Just over three and a half years ago, we ran an article about how being an opposition MP or MSP is the cushiest gig in politics. You get all the pay, benefits, holidays and status, but you don’t have to actually do very much except whinge about how rubbish the government is, which most people are happy to do for free as a hobby.
Most of the time you don’t even need to turn up at your workplace.
(Sure, there are all your constituents to deal with, but if you’re not in power all that really amounts to is forwarding their letters to the government and demanding action.)
Tomorrow, the Holyrood opposition will give us a virtuoso demonstration.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, football, scottish politics
Old media and new media spoke with one voice in Scotland today:
But for once it was the dead-tree press that held the moral high ground.
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: misinformation
Category
comment, culture, football, scottish politics, stats
We were hugely excited earlier on today to receive news of a long-hoped-for team-up between two of our very favourite people on the internet: catastrophically thick Daily Express hack Siobhan McFadyen and popular lawsuit enthusiast JK Rowling.
What we hadn’t expected was a starring role.
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: flat-out lies, smears
Category
debunks, disturbing, media
Saturday 11.34am:
Saturday 8.02pm:
Wow, that’s fast. We can only assume she took John McTernan with her.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, world
Hmm.
Anyone missing?
Category
europe, scottish politics
A member of an MSP’s staff posted an image on Twitter this morning of a flyer that had apparently just been shoved through their office letter box:
But after having a merry old chuckle at the layout, colour choice and language, we wondered what sort of person might produce such a thing. So, ably assisted as ever by a team of alert readers, we decided to see if we could find out.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
investigation, scottish politics
We realise that there’s some stiff competition for that accolade, even if you restrict it solely to things said by Kezia Dugdale, but this needs preserving for posterity.
A couple of questions do spring immediately to mind: (1) how does every country on Earth that isn’t Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland do it, and (2) given that Scotland has now been in the Union for 309 years, how much longer is it going to take before the two things are finally eradicated?
We look forward to hearing the answers from Labour any day now.
Category
comment, idiots, scottish politics, wtf
The former Chancellor of the Exchequer in today’s Press & Journal:
55-45 is “far more decisive” than 62-38? We think we’re finally beginning to understand why the last Labour government left the British economy in such a mess.
Tags: and finally, arithmetic fail
Category
wtf
The UK’s decision to leave the European Union has, it seems fair and uncontroversial to say, thrown Scotland’s Unionist parties into something of a spin. With all of them having campaigned for a Remain vote, all are now faced with the unsquareable circle of operating in a country that voted to stay in both the UK and the EU but can now only have one of those things.
Scottish Labour were the first to get themselves into a fankle, unsurprisingly. Their leader Kezia Dugdale first said she might conceivably be able to see herself voting for independence in order to stay in Europe, but then frantically backpedalled as soon as anyone noticed, and is now locked into a position of “never, no chance, not no way, not no how”, even as her own deputy publicly disagrees with her.
(Uncharitable readers pointing out that she took the same view on Jeremy Corbyn, before backing him wholeheartedly when he first won a leadership, then backing Owen Smith a year later on the grounds that Corbyn was useless, then insisting that Corbyn had her fulsome support and could definitely win a general election when he won the leadership again, should be ashamed of themselves. If a leader can’t U-turn three times in the space of 12 months, who can?)
But remarkably, the Scottish Tories seem to be even more confused.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, scottish politics, uk politics
