The Labour general election manifesto is officially launched today, as if it mattered. It will reportedly say that the party will block a second independence referendum if it’s in power at Westminster, which of course it won’t be.
And while Labour’s position on anything – particularly anything involving Scotland – is a complete irrelevance, it’s still quite fun to listen to them tying themselves in knots.
So with no further ado, ladies and gentlemen, we bring you Duncan Hothersall.
More than a quarter of its Scottish candidates for the forthcoming UK general election actually already hold elected office – nine of them as councillors, four as MSPs, one as an MEP and of course the sole defending member, David Mundell.
(Several of the councillors have only been in their jobs for a matter of a few days and are already looking to scurry off to London for new ones.)
As for the rest, though – and following the discovery that at least two of its council candidates earlier this month had no idea that they were standing – the party’s clearly been doing some more hasty press-ganging.
To be honest we didn’t pay it a lot of heed, assuming that “Scottish fishing industry leaders” just meant Bertie Armstrong again – a longstanding ultra-staunch Unionist and Leave supporter with a track record as a reliable anti-independence rentaquote – and nothing in the coverage led us to believe otherwise.
But then we saw a picture:
Mr Armstrong is the white-haired and bearded chap standing immediately to the right of Davidson in the photo, with his hand on the top corner of her pledge. But who’s the fellow immediately to the left of her?
She’s currently contesting Edinburgh West, which the party has some credible hopes of winning, having held the seat for almost 20 years prior to 2015. And it seems that her former employer has decided to try to give her a helping hand.
And, y’know, they’re really not allowed to do that.
Something really quite strange happened yesterday. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was caught red-handed in the act of telling a bare-faced, unarguable lie in the middle of a general election campaign, and nobody cared.
Reacting to the Crown Prosecution Service decision not to prosecute dozens of Tory MPs who’d broken the law in getting elected in 2015, the PM offered up a quote, which was reported in most of the newspapers:
Nice wee bit of snark on “all the major parties, and the Scottish nationalists” there. But there’s a slight problem with the statement, which is that it’s an absolute lie.
In the last few days we’ve been talking a lot about the bizarre perversion of arithmetic that now seems to dominate political campaigning in the UK, and which has the media so tied in knots that the poor Telegraph now thinks nothing of saying the SNP gained council seats, lost them and gained them again in the space of four paragraphs.
But numbers are confusing and we’re very hungry at the moment after some major dental surgery made eating difficult, so we weren’t really paying attention until Ruth Davidson started talking about pies.
Most of the papers today are full of stories screaming hysterically about a (real, but somewhat exaggerated) decline in Scottish educational standards. But if the contents of those papers are anything to go by, Scotland’s schools have been disgorging idiots into the general population for a lot longer than the last 10 years.
He’d very kindly sent us a copy of the same article he’d sent the Beeb. We attach it below. We’ve highlighted in bold the only bits that didn’t make it into the BBC piece.
Red on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Sven I do support officially renaming Glasgow to “Funky Town” Unfortunately, Susan Aitken ate Funky Town” Mar 26, 15:52
Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Totally agree, the Scots suck… the Picts, however, were a class act, and their descendants (myself included) are carrying on…” Mar 26, 15:31
Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““Maybe Alba ?” Absolutely no way – Alba is a Scotti Gaelic word meaning ‘bright’ or some shit… from the…” Mar 26, 15:20
agentx on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Apparently the SNP have found enough enough money to run its “biggest and best campaign” over the next six weeks.” Mar 26, 15:14
Ian Smith on Irony you can’t buy: “Surely the book advance would not be immediate income, but would have been handled in am much more tax sensitive…” Mar 26, 15:07
Onlooker on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Welcome to every single Scottish video on the net. It’s depressing how quickly and easily (mostly younger) Scottish people have…” Mar 26, 15:00
Sven on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I’m not sure I’d fancy renaming Scotland with the Latinised “Pictavia” which the Romans called it. Maybe Alba ? I…” Mar 26, 14:55
Alf Baird on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Decolonization implies removal of an oppressor, which explains the panic among colonialists.” Mar 26, 14:40
Sven on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Off Topic/ Just had the delight of hearing Mr J Swiney telling us that Scotland will be independent by 2031,…” Mar 26, 14:34
Aidan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “You have no public support at all on your side apart from a tiny number of internet trolls or deluded…” Mar 26, 14:12
diabloandco on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Isfahan is a beautiful place in Iran – youtube has couple of informative videos , well worth seeing!” Mar 26, 13:44
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““Geri – It’s a fascinating interpretation of international law there, I wonder who taught you, Ghengis Khan?” International court of…” Mar 26, 13:36
Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “My identifying as a Pict is no mere affectation, no passing fashion statement or lifestyle choice… my Pictish identity connects…” Mar 26, 13:34
Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““Oh dear, this is embarrassing.” Yes, indeed it is, James. The unionists (colonialists if preferred… same thing) wha ponce roond…” Mar 26, 13:18
Confused on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I would heartily support this (just as long as they stayed in their ain middens after) https://archive.ph/MlTPt – but you…” Mar 26, 12:59
Red on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Cynicus – You have surely heard before now that ‘if you do not know where you came from, you will…” Mar 26, 12:58
Confused on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “questions that must be asked https://archive.ph/Wl7HG the SNP have locked in the tranny vote then https://archive.ph/0kYPu sad, lying bollocks https://archive.ph/Hso58” Mar 26, 12:57
Cynicus on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Red “No, stop retreating into the past….“ You have surely heard before now that ‘if you do not know where…” Mar 26, 12:30
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Cave dweller, There is a dossier lodged at the UN of R intelligence of exactly why they invaded. It was…” Mar 26, 12:11
Red on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Geri – those women are risking arrest, and potentially death: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/24/iran-women-flouting-dress-code-hijab-laws Why do you think the Iranian women’s football team…” Mar 26, 11:53
Aidan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@CC you’ll see below a long list of excuses from Geri as to why all of the appalling acts of…” Mar 26, 11:42
Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Hahahah! Get a load of this everyone: “Geri” thinks murdering tens of thousands of innocent civilians by shooting them in…” Mar 26, 11:33
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “– American bases. Legitimate targets. That’s where they attacked from. They’ve a right to render them destroyed. – Targeting blow…” Mar 26, 11:09
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Sorry to break the news Northy. They were all hanged last Wednesday or was that the athletes. It’s hard to…” Mar 26, 10:57
Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@Aidan Well, quite. 🙂 Even if it is the case that the US has acted “illegally” in its war with…” Mar 26, 10:52
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Why don’t we all chip in and get Alison Johnston a big box of crayons for her/his/it’s retirement.” Mar 26, 10:44
