Broad shoulders, short arms 59
Posted on
January 30, 2016 by
Chris Cairns
Order “Welcome To Cairnstoon”, Chris’ compilation of Wings cartoons and more, here.
Hullo, hullo, we are the bully boys 212
Posted on
January 29, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
On the rare occasions when this site discusses football, and in particular if we mention the three-year-old Championship club known as “Rangers”, we get complaints on two grounds: one, that football has nothing to do with politics, and two, that we risk alienating supporters of the club who also back independence, of which there are unquestionably a significant number.
The second complaint is one we’ve dealt with in detail here. But the first one is more important. Because whether you’re talking about the original club which died in 2012 and was put into liquidation or the new one currently challenging for promotion to the top division for the first time, “Rangers” is a totem of the Unionist establishment in Scotland, and the way it’s treated by the media tells us at least as much about that establishment and that media as any amount of political journalism.
The tweets you won’t read 361
Posted on
January 28, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Social media amused itself briefly tonight over a spat between former SNP MP (now independent) Natalie McGarry and children’s author and hedge enthusiast JK Rowling.
It started like this:
And then some stuff happened.
The bargain of evil 147
Posted on
January 28, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Scottish Daily Mail’s front page lead today is so galactically despicable that it’s easy to overlook another story that it bundles in with the same “SNP BAD” attack.
While excoriating Dr Philippa Whitford for having the sheer shameless gall to help save women’s lives in her holidays, the alleged newspaper also devotes a page-high article to an attack on another Nat MP, George Kerevan, for employing his wife.
The headline, however, omits a rather key fact.
The scum at the bottom of the sewer 201
Posted on
January 28, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As it happens, one of the things that we’ve been occupying ourselves with during the current news drought is pulling together a post called “The SNPBAD Files”, collecting all the desperate smear and innuendo of the Unionist press as it systematically tries to discredit every one of the 56 SNP MPs elected last May.
Until last night we hadn’t been sure which had been the most pathetically dismal. Was it the MP who still did a few haircuts in his barber shop on Saturday afternoons? The one who bought a derelict London house many years before he was an MP, renovated it with his own hands and now sometimes stays there when working at Westminster, rather than charging expenses to the public for accommodation? Or perhaps the one who tweeted that he was opposed to the concept of monarchy, the foul monster?
Now, though, we have a clear winner.
Kezia Dugdale Fact Check, part 675 166
Posted on
January 27, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Here’s Kezia in the Independent yesterday:
The most powerful? Did it just get promoted?
The headline is always a lie 133
Posted on
January 27, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
In a cunning meta-twist which simultaneously proves and disproves its own claim, the headline above is itself a lie. It’s of course not true that every single headline you read in a newspaper is absolutely false.
It is, however, a pretty good rule of thumb.
Slow news month 268
Posted on
January 26, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re not saying there isn’t a lot going on at the moment, but today’s Daily Record actually devotes a page to telling women when to change their pants.
Truth and wrongs 284
Posted on
January 25, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Below is a 17-minute section of this afternoon’s John Beattie show on BBC Radio Scotland, featuring me and an amateur blogger with a keen interest in Pedigree Chum discussing the effect of the lower oil price on the Scottish economy.
(John Beattie Show, BBC Radio Scotland, 25 January 2016)
.
Happily, by the end of the show everyone on all sides was agreed that the lower oil price will actually benefit the Scottish economy overall, with the positive effects driving growth and outweighing the downside of lower corporation tax receipts.
So that’s genuine progress – next time some frothing Yoon screams “OIL PRICE! BLACK HOLE! SNP LIES! TOO WEE, TOO POOR!” at you, you can direct them here for categorical agreement from the Yes and No sides alike that actually the falling oil price makes an independent Scotland MORE economically viable, not less.
Unfortunately you’ll have to put up with a condescending, patronising arse sniggering randomly throughout, but it’s a relatively small price to pay.
Imagine our surprise 112
Posted on
January 25, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Referendum day, 18 September 2014:
Let’s hit the fast-forward button again.
Think of another number 167
Posted on
January 24, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Normally when the BBC’s Andrew Neil asks a politician to put a figure on one of their policy proposals the interviewee should be wary, because a trap is about to be sprung.
For some reason that didn’t happen today.
Soapbox: From your tether unwind 333
Posted on
January 23, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Governments, of all political stripes and nations, are often accused of being control freaks bent on constructing and enforcing a “nanny state”, where citizens’ freedoms are arbitrarily curtailed under a pretence of it all being for their own good.
Things from banning smoking and routinely snooping on private emails to forbidding people from wearing certain types of hats or expressing unpopular opinions (or even popular ones simply deemed unacceptable by a self-selecting elite) are justified for all sorts of social and economic reasons.
But where, if anywhere, should the line be drawn?
