It seems that it’s fine to farm important judgments out to mysterious shadowy figures who just make important chunks of them up out of thin air, and then issue them in your own name. Back in your boxes, plebs.
This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.
It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.
My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.
Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.
It’s almost – almost – worth voting SNP in May because of this:
Because it would be at least momentarily absolutely hilarious watching Swinney try to explain why his “100% guaranteed” second indyref didn’t happen if the SNP actually did get a majority on 30% of the vote (which is narrowly feasible on current polling).
This week The National published a poll it commissioned from Find Out Now for this May’s Scottish Parliament election, alongside a seat projection from Sir John Curtice. Here are the list-vote figures from the poll.
The seat projection calculated that the election would result in 59 SNP MSPs (six short of the number John Swinney says is the minimum needed to force a second indyref), 25 for Reform, 13 for the Greens, 12 each for Labour and the Tories and eight for the Lib Dems.
It didn’t specify how many of the seats were constituency ones and how many were list ones, so we dropped Sir John a line and asked him.
Yesterday we noted in passing that independence support now outstrips that of the SNP by more than 20 points, making the party into a gigantic liability as the vehicle for enabling Scots to leave the UK. Put simply, even when voters want independence (as most now do), they’re not willing to vote SNP to get it.
(Not, of course, that they WOULD get it if they voted SNP – the party still having no coherent or credible strategy to achieve it – but more than 40% of would-be Yes voters are no longer prepared to even try giving them the benefit of yet another mandate.)
And since what everyone loves most of all on New Year’s Day is a good old wade in some political stats, we thought we’d take a little more detail on that.
With Reform now pretty consistently miles in front in polling for the next UK election, logically this is brilliant news for the Scottish independence movement, isn’t it?
So can anyone explain why the SNP is so desperate to stop them?
Cynicus on Looking up at the stars: “Mark Beggan says: 17 March, 2026 at 4:39 pm “Maybe it was ST Brendan then.” ======== LOL Nice try, Mark…” Mar 18, 00:44
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “& who is he exactly? His party has FIVE MSPs. How many seats are list? FOUR. So they effectively have…” Mar 17, 23:33
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Perhaps some of the money saved will be spent on trans. Be honest here, sarah. Who do you think is…” Mar 17, 23:04
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Eh? Yousaf and his co-religionists allow pet dogs to suffer. Many of them would be happy to see all dogs…” Mar 17, 22:59
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “@Geri Liam McArthur says the system “has been failing dying Scots for too long” and that many will feel let…” Mar 17, 22:54
sarah on Looking up at the stars: “Interesting to see the SNP names, 37 for and 22 against. Swinney and Sturgeon against, Robertson for. But anyway, a…” Mar 17, 22:50
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Election in May, x. Too close to the poll for the voters to develop the usual amnesia. They’ll bring back…” Mar 17, 22:47
Glenn Boyd on Looking up at the stars: “Notoriously Fuckwitted MSP Humza Yousaf just voted against the Assisted Dying Bill, joining forces with conservatives and religious maniacs. We…” Mar 17, 22:45
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““It doesn’t mean we want to spark up a euthanasia program for others” Naw? Are there two of you then,…” Mar 17, 22:43
George Ferguson on Looking up at the stars: “At last common sense returns to the Scottish Parliament. I recluse myself of Scottish Politics. Volunteering does more than anybody…” Mar 17, 22:30
agentx on Looking up at the stars: “MSPs have voted against the assisted dying legislation by 57 votes to 69 with one abstention.” Mar 17, 22:20
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Nobody else seems to be interested, so I’ll ask. Who are the actual lobster fishermen in Scotland’s case? What’s taking…” Mar 17, 21:23
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Agent Then that should be investigated because the NHS is available to everyone. Not rushing through death by algorithm. In…” Mar 17, 21:17
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “The voters of Scotland will punish them at the ballot box in May. Oh my aching sides 🙂” Mar 17, 21:16
agentx on Looking up at the stars: “One in three people died without adequate palliative care.” Mar 17, 20:54
agentx on Looking up at the stars: “MSP’s are elected to represent their constituencies. There have been a lot of very personal moving speeches but not one…” Mar 17, 20:38
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Typical, eh? Sir Rowland Hill claimed to have invented the penny post in 1840. The Douglas beat him to it…” Mar 17, 20:29
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““They hanged Nazis for this shit” They certainly hanged the gas chambers operatives. In this digital age, they might just…” Mar 17, 20:23
sarah on Looking up at the stars: “Has anyone heard an MSP suggest that they ask the voters to decide this matter? It really is not appropriate…” Mar 17, 20:10
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “A lot on tomorrow so might not be able to post, so I’ll post this a little early. Happy anniversary…” Mar 17, 19:59
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Willie, The Eppy class & the tech Mafia have direct links to the Nazis. The apples didn’t fall far from…” Mar 17, 19:52
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “What about people who disagree with you, willie? Don’t you want them eliminated too? Man up and do it for…” Mar 17, 19:40
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Agents Palliative care. A patient can choose to withdraw from treatment themselves. Palliative care makes the patient as comfortable as…” Mar 17, 19:33
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “It’s not just Confused that has class, Geri. You’re hoaching with it too. Congrats on a truthful post, BTW. First…” Mar 17, 19:33
agentx on Looking up at the stars: “Scotland assisted dying bill live:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx2grl77j47t#player” Mar 17, 19:31
willie on Looking up at the stars: “Yes Marie, some parents are quite unthoughtful, downright uncaring actually to hang on burning through their children’s inheritance by spending…” Mar 17, 19:26
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Aye, Confused has class. My offer is still open.. I’d make a wee exception for you. I’d be doing ye…” Mar 17, 19:21
Marie on Looking up at the stars: “Correct Geri. The chronic sick and dying are a financial burden to (Western) governments. It’s in the financial interests of…” Mar 17, 19:08
agentx on Looking up at the stars: “Geri says:We already have a system in place. A patient can withdraw care themselves. —————————– Would you care to explain…” Mar 17, 19:02
