We listened to an interesting chat on Good Morning Scotland earlier today (it’s right at the start, just after the news) featuring Gerry Hassan and the sharp New Statesman reporter Stephen Bush, which briefly discussed a curious political phenomenon of the 2000s where people said they liked certain policies until they were told they were Tory policies, at which point their opinions changed.
It put us rather in mind of a classic 2000AD comic strip called The Ballad Of Halo Jones, and in particular a short episode from it about a character called The Glyph, which seemed to us to sum up the current dilemma facing the Labour Party on both sides of the border – but especially in Scotland, as was rather strikingly illustrated by a revealing interview with Kezia Dugdale on Friday.
So we thought we’d share it with you, because sometimes pictures say a thousand words. Especially if there are several of them and they also have words on them.
With little in the way of news to chew on, the Scottish political blogosphere has begun to eat itself of late, with an exhausting number of articles on popular sites about how an SNP list vote is a wasted vote and anyone thinking of voting for the Nats in both constituency and region is a deluded cultist/simple-witted idiot (mostly written by candidates/supporters of other parties who are often not identified as such), and now some angry pieces from disgruntled SNP supporters making the opposite point.
All are based, from one perspective or another, on opinion polls and seat predictions based on those polls, some of which appear to be based on very shaky premises.
We’ve already broken down the mechanics of the Scottish electoral system at very considerable length, so readers will be relieved that we’re not going to get into that again. Instead, we thought we’d take a very specific region-by-region look at the scale of the task facing the fringe parties.
For ages now it’s been nagging at us that there wasn’t a quick and easy reference point for all the opinion polls we’ve commissioned, listing all the subjects covered by each poll and linking to both our own analyses of the figures and the raw data tables for people who wanted to go delving in amongst the stats themselves.
So now there is – it’s here. (And in future you can easily locate it under “Polls” in the menu bar running across the top of the front page.) We’re off for a bit of a lie down.
We thought we might leave this here so that Scottish journalists could print it out and stick it on their monitors as a memory aid. It’s something they keep unaccountably forgetting for some reason.
You never know, it might just cheer them up a bit.
Joan McAlpine, SNP MSP for the South of Scotland, extensively documented at the weekend the obstructiveness of Labour councillors in Dumfries and Galloway, who in an attempt to score some SNP BAD points were refusing to inform their constituents about the Scottish Government’s £1500-per-household flood relief grants to help people cope after recent storms.
The councillors eventually backed down and informed hard-pressed householders and businesses of the help available, but today the issue was debated on the floor of the Holyrood chamber, and when Labour once again tried to make the issue party political, the Deputy First Minister ran out of patience.
We had a lot of requests for the footage, so there it is.
Despite what you may have read in the newspapers at the weekend (and then in the Daily Record a day later), Scotland was today rocked by the news that the SNP’s manifesto for this May’s general election in fact DOES contain a commitment to a second independence referendum within the term of the coming Scottish Parliament.
Who says so? Why, it’s Oliver Mundell, son of the only Conservative MP in Scotland and the Scottish Tory candidate for the Holyrood seat of Dumfriesshire, in a leaflet hitting the doorsteps of constituents in the Borders today.
