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.
Weirdly, right after seeing this earlier this afternoon, we sat down to watch an episode of The Professionals on ITV4, which contained what seemed a rather apt segment.
We don’t think it’s a younger Iain Martin of the Telegraph (accompanied by colleagues Alan Cochrane and Tom Gallagher), but don’t make us swear to it.
As we’ve explored many times on Wings, one of the many reasons you should never trust a newspaper’s headline is that even the ones that are technically true can be painting a highly (and deliberately) misleading picture.
For example, more than two years ago we pointed to a Scotsman story that blared “A THIRD OF SCOTS WOULD BACK EXIT FROM EU”, which is a rather curious spin to put on a poll which found a 13-point margin for staying in the EU.
A paper particularly fond of misusing stats in this way is the Daily Mail.
The dogged determination of Scottish Labour to insult the Scottish electorate is a source of constant slack-jawed astonishment to us. Over the years we’ve lost count of the number of times the party’s politicians have effectively said “People are just too stupid to vote for us”, in the apparent belief that abuse is the way to win back support.
But it’s not always so overt. The subtler ways in which the party treats voters like morons include the assumption that people’s memories only go back to yesterday’s newspapers, and there can surely be no more stark illustration than its recent adoption of the attack line that the SNP are standing “shoulder to shoulder with the Tories”.
Mike on The Fast Track: “Listened to the interview of Rev on Scotcast. The thing that jumps out at me is nobody in the police…” Jun 30, 20:41
Hatey McHateface on The Fast Track: “You’re gonna have to accept the truth sooner or later, Mark. The Scottish voters are under the control of MI5.…” Jun 30, 19:49
Hatey McHateface on The Fast Track: “Superb quote, CC! But wait. Is it possible Orwell had been colonised? To be serious for a mo. I always…” Jun 30, 19:35
sam on The Fast Track: “???? Feedback and complaints Anyone can provide a comment or make a complaint about our service or work. We have…” Jun 30, 19:32
Mark Beggan on The Fast Track: “The alternative to that theory is the Special Needs Party are an Organised Crime Organisation and that some of the…” Jun 30, 19:03
Dan on The Fast Track: “@ CC Aye, but that was 1945 and things have moved on in many ways since then with us now…” Jun 30, 18:54
Insider on The Fast Track: “Caveman @ 6.22 Well quoted! Relevant and correct! (unlike poor old Alf’s misquotes)” Jun 30, 18:40
twathater on The Fast Track: “Well done Rev you got a lot of points across, Geissler is just like the rest of the PRESSTITUTES because…” Jun 30, 18:25
Captain Caveman on The Fast Track: “Well, since you’ve added Orwell to your little list of authors endlessly misquoted and misappropriated, I thought you might enjoy…” Jun 30, 18:22
twathater on The Fast Track: “Some of the reasons I believe the SCUM snp thought they were UNTOUCHABLE and above PROSECUTION is because 1/ they…” Jun 30, 18:18
Alf Baird on The Fast Track: ““To get to the bottom of what’s really going on” Aye Hatey, postcolonial theory clearly helps a great deal to…” Jun 30, 17:01
Confused on The Fast Track: “Listened to it, was alright. Scotcast is generally, not the worst thing on the bbc, depends who is on; some…” Jun 30, 16:09
Bob W on The Fast Track: “Same. Requires registration and login.” Jun 30, 15:46
Bob W on The Fast Track: “Same, asks me to login or register.” Jun 30, 15:42
lothianlad on The Fast Track: “Murrell did indeed take one for the team. Whils focussing on the crimes he did comott , others were let…” Jun 30, 15:15
Jas on The Fast Track: “Perhaps the reason certain people in the SNP took to crime was because they figured no-one would take much notice…” Jun 30, 14:07
james on The Fast Track: “DavidT-Its not the crux of the matter. Your assumption that if the SNP spent the money raised soley for another…” Jun 30, 13:37
Hatey McHateface on The Fast Track: “Nothing about the size of the cave, if it has underfloor heating, how many heat pumps, and if the multi-vehicle…” Jun 30, 13:06
Alf Baird on The Fast Track: ““John Swinney … would tell you that he would live in a cave for independence” Aye Fearghas, here we have…” Jun 30, 11:05
David Henry on The Fast Track: “Missing money followed by a list of people all who lied about the missing money while others tried to shut…” Jun 30, 10:48
James Che on The Fast Track: “Hatey McHateface, You left one out at 8:11 am. Your Guff Treaty that is so old no one pays attention…” Jun 30, 09:55
James Che on The Fast Track: “Seeing as no one is scrutinising the SNP and Scotland finances in depth other than Stu, one wonders about the…” Jun 30, 09:48
James Che on The Fast Track: “Law in Scotland, All under one umbrella, [The Scotland Act] Just add water to dilute. Well done Stu, excellent jounalism.” Jun 30, 08:20
Hatey McHateface on The Fast Track: “Not really. To get to the bottom of what’s really going on you need to study the works of Fanon,…” Jun 30, 08:11
Hatey McHateface on Ping-Pong-Fiddle-Aye-No: “It’s surely a bit odd that kids might be permitted to change their first names but not their surnames. Many…” Jun 30, 08:06
Robinov Cybernat on The Fast Track: “Aye, job done for them at that point.” Jun 30, 07:59
Hatey McHateface on Ping-Pong-Fiddle-Aye-No: “Gift it to them as reparations for centuries of Scottish colonialism. And thank our lucky stars we got away lightly.” Jun 30, 07:23
Hatey McHateface on Ping-Pong-Fiddle-Aye-No: “Good to see you offering due respect with your capitalisation of “Royal Audience”. As you say, it’s our history. Remove…” Jun 30, 07:19
DavidT on The Fast Track: “It is all very complicated, but from John Swinney’s comments, I get the impression that the general elections in 2017…” Jun 30, 07:10
Angus on The Fast Track: ““and the fact that only one of the two crimes it concerned has been resolved.” I don’t think it has…” Jun 30, 03:00
