BBC1’s weekly Question Time political debate shows are heavily over-subscribed. Only a couple of hundred tickets are typically available for would-be members of the studio audience, and far more than that apply to attend, so your chances of getting through the initial vetting are fairly slim. You’re especially unlikely to be selected if you’re not from the city where the show is being held, for obvious reasons.
While the group of failed Scottish Labour parliamentary candidates is, let’s say, rather larger than it used to be, it’s still a pretty select club of a few dozen people.
And if you DO make it into the QT audience, the chances of you being picked out to speak are also rather poor – not more than 1 in 10 at best, probably nearer 1 in 20.
Depending on which parts of the media you were reading yesterday and this morning, the economic case for independence was either “shattered” (the Herald), “demolished” (the Spectator), “shredded” (Daily Record), “smashed to smithereens” (Willie Rennie, bless) or any number of other apocalyptic metaphors for total destruction, by a 1% fall in Scottish revenues resulting from a steep drop in oil prices which led to a notional Scottish budget deficit that by some measures was as high as 10% of GDP.
We must assume, then, that the economic case for the UK being an independent nation was rendered unto ruins in 2009-10, when its deficit exceeded 11% of GDP.
Economics: The art of explaining why all of your models fail to accurately predict either the future or the past.
It’s the time of year again when everyone glances at the first page of a dense booklet of complex economic data and immediately starts using it to make wild forecasts and proclamations despite the long-known problems with doing so.
So it’s also, once again, time to try looking a little further to tease out some details that others might have – let’s be generous here – accidentally missed.
(The GERS figures actually showed Scotland’s revenues in 2014/15 dropping by ONE PERCENT as a result of the oil price collapse. Non-oil revenues were UP by 3.2%.)
This year’s GERS figures will be published today, purporting to illustrate the financial relationship between Scotland and the rest of the UK. With oil revenues down, they’ll undoubtedly provoke an orgasmic explosion of glee among Unionists crowing about “black holes” and how Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid to survive alone.
We’ve already run an extremely detailed explanation of all the flaws and booby-traps in GERS, but of course we’re a pro-independence website and we would say that. So instead we’ll direct you to someone who’s very much NOT on our side.
This week Scottish Labour have been attacking the SNP’s rather timid plans for the reform of Council Tax, which is an entirely fair and legitimate opposition pursuit.
But as is their wont, Kezia Dugdale’s branch office just can’t help overplaying their hand and doing it in a highly dishonest way.
An alert reader just found this. It’s quite something.
We especially liked this bit:
“The growing practice of the socialist government is to take decisions vitally affecting Scotland in Whitehall… this is a process which we have every intention of setting in direct reverse.”
We thought you might like to see this snippet from a recent edition of the BBC News channel’s newspapers round-up, spotted by an alert reader.
We particularly enjoy the obviousness with which presenter Martine Croxall is being fed random titles into her earpiece by a panicking producer in response to freelancer stringer Matthew Green’s unexpected observation.
Captain Caveman on Push The Button: ““Why would a unionist do this, on an [sic] Scottish independence website? Are you being paid mebbies?” …. DUH. I…” Apr 29, 12:07
Aidan on Push The Button: “@Northcode – I can’t think of a single comment of yours that: – is relevant to the blog post; -…” Apr 29, 11:51
Northcode on Push The Button: “Thank you, James… your sentiment is greatly appreciated.” Apr 29, 11:34
Northcode on Push The Button: ““Seems The Donald – bein the maist powerful (Scots)man in the warld – mebbe aspires tae be King o Scots?:”…” Apr 29, 11:31
Northcode on Push The Button: “Read my comment again and you’ll see most of it is grammarcheck generated copy and paste. You compare my ability…” Apr 29, 11:25
Aidan on Push The Button: “Yeah I bet you would, because at least half of my posts are embarrassing whatever incoherent, easily disprovable nonsense argument…” Apr 29, 11:10
Southernbystander on Push The Button: “No, this isn’t a correct analysis and you give yourself away by saying blue voters are at best ‘stupid’ but…” Apr 29, 11:05
James on Push The Button: “Adrian; do us all a favour and piss of to the daily mail website or wherever it is you belong.…” Apr 29, 10:53
James on Push The Button: “Adrian; I’d rather read Northy’s posts all day than any of the specious, divisive unionist bollocks that you seem to…” Apr 29, 10:51
Alf Baird on Push The Button: ““a king of England addressing Congress” For thon’s whit he is, King o the English Imperial State; he’s nivver been…” Apr 29, 10:50
Aidan on Push The Button: “I doubt it only took you five minutes but whatever, it’s a complete waste of your time. James Cheyne needs…” Apr 29, 10:25
TURABDIN on Push The Button: “OF PASSING NOTE. Mr Trump said US founding fathers like John Adams and George Washington “might be absolutely shocked” to…” Apr 29, 10:21
Northcode on Push The Button: “It took me a mere five minutes, including the time it took to copy and paste the grammarcheck generated stuff,…” Apr 29, 10:09
Geri on Push The Button: “AI has been caught red handed lying to its customers, issuing refunds to customers against company policy & being all…” Apr 29, 10:09
Geri on Push The Button: “I wouldn’t trust him. He’s probably setting it all up for the American takeover. Canada is one of their future…” Apr 29, 10:00
Aidan on Push The Button: “What an absolute load of rubbish. Imagine spending your time writing all that.” Apr 29, 09:50
Northcode on Push The Button: “After more than 300,000 years of enthusiastically embracing stupidity, homo sapiens – the modern human – has not only merely…” Apr 29, 09:36
James Che on Push The Button: “Mark Carney ex – governor of the bank of England, not the Bank of Great Britain or of the Bank…” Apr 29, 08:28
James Che on Push The Button: “Fearghas, Thank you for contributing those snippets of information, much appreciated,” Apr 29, 08:08
Bilbo on Push The Button: “You would think this is a parody but it is actually real as per Linkedin link shows that he is…” Apr 29, 07:26
Peter McAvoy on Push The Button: “In the original statement of the article,there are two more options press both at the same time to cancel each…” Apr 29, 02:15
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Push The Button: “GROUP SINGS AT LONDON MARATHON IN WAKE OF SCOPE TRANS-DEBACLE Disability charity Scope has come under fire for dropping a…” Apr 28, 23:21
Iain More on Push The Button: “I se that mark Carney the Canadian PM is to introduce a Canadian Sovereign Wealth Fund. I guess he saw…” Apr 28, 22:55
Mark Beggan on Push The Button: “To argue with a fool only creates two fools.” Apr 28, 22:34
Geri on Push The Button: ““it is not mandatory for you to read my posts or comment on them.” I wasn’t the one crying. You…” Apr 28, 21:11
Chas on Push The Button: “Geri It seems that you think of yourself as the site moderator! It is not mandatory for you to read…” Apr 28, 20:49
Aidan on Push The Button: “@Cheyne – your repetitive posts do not have value because they don’t make sense to anyone, either pro-independence or unionist.…” Apr 28, 19:31
Geri on Push The Button: “Why don’t you? No one has forced you to come here, ya eejit. & No one is forcing you to…” Apr 28, 18:27
Geri on Push The Button: “They are held back by fear. That’s why they’re an embarrassment to democracy. They’d rather just not have one at…” Apr 28, 18:22
Chas on Push The Button: “How many people do you turn off this site and the thought of Independence with your repeated deranged ramblings. Go…” Apr 28, 18:03
