Stitched up like kippers 261
Posted on
March 20, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Panelbase have released data tables for their recent Sunday Times poll. And wow.
That’s quite something.
Asking the wrong questions 479
Posted on
March 19, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Here’s the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, speaking to BBC News this morning and giving a striking illustration of the term “dancing on the head of a pin”.
Comically, his excuse for demanding another referendum on leaving the EU while opposing a second Scottish independence referendum is that his new EU vote would be a completely different question – he’d be asking voters if they wanted to accept the Brexit deal and exit from the EU (which one might reasonably summarise on the ballot paper as “Leave”), or to refuse to approve the deal and stay in the EU (or put another way, “Remain”).
Glad we cleared that up, then. But then it got weirder.
To keep links with the world 84
Posted on
March 19, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
No 9: Mark, until recently from London.
Come and join us 215
Posted on
March 18, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Our favourite bit is at 27m 52s.
Does anyone speak Dugdale? 359
Posted on
March 17, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Scottish Labour’s regional branch manager (North Britain) clearly thought this was so important she needed to say it twice:
But that’s not helping us make any sense of it. All sarcasm and snark aside, we can’t figure out what on Earth it’s supposed to mean.
How soon isn’t now? 524
Posted on
March 16, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
GERS, by economists 397
Posted on
March 15, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The announcement that the Scottish Government would seek the uncontested legal right to hold a second independence referendum met with an outpouring of rage and ignorance from the massed ranks of the UK media that was in one sense entirely predictable yet still startling in its fury and ferocity.
Most prominent was the assertion, stated as fact by every pundit and broadcaster – including those required by law to be fair and impartial – that a second referendum would be conducted in the environment of a significantly worse economic case.
And that’s a remarkable claim, because the indisputable fact is that nobody has the slightest clue what the economic case for No will be.
A unique opportunity to escape 76
Posted on
March 15, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
No 8: Elizabeth, from Bonnybridge.
Some things are simple 428
Posted on
March 14, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Judging by the first 24 hours, we’re in for a two-year festival of utter horror from the UK and Scottish media. Yesterday saw a never-ending parade of metrosplaining idiots dragged willingly in front of cameras and microphones to pontificate their clueless and mind-numbingly ignorant drivel about Scotland.
It wasn’t possible to keep track of it all, because it was frequently happening on five channels at once, and it was harder still to watch it for any extended period of time without hurling a brick through the screen in frustration at the offensive stupidity of it.
Feeding into that was a stream of Scottish politicians who actually did know better, but who are too catastrophically dim to adapt to changing circumstances and had no strategy other than to endlessly repeat the same cretinous soundbites over and over.
(Adam Tomkins in particular was ubiquitous, spending what felt like several hours on various airwaves reciting the same brainless 10-second schtick forever.)
The constitutional politics of the UK and Scotland are in flux, and many aspects of the situation are complicated. But quite a lot of them aren’t, and if we’re all going to make it through the next two years without stabbing each other in the throat, it’d be a lot better if everyone accepted the things that are definite, empirical, indisputable facts.
Fury Of The Phantoms 349
Posted on
March 13, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers will of course be aware that one of this site’s most frequently-recurring themes is “phantom news”, whereby events or unpleasant opinions that newspapers or broadcasters really want to have happened are conveniently brought to life, either by some random nobody on the internet, or an unnamed “source” or “insider”.
(Or in a real emergency, simply asserted with no evidence at all.)
So when Nicola Sturgeon did something today that nearly everyone in the Northern Hemisphere knew she was going to do sometime soon, but wasn’t expecting just yet, there wasn’t time to prepare actual real people with the required quotes.
In the modern media world, though, that isn’t a problem.
Great news, Mrs Hudson 325
Posted on
March 13, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re going to need to print more books.
