We haven’t dignified the current media-imagined “crisis” in Scotland’s railways with coverage thus far, for obvious reasons, but it seemed worth briefly letting someone much better qualified to comment than us bring some perspective to the issue.
(From today’s Herald. Click to enlarge.)
Readers might well feel justified in wondering why it wasn’t until someone took it upon themselves to go to the trouble of writing to a newspaper, after days of sustained press hysteria, that some sane and balanced commentary on the situation appeared. But then again, if Mr Docherty’s expert opinion had been sought in the first place, we wouldn’t have been able to have a solid week of “SNP BAD” all over the airwaves.
One of the videos below is a genuine “Better Together” campaign broadcast, pulled from TV at the last minute (despite costing £50,000 to make) and today revealed by Buzzfeed. The other is a spoof we made in June 2014.
Good luck figuring out which is the real one, folks.
As alert readers will know, one of the primary purposes of this website isn’t just to tell people when the Scottish and UK media is lying to them, but to teach readers how to spot that for themselves. And one of the keys to learning that is to ask yourself what a story in the press is leaving out as well as what it’s telling you.
So last week, when several newspapers went on an orgy of shock-horror reporting about SNP MPs’ expenses – focusing mostly on aeroplane flights and only quoting figures for a small handful of MPs who’d allegedly been claiming far more taxpayers’ money than their Unionist predecessors – alarm bells started ringing everywhere.
And just as we’ve taught them to, Wings readers leapt into action to do the hard work that Scotland’s professional journalists don’t want to do, in order to provide Scots with the facts that the media doesn’t want them to know.
This article by US writer Emily Robinson is probably more instructive than anything we could post today (the Sunday papers are a news desert again, frankly). It doesn’t take a very great feat of imagination to transpose the American terms to Scottish ones – for “Berniebros” read “cybernats”, etc. Phantom news, it seems, is universal.
Nobody could ever accuse the Scottish press of underpromoting its grievances – alert readers will still recall, for example, the long procession of articles with near-identical content in the Daily Mail last year about SNP MPs and their “second jobs”. For 2016, though, the media’s obsessive repeating of the exact same story every few weeks has manifested itself over Nat members’ expenses.
There’s been a running theme recently on Unionist social media.
It’s the claim that the No vote in 2014 was an anomaly – a rare victory of progressive, internationalist, inclusive politics over the anti-establishment, isolationist, separatist tone that won out in the EU referendum and now the election of Donald Trump.
Of course, the alternative view is rather simpler – that perhaps the forces that won the EU referendum and 2016 presidency also won the independence referendum.
One of our favourite things to remember is what Scottish Labour regional manager Kezia Dugdale said when she was elected to the head-of-branch post 15 months ago:
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Have you heard what ex Tory MP Andrew Bridgen says about these gangs? Go watch him whistleblow what is really…” Mar 27, 19:35
Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “You asked were there any Reform voters left on here and I said “Hi!” Not really sure how ambiguous that…” Mar 27, 19:12
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Was there any to begin with? They’re just disgruntled Tories. Same shit, different party. Do we know what it is…” Mar 27, 19:12
agentx on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““On February 25, 2026, the Scottish Government ordered a public inquiry into grooming gangs, marking a significant shift in position…” Mar 27, 19:10
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “BLOG PÀRLAMAID NA h-ALBA Fiosrachadh is naidheachd bho Phàrlamaid na h-Alba Tha an seisean pàrlamaideach a-nis air tighinn gu crìch…” Mar 27, 19:07
Mo on In Your Name: “They all need punted asap! #WomenAndChildrensSafetyMatters” Mar 27, 18:47
Young Lochinvar on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Thanks Lorncal I’m sick of “demeaning and discriminatory” whining ie because it’ll find you out. I don’t know if it’s…” Mar 27, 18:45
Mo on In Your Name: “They all need punted asap! #WomenAndChildrensSafetyMatters” Mar 27, 18:45
Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Hi! 🙂 In a similar vein, are there any SNP, Labour, Green or Lib Dumb voters left on here? ‘Cause…” Mar 27, 18:27
twathater on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “WOW!!!! every word true and all it takes is for people to realise THIS is what has been happening for…” Mar 27, 18:18
Young Lochinvar on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Yes indeed Geri But the “upset” gays present at the time must have been Tories who were prepared to haud…” Mar 27, 18:13
twathater on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The COWARDICE of Swinney should highlight to the brain dead voters of the Scum Nonce Party that this baldy arsehole…” Mar 27, 17:59
twathater on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I remember the snp used to BOAST that HR was the gayest wee parliament in the world , now they…” Mar 27, 17:50
Lorncal on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Minorities are usually backed by people who have another agenda altogether and would dispense with the minority as soon as…” Mar 27, 17:25
Lorncal on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The science is relatively simple, YL. Cheek swabs are DNA tested. All the cells in the human body will show…” Mar 27, 16:52
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Baby Senator Kennedy says; The Democrats have changed their minds on Homeland Security quicker than a one legged cat in…” Mar 27, 14:25
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The silence in Scotland concerning the Pakistani Grooming Gangs is deafening.” Mar 27, 14:10
Confused on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “here’s an interesting thing : why do highly vocal minorities wield so much power in democracies where naively “the will…” Mar 27, 12:36
Confused on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “every day is now a gay day on wings The PIPEworks on MetroPOLE Lane — billed as Scotland’s largest gay…” Mar 27, 12:32
Confused on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “fantasies of power and relevance https://archive.ph/OFQUr – they spend HUGE amounts on all this crap, the least you would hope…” Mar 27, 12:30
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The war with Iran (& R) is to cut off China. They can’t compete so are setting about cutting off…” Mar 27, 11:03
100%Yes on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Sven, May’s election is going to be a interesting night. I might just need to take a day from diet…” Mar 27, 10:44
agentx on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “It would have sent a stronger positive election message for Labour in Scotland if they had agreed to the China…” Mar 27, 09:54
Sven on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “100%Yes I doubt anything would persuade that particular Tite-Barnacle to voluntarily detatch himself from the rich pickings on the ship…” Mar 27, 08:22
100%Yes on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I see James Kelly has nothing to right about so he’s attacking a Indy party instead. The guy a real…” Mar 27, 08:18
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Yer not wrong but I think it is the holy sites that protect them. The Saudis don’t give a shit…” Mar 27, 07:57
Dan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Do we actually need any more windfarms built at this pint in time, when the grid is unable to cope…” Mar 27, 07:54
