Big girl’s shoes 112
Posted on
November 07, 2015 by
Chris Cairns
Order “Welcome To Cairnstoon”, Chris’ compilation of Wings cartoons and more, here.
Through the fresh looking glass 76
Posted on
November 06, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s been such an exciting, action-packed week for Scottish Labour since a dynamic and thrusting PPB launched the 2015 branch-office conference that we worried there might be a danger people had forgotten it already. So we’ve brought it back for a curtain call, in a version a bit more appropriate for what remains of their core vote.
Never mind the zeitgeist, feel the width.
The magical money machine 174
Posted on
November 06, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This is amazing, readers. It’s an extract from this afternoon’s The Big Debate on Radio Scotland, in which a journalist – the BBC’s Gordon Brewer – finally gets round to asking someone from Scottish Labour how they can make the extra £500m they need to fund their tax-credits “policy” while keeping all taxes the same.
The answer… well, the answer is quite something.
(The Big Debate, BBC Radio Scotland, 6 November 2015)
.
You might have to listen through a few times to get your head round it, because that really is what a grown woman actually tried to get away with in front of a live audience.
The limitations of GERS 297
Posted on
November 06, 2015 by
Lindsay Bruce
Last week the BBC treated viewers to a Question Time hosted in Edinburgh, where a right-wing economics journalist from MoneyWeek magazine called Merryn Somerset Webb explained to a somewhat disgruntled Scottish audience why the government were right to bail out the bankers, but not steel workers.
It capped off an interesting week but to see why we’ll have to rewind a few days and revisit the work of an amateur Unionist blogger of our unwelcome acquaintance.
The amateur blogger in question has been garnering a fair amount of attention lately from straw-clutching Unionist hacks for his “analysis” of the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures, in which he purports to show a sizeable deficit in the economy of an independent or “full fiscal autonomy” Scotland.
In essence, the analysis amounts to dumping all the GERS summary tables into a Microsoft Excel graph, adding the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast for oil revenue, and pointing to a resulting £9.1bn gap between Scotland’s public spending and its total revenue.
This, he asserts, is in addition to Scotland’s share of the hefty deficit the UK currently runs. His conclusion, shouted loudly and often by every angry Unionist on Twitter, is that the government of an independent Scotland – which tellingly they always assume to be an SNP one – would either have to drastically cut public services or raise taxes to fill this “black hole”.
It’s an interesting piece of analysis. Or it would be, if it wasn’t total nonsense.
Different ways of seeing 123
Posted on
November 05, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We noticed this on Twitter earlier this evening:
And we thought, “Well, that sounds bad”.
The Empire Of Dr. Schrödinger 204
Posted on
November 05, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers will probably already be familiar with the philosophical proposition of Schrödinger’s cat. (The less alert can click the link for a short and easy primer.) The hypothetical experiment posited by 20th-century Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger has entered into popular culture. But increasingly and disturbingly, it’s also becoming the guiding principle of mainstream media journalism.
Certain viewers should steel themselves at this point, because we’re about to briefly talk about football before moving on to other things later in the article. You can consider that your trigger warning. We’ll let you know when it’s over.
The lines above were issued to the press yesterday by The Rangers International Football Club plc, a football club (the clue’s in the name) formed in 2012, yet which lays claim to the history and achievements of a previous club of a similar name which was liquidated for bankruptcy the same year, having been formed in 1872.
And eagle-eyed logic fans may have spotted something of a contradiction.
Call and response 63
Posted on
November 05, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The call:
The response:
“Opposition parties used the publication of the manifesto to attack the SNP government’s record.
So that went well. Nice try, BMA.
Humbled and inspired 330
Posted on
November 04, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Some of you may not have seen this from last night, and it needs to be seen.
Scottish Labour Party Of The Day 254
Posted on
November 03, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A problem of dishonesty 338
Posted on
November 03, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We had an interesting conversation last night with someone who was prepared, quite legitimately, to credit Scottish Labour with a little more good faith over their proposed plan to mitigate Tory tax credit cuts than we were. But we had a lot of trouble coming to an agreement over the arithmetic, and we tend to think that backs up our cynicism.
Labour have presented their supposed funding for the policy in an incredibly dishonest and disingenuous way, and it seems to have confused the media to the point where nobody in the print or broadcast media has challenged what appears to be a huge and (to us at least) incredibly obvious gaping hole in the finances.
Let’s walk through it one more time.
Premature evacuation 69
Posted on
November 02, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Gordon Brown, last seen wailing that The Vow had been “betrayed”, appears to have jumped ship a little early when it came to changing his position on it for what by our count is the fourth or fifth time so far.
A myth of independence 210
Posted on
November 02, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The video clip below is from Russia Today, which is in no way an impartial news outlet. However, it’s dangerous and unwise to reflexively dismiss any message purely because of the medium. Heck, even the Daily Mail tells the truth sometimes.
That’s because the messenger in this case is Major General Patrick Cordingley DSO, a highly distinguished British Army veteran commander who led the invasion of Iraq in the first Gulf War in 1991, and who before the second one in 2003 (by which time he’d retired) had a very perceptive view of both the battle and the likely aftermath.
When we join the clip he’s discussing the USA.
His views are expert and worth listening to. (The full interview is here.) Readers can, as ever, decide for themselves whether to believe him or David Cameron.
