Eternally angry Conservative MSP Adam Tomkins has been even shoutier than usual this week, purple-faced with rage about the fact that the SNP has decided to spend some of its own money (not taxpayer cash) asking people for their opinions.
It’s a curious argument from a member of a party that’s been rejected in successive elections in Scotland in 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1974 again, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2016, but keeps turning up and barking orders anyway. You’d think the first 50 years might qualify as a hint.
Fear and lies work. Over many decades (and really for centuries) the Unionist parties and the media have succeeded in persuading a large percentage of Scots that they’re beggars, scroungers, vagrants and “subsidy junkies” dependent on the ever-generous charity of England to keep them from starvation.
And in terms of the facts, that hasn’t always been an easy sell.
More or less since the morning of 19 September 2014, the Unionist parties in Scotland have kept up an unceasing chorus of “You lost! Accept it!” directed at the entire Yes movement, but primarily the SNP (despite the SNP having never to date disputed the result or called for a re-run of the referendum).
Readers may not be entirely astonished to discover this morning that at least as far as Scottish Labour are concerned, that principle only applies to other people.
Because we’re pretty sure there’s already a name for when political parties set out an “alternative programme of government”.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz gave an interesting interview to Good Morning Scotland just after 8am today, in which he expressed a number of careful, measured and qualified views on a variety of subjects including currency.
But obviously Scottish people are much too stupid to understand stuff like that, so the BBC quickly dumbed it down for them.
The problem is that there’s a difference between simplifying and falsifying.
The Scottish Mail On Sunday felt obliged this weekend to devote newsprint in what’s technically an actual newspaper to a piece of snark that might just be a new all-time low in the highly competitive barrel-scraping field of “SNP BAD”:
Half a page was given up to a bunch of sour complaints that the First Minister had built in FIVE MINUTES on her itinerary on a school visit (aimed at encouraging girls to take up traditionally male careers) for people to get selfies with her.
Dismayingly often, the thing that irritates us the most about the Unionist press lying to its readers isn’t the fact that they’re doing it, but the fact that they do it so insultingly badly. As an illustrative case in point, here’s the Sunday Times’ reliably dull-witted Scottish columnist Gillian Bowditch today:
Now, let’s be generous and ignore the honkingly stupid first paragraph, which paints a couple of exceptional bad years as a permanent status, and focus on the second one.
This is the demented, McCarthyite state of madness the Labour Party has reached:
This is a party now openly rejecting anyone as a member who has ever supported any other party. We’d take a minute to try to explain to them how the arithmetic of that one works out, but they’re a long, long way beyond the grasp of reason now.
Scottish Labour won a council by-election in Fife last night, held after the long-serving Communist Party/independent councillor Willie Clarke (who can be seen on the last page of our Charlie Hebdo feature here) stepped down due to ill health.
The successful candidate Mary Lockhart was understandably jubilant, but there were a couple of what seemed like pertinent facts missing from the local paper’s report.
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
