:44
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Deaf Eyes: “On the contrary – in the case of embezzlement they absolutely do. That’s why Peter Murrell is currently in a…” Aug 2, 19:06
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “I agree, TURABDIN, it’s not all about what you say. It is all about the ongoing colonisation of my country.…” Aug 2, 18:48
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “Haud oan there, Alf. We’re still trying tae fathom fit yer “black skin, white masks” is aboot. Dae some o’…” Aug 2, 18:36
Northcode on The Deaf Eyes: “The COPFS is correct. The police found no evidence of either fraud or embezzlement in relation to ‘ring-fenced’ donations to…” Aug 2, 18:27
Chas on The Deaf Eyes: “It could be worse. At least I am not DaveL!” Aug 2, 18:24
Knuckle_Heid on The Deaf Eyes: “Jeeezzo – that response was fairly dripping in condescension. Thanks a lot for that COPFS, much appreciated. 8Ace himself could…” Aug 2, 18:01
Effijy on The Deaf Eyes: “Scarier and Scarier that what we have in place for justice cannot understand a simple question, need to consider how…” Aug 2, 17:01
Frank Gillougley on The Deaf Eyes: “Fuckin’ ‘ell Guv, that’s a belter. Well worthy of a Kafka award. Love the cartoon!” Aug 2, 16:53
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: “Oh do be quiet with your “swear white is black” nonsense, lefty. That was the initial BBC headline. Deal with…” Aug 2, 16:39
Willie on The Deaf Eyes: “The response is simply a reflection of a gangster state with no functioning rule of law. The jackboot, the batton,…” Aug 2, 16:31
Southernbystander on The Nobodies: “Caveman, the BBC headline on 31 July was : ‘Spain’s PM blames traffickers after 60,000 migrants reach Ceuta from Morocco’.…” Aug 2, 16:24
DaveL on The Deaf Eyes: “FS! A token comment on the article above then straight into an attack on regular posters and small independence parties.…” Aug 2, 15:39
Southernbystander on The Nobodies: “Wally Jumblatt says: ‘And even worse, it gives the power to useless, bitter, uninspired people who don’t like each other.’…” Aug 2, 15:39
Roger Beaver on The Deaf Eyes: “Malfeasance/nonfeasance in public office? (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=malfeasance+in+public+office&t=ffab&ia=web)” Aug 2, 15:38
Patsy Millar on The Deaf Eyes: “Probably a bot. The give away is the lack of a surname and given a response I had to a…” Aug 2, 15:26
TURABDIN on The Deaf Eyes: “Burnham is making noises about a written constitution for the British state. He might take as a model that of…” Aug 2, 14:50
Sean Duffy on The Deaf Eyes: “Is there a mechanism available to the lieges to compel the COPFS and the Chief Constable to carry out their…” Aug 2, 13:59
I. Despair on The Deaf Eyes: “Yes. And in a short message that took 27 days to emerge and was no doubt reviewed by numerous people…” Aug 2, 13:07
agentx on The Deaf Eyes: “AI overview: You can take action against a decision made by the Procurator Fiscal If You Are the Victim (A…” Aug 2, 13:05
Sian Laidlaw on The Deaf Eyes: “It looks to me as though that reply has some copy, cut and paste text in it. Maybe the input…” Aug 2, 12:59
Cuphook on The Deaf Eyes: “In The Twelve Tasks of Asterix the Roman bureaucrats who hinder the attempt to get form A38 are eventually foiled…” Aug 2, 12:58
factchecker on The Deaf Eyes: “Stunning lack of understanding. Or more probably deliberate misunderstanding. And nothing to tell us “Veronica”s status within the “National Enquiry…” Aug 2, 12:53
agentx on The Deaf Eyes: ““Firstly, let’s take a moment to note the weird font change halfway through that central paragraph, as though someone else…” Aug 2, 12:49
Boolitz on The Deaf Eyes: “They’ve done a bit of copy & paste from another source, that’s why the text changes. Bizarre to think it’s…” Aug 2, 12:45
Chas on The Deaf Eyes: “Sadly, you are banging your head against a brick wall Stu. There is no mechanism available to force the Crown…” Aug 2, 12:37
sarah on The Deaf Eyes: “Rev, I suggest that your reply keeps it simple – just ask the embezzlement question. Then they can’t possibly get…” Aug 2, 12:21
GeoffC on The Deaf Eyes: “Interesting that Veronica doesn’t share her surname in an official document.” Aug 2, 12:16
