A bridge too far 171
Posted on
December 24, 2015 by
Chris Cairns
To the bitter end 309
Posted on
December 23, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This was a brief exchange between the Scotland correspondent of the Guardian and the Political Editor of the Daily Record on Twitter last night. (The hug referred to is the one between Nicola Sturgeon, Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru and Natalie Bennett of the Greens at one of the leaders’ debates for the May general election.)
A little vision of the future, there.
Another blow for Sturgeon 331
Posted on
December 22, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As SNP forecasting incompetence sees Forth Road Bridge re-open two weeks ahead of schedule, throwing holiday travel plans into chaos for thousands.
Many questions to answer.
Shocking incredible news 298
Posted on
December 21, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Telling voters they’re morons and robots rather surprisingly hasn’t worked.
We suspect the opposition parties will give it a few more years just to be sure.
Transparency and accountability 412
Posted on
December 18, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
An alert reader recently decided to get a bit meta and send an FOI request to the BBC about how many FOI requests it got, and how many it responded to with its standard get-out clause that basically amounts to “None of your business, get stuffed”.
This was the response. We’ve added the percentages in red.
You just pay for it, under penalty of law. It doesn’t answer to you.
An end to the matter 207
Posted on
December 17, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Remarkably, it seems some angry Unionists are still trying to dispute the known facts surrounding the Forth Road Bridge closure. We’d like to think this quote from today’s Central Fife Times – from Tony Martin, the man who was convenor of the authority managing the bridge until a few months ago – was unambiguous enough to settle it once and for all.
That’s from the man who ought to know more about it than any human alive, and who as a Lib Dem councillor has no reason to make excuses for the Scottish Government.
It’s over, angry Unionists. Deal with it.
He can’t get no satisfaction 342
Posted on
December 16, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This tweet mysteriously vanished from Blair McDougall’s Twitter timeline last night:
We’re not sure why, as we know that Scottish Labour love nothing more than to attack the Scottish Government (no matter how ham-fistedly) over education.
And we’re pretty sure it’s not because McDougall felt guilty about picking out only the negative aspects of what Scotland’s biggest teaching union called a “largely positive picture” of the state of Scottish education – and which the OECD itself said contained “much to be positive about” – because if there’s one thing we know for sure about Blair it’s that his conscience isn’t troubled by misleading people.
Our best guess was that even he was just too embarrassed at having made an attack line out of the fact that 20% of the country’s schools were “only” rated “satisfactory”, thereby implying that “satisfactory” status was actually in some way unsatisfactory.
In doing so, of course, he was echoing the words of his hapless leader Kezia Dugdale, who in September told the Holyrood chamber that “no parent wants a satisfactory education for their child”. Maybe McDougall just realised belatedly that he was reading from the wrong month’s script.
Kelly’s Heroes 170
Posted on
December 15, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Because some of you won’t have seen it yet.
The Pish Gallop 133
Posted on
December 15, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve spoken a number of times before on this site about the “gish gallop” or “swarm of wasps” debating technique, in which a person attempts to bury their opponent under such an overwhelming tsunami of false, misleading or nonsensical claims in a short space of time that they can’t possibly debunk it all.
The Urban Dictionary gives an example of the form:
Faced with such a rushing torrent of drivel, it’s almost impossible for an opponent to know where to start in order to begin to even scratch the surface (if you can scratch a torrent). And that brings us directly to Severin Carrell’s article in today’s Guardian.
Another Amazing Collapsing Story 87
Posted on
December 15, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
So this sounds pretty bad, right?
We imagine chaos and mayhem reigned on the streets.
Old soak dribbles 131
Posted on
December 15, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
I know he’s a figure of comedy and pity, but this is something else.
Someone glue the cork in the bottle, eh? For his own good.
The Forth Road Bridge FAQ 268
Posted on
December 14, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Over the last few days, as most of Scotland’s media has focused on hysterical smear stories and outright lies, we’ve been digging around trying to uncover the truth about events around and leading to the closure of the Forth Road Bridge.
Here’s what we’ve got so far.
