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.
James on The Pit Of Vipers: “But…..but….”Adrian & Wilma” say everything was fine, none of that happened; nothing to see here…..who should we believe???” Apr 23, 11:36
James on The Pit Of Vipers: “LOL Making it up as they go along now as usual. Typical Yoon behaviour. What a pair of numpties. (Adrian;…” Apr 23, 11:31
Geri on The Pit Of Vipers: “I have it on DVD so an excellent watch too. I think it came free with iScot magazine at the…” Apr 23, 11:30
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on How To Get Away With Crimes: “The parents of the “botched circumcision” child were advised by tragically misguided psychologist John Money, whose story features from about…” Apr 23, 11:28
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: ““R” observers – lol, tell us more. The SNP did not stand on an IndyRef 2 ticket in 2015 though…” Apr 23, 11:20
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “Lol Geri – to be called thick by someone like you, just wow! The idea that you can’t make “new…” Apr 23, 11:07
Nicky T Naquetti on How To Get Away With Crimes: ““Spitfire Cannon”, huh… Does this dude/dudette even have his cannon anymore, never its spitting function?” Apr 23, 10:51
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pit Of Vipers: “The opening paragraphs of G.A. PONSONBY’s book: « Chapter 1 – TURNING YES INTO NO « The 2014 independence referendum…” Apr 23, 10:39
Geri on The Pit Of Vipers: “Jeez you’re as thick as pigs shit. It doesn’t allow you to introduce new offers. Devo Max & the vow…” Apr 23, 10:30
robertkknight on How To Get Away With Crimes: ““It is possible to bring a private prosecution for harassment in England and Wales under Section 6(1) of the Prosecution…” Apr 23, 10:26
Geri on The Pit Of Vipers: “Scotland was so pro Union do you know what they did? They returned 56 Nationalist MPs for the 1st time…” Apr 23, 10:25
Alf Baird on The Pit Of Vipers: “Aye, if only we had nationalists instead of colonialists leading the national party, we wad be hame and dry lang…” Apr 23, 09:53
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pit Of Vipers: “And fulsome tribute still to G.A. PONSONBY for his watershed achievement in meticulously compiling irrefutable evidence of the BBC’s default…” Apr 23, 09:49
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “Purdah rules restrict the use of official government functions like official communications channels or the civil service to announce major…” Apr 23, 09:40
TURABDIN on The Pit Of Vipers: “«SCOTTISH NATIONALISM» the love that dare not speak its name without a paroxysm of cringe.” Apr 23, 09:27
100%Yes on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Seats projection for Holyrood election in latest poll. SNP 59 down Greens 23 up Reform UK 17 up Liberal Democrats…” Apr 23, 09:21
Geri on The Pit Of Vipers: “The broke the rules, continually. The broke rules on Purdah. They continually abused the state mafia TV who were not…” Apr 23, 09:07
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “See there we differ CC, I actually think Geri and “James” do live somewhere in the UK, likely in a…” Apr 23, 07:59
Captain Caveman on The Pit Of Vipers: ““Of course in this dystopian dictatorships Geri sings the praises of none of those things would be possible, the ballot…” Apr 23, 07:31
Aidan on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Eventually his time will come, he has and is continuing to commit offences which go beyond the summary only offence…” Apr 23, 07:06
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “Geri’s latest rant is that: – the No campaign was allowed to campaign – people were allowed to donate to…” Apr 23, 06:35
Angus on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Today’s Scotland, legacy of the biggest betrayer in Scottish history, has become the worst banana state in the world. Rotten…” Apr 23, 00:47
Geri on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Bilbo It was shown to be a nonsense by the tragic case of David Reimer decades ago. Accidentally castrated by…” Apr 23, 00:08
Captain Caveman on The Pit Of Vipers: “Ah, the cringeworthy late night meltdowns are in progress once again I see; another day, another dollar eh. Most amusing.…” Apr 22, 22:40
Bilbo on How To Get Away With Crimes: “With AI translation, people from non-English speaking countries can now access English western social media content and from the below…” Apr 22, 22:30
Bilbo on How To Get Away With Crimes: “There was a YouTube video that had come into my feed about Norah Vincent, a female journalist who had lived…” Apr 22, 22:22
Geri on The Pit Of Vipers: “You’ve proven no one wrong AI Dan. UK elections & referendums don’t have open franchises. They forbid it for the…” Apr 22, 22:02
Geri on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Jeez! All that harassment would’ve driven me round the bend! I guess that’s the intention tho. Sucked into their crazy…” Apr 22, 21:14
Confused on How To Get Away With Crimes: “you can’t do much with crazy; you need to give it a wide berth, which is hard on twitter, if…” Apr 22, 21:13
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “A lonely AI Dun holding the fort for the probity of all things concerning “THE UNION”.. 🙂” Apr 22, 21:08