Spartan 117 on The Love Of Big Brother: ““There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—…” Oct 3, 18:22
Northcode on The Love Of Big Brother: “I think it’s worth setting out what the Scottish Government’s proposed supermarket rules actually aim to achieve. Supermarkets have strong…” Oct 3, 18:21
Spartan 117 on The Love Of Big Brother: “More proof we are ruled by Authoritarian Communists, as if any further was needed.” Oct 3, 18:18
Captain Caveman on The Love Of Big Brother: “*righting any wrongs, even. (Duh)” Oct 3, 18:04
Captain Caveman on The Love Of Big Brother: “@GM I don’t agree that this constitutes “foreign ideology” – the likes of the SNP have wholeheartedly made it their…” Oct 3, 17:54
gm on The Love Of Big Brother: “Holyrood is a colonial administrative device. I agree with that. it is hardly surprising that they steal their wages and…” Oct 3, 17:29
Northcode on In The Eyes Of The Law: “In case it wasn’t clear in my last post, a judicial review can only look at whether the decision-making process…” Oct 3, 17:15
Captain Caveman on The Love Of Big Brother: “There really is no end to your grievance chimpery, is there? I mean, it couldn’t possibly be that the SNP…” Oct 3, 17:06
Alf Baird on The Love Of Big Brother: ““Holyrood, is not a place where policy is developed, debated and legislated on in response to public demand for reasons…” Oct 3, 16:35
Jonathan Offal on The Love Of Big Brother: “It’s worth noting that the “Alcohol tax” isn’t a tax. None of the money goes to the public, to alcohol…” Oct 3, 15:48
GM on The Love Of Big Brother: “There will be an element of that nae doot For example, there is plenty evidence that some in Holyrood and…” Oct 3, 15:44
Bill Cowan on The Love Of Big Brother: “The thing is, with the minimum price on alcohol and the massive discrepancies in price between England and Scotland, it…” Oct 3, 15:39
dearieme on The Love Of Big Brother: ““Utterly fascist in nature”: I don’t think so – I don’t remember allegations that Benito was a nutritionist nut. But…” Oct 3, 15:31
Patsy Millar on The Love Of Big Brother: “I think our government is now treating ‘1984’ as an instructional document!” Oct 3, 14:51
willie on The Love Of Big Brother: “Nutzlose Esser and Lebensunwertes Leben. The next policies for this utterly fascist government. Tried before, will be tried again!” Oct 3, 14:39
willie on The Love Of Big Brother: “Utterly fascist in nature and it begs the absolute question as to what right, and by what authority these scum…” Oct 3, 14:35
Alf Baird on The Love Of Big Brother: “You can buy 3 ferries for the price of 1, but such practices are banned in SNP la la land:…” Oct 3, 14:20
Captain Caveman on The Love Of Big Brother: “I don’t really buy that line of argument. Matters of personal efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and usefulness all seem like very…” Oct 3, 14:19
100%Yes on The Love Of Big Brother: “The SNP has no ideas and because of this we are suffering.” Oct 3, 14:17
Captain Caveman on The Love Of Big Brother: “The Left. Never happier than when condemning, banning, outing, othering, curtailing, censoring, deplatforming, criticising, silencing. People would do well to…” Oct 3, 14:14
gm on The Love Of Big Brother: “They do things like this, in part, because they need to fill their time doing something. Holyrood, is not a…” Oct 3, 14:09
Chris on The Love Of Big Brother: “The Nazis did this sort of thing in 1930’s Germany, and look how that ended up. Beware, the SNP is…” Oct 3, 13:42
Willie on In The Eyes Of The Law: “That Northcode is why we want a Judicial Review. It is as you say a precise legal tool. It will…” Oct 3, 12:56
Alf Baird on In The Eyes Of The Law: ““It is an outrage that £700k can be solicited” Small beer when we consider that ScotGov civil servants and its…” Oct 3, 12:54
Andrew Morton on The Final Betrayal: “As porridge is one of the most disgusting foods on earth it’s no hardship to give it up. It’s akin…” Oct 3, 11:43
Northcode on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Judicial review is often misunderstood and I think it’s important that folk understand what it can actually do so they…” Oct 3, 10:27
sam on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Bullshit from you. As usual you never check anything, you just say whatever shit comes into the brain cell. This…” Oct 3, 09:47
Hatey McHateface on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Sure, Alf. It’s not enough just to be independent. Year Zero has to be enacted too. Mass re-education for those…” Oct 3, 08:41
Colin Alexander on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Roddy Dunlop KC is very highly respected for his legal acumen, intellect and professional integrity. So, if Roddy Dunlop KC…” Oct 3, 08:29
James on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Tried to depose German Geordie and replace him with the rightful heir to the throne. There, fixed that for ye.…” Oct 3, 00:02
