Local colours 135
Posted on
February 15, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Just for fun.
(The combined figure for all football fans, incidentally, is Yes 52% No 48%.)
All the damn vampires 306
Posted on
February 15, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
There were no surprises in our latest Panelbase poll with regard to the independence question, at least not in terms of the headline figures – in line with a flurry of recent polls they came out at Yes 46% No 54%, with 2016’s Brexit vote seemingly having caused almost equal numbers of people to change sides since 2014.
But as readers will know, we usually like to probe a little bit deeper into the thoughts of our respondents than other media do, so we asked a few more questions on the subject. And the results of that were just plain weird.
Kicking down the doors 323
Posted on
February 14, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
When we commissioned our latest opinion poll from Panelbase, we were aware that there’d been a lot of polls recently about independence and Brexit/the EU and even Westminster voting intentions, but surprisingly few on the next thing that Scots will actually go to polling stations for – the council elections in May.
That’s odd because it’s a pretty significant vote, and could lead to some fairly seismic changes in how the country is governed. Despite losing the popular vote for the first time in 2012, Labour are still the dominant force in Scotland’s town/city halls, running almost twice as many of the country’s 32 local authorities (either in sole control or in coalition/minority administrations) as the SNP – 16 to nine.
Depending on the outcome in May, the Nats could either secure a grip on all levels of Scottish elected politics for the first time ever, or a Tory alliance with Labour as junior partners could keep most councils Unionist – something which could have all sorts of wider ramifications beyond local services. (That’s an article for another day.)
So the results below are pretty interesting.
A grown-up decision 88
Posted on
February 14, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Real-life stories. The first two of many.
The smell of fear 418
Posted on
February 13, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The ultra-hardcore Unionist community – or the Yoons, as they’re better known – are in a pretty much permanent state of wild and terrified rage, but it’s been turned up to 11 for most of this year. Constantly proclaiming that the people of Scotland don’t want independence, for some reason they’re absolutely petrified of putting that to the test.
And it’s sending them to some dark places.
Wee Willie Won’t-He 142
Posted on
February 12, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Here’s Willie Rennie in the Times this week, castigating the Scottish Government for not having successfully done a £10bn deal with China:
The centrifuge 487
Posted on
February 10, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Sometimes the word “spin” just isn’t enough to get the reality across.
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you: the Scottish media.
A division of principles 347
Posted on
February 09, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Below is part of a segment from Monday’s edition of Good Morning Scotland (from 2h 35m at the link beneath the clip), which featured an interview with Professor Allyson Pollock, an extremely experienced academic in the field of healthcare on both sides of the border who so far as we know has no dog in the Scottish constitutional fight.
(Good Morning Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, 6 February 2017)
.
We thought it was worth the infinite pain of transcription to get it down in writing.
A matter of disclosure 372
Posted on
February 08, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
There’s a truly abominable piece of hatemongering in today’s Times. A grotesequely dishonest Nat-bashing smear job based on stupendously misrepresented fragments of quotes, it’s penned by Patrick Harkness, someone who the paper identifies as “a past co-chairman of the RSE [Royal Society of Edinburgh] Young Academy of Scotland”.
For some reason it’s chosen to leave a few lines off his CV.
The phantom unmasked 171
Posted on
February 07, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers will of course be aware that a recurring theme on this site is looking for the alleged abusive behaviour by supporters of independence which gets regularly reported in outraged terms by newspapers but is mysteriously almost never supported by any actual evidence of the supposed abuse.
Case studies are almost endless – Labour MSP Cara Hilton, sort-of comedian Susan Calman, historian and hairdressing disaster model Neil Oliver, Scottish Labour shadow cabinet member ordinary mother Claire Lally, nurse/actress Suzanne Duncan/Hunter, popular Olympian cyclist Chris Hoy, currently-resting pop singer David Bowie, tanktop enthusiast and Weetabix impersonator David Torrance, we could go on.
In every case the papers and/or alleged recipients of all these dreadful separatist haranguings screamed “VILE ABUSE!”, swooning at the horror of it all, then suddenly turned deaf and dumb when asked to provide any examples.
So we were quite surprised yesterday when a previous complainant – brutal stickering victim and lonely Scottish Labour MP Ian Murray – actually came up with the proof.
The silent trumpet 123
Posted on
February 07, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We weren’t sure we’d woken up properly when we read this morning’s Times.
“Much-trumpeted”? That’s, um, not quite how we remember things.
