Kezia Dugdale spoke for almost exactly 45 minutes to the Scottish Labour conference in Perth today. But we know you’re busy people who don’t want to sit through all of that, and that you trust us to endure it on your behalf so that we can sift through it and present you with only the important bits.
We’re big fans of socialism ourselves, so when a number of delegates at the Scottish Labour conference today, including UK leader Jeremy Corbyn, revived an old Keir Hardie line we were quite excited.
Asking the question is the easy bit: “If the all-new, super-autonomous Scottish Labour decides to oppose the renewal of Trident, and UK Labour continues to support it, which way do Scottish Labour MPs at Westminster vote on it?”
The answer, unsurprisingly, was a lot more difficult to ascertain.
There’s an extraordinary article in the Daily Record today. Here’s a bit of it:
Alert readers might feel that a few lines have gone missing somewhere between paragraphs four and five. And the fact that they have has nothing to do with dead football clubs, and everything to do with the dying Scottish media.
As we observed last night, the BBC’s Andrew Neil has reacted with rather poor grace to his chiding at the hands of respected statisticians Jim and Margaret Cuthbert. Neil embarked on a Twitter blocking spree and tried to rewrite history, claiming that he’d “simply offered” the blunt claim that there had been no cuts to the Scottish budget in the last five years “as one measure” of the money available to Holyrood.
The problem for Neil is that we recorded video of his Sunday interview with the SNP’s Angus Robertson, and anyone can see for themselves that Neil made an unequivocal assertion with no suggestion whatsoever that there were any alternative measures.
“In real terms there’s been – no – cut”, said Neil, spitting out the last three words with dramatic pauses between them for emphasis, in a statement whose stark absence of ambiguity unfortunately left him no wiggle room when the Cuthberts politely but firmly pointed out that it was “ridiculous” to argue that there hadn’t been any cuts, and that the budget “clearly has gone down”.
But Neil’s embarrassment is illustrative of a much wider delusion.
We’ve had no answer from the BBC’s Andrew Neil to the question we asked him at the weekend. There has, however, been an interesting development in the debate over whether there have been severe real-terms cuts to the Scottish Government’s budget since the Conservatives came to power in 2010.
The extremely highly-respected economic analysts Jim and Margaret Cuthbert (the former of whom was Chief Statistician for the Scotland Office) have today written an article for Bella Caledonia seeking to establish the truth of the argument between Mr Neil and ourselves. Their conclusions are expert, detailed and very clear.
We were excited to find out what they were, because we’re sure this time they’ve definitely happened, not like all the times when they said they had but were joking.
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Insider on The quality of mercy: ““Iain More says: 7 April, 2026 at 10:32 pm So oil has hit $150 a barrel.” Nope ! You’re talking…” Apr 8, 00:06
Young Lochinvar on The quality of mercy: “Aidan You are being something of a contrarian here. As I told you recently it’s fairly easy to find out…” Apr 7, 22:40
James on The quality of mercy: “Here’s the misfit and the pub bore back on shift.*yawn* Saw your drivel and thought of this, dunno why… Quote;…” Apr 7, 22:26
Geri on The quality of mercy: “Same could be said of any political party. At least they’re registered in Scotland eh? Westminster politicians are always with…” Apr 7, 22:22
Young Lochinvar on The quality of mercy: “Geri I suspect Baby Trump was handed Uncle Sam’s “Book Of Grudges” by “them and those” knowing he was flaky…” Apr 7, 22:18
Geri on The quality of mercy: “They’ve always committed war crimes. It’s in their DNA. They just didn’t gob off about it like the fake Don…” Apr 7, 21:28
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Northcode on The quality of mercy: “A’ve aye felt ther is sum secret magic roond and aboot Scotland and the Scots. And sae it wid seem…” Apr 7, 19:37
Aidan on The quality of mercy: “Oh aye CC, although not parted fast enough apparently as they’re £3k short! Their own website doesn’t even contain a…” Apr 7, 18:39
Captain Caveman on The quality of mercy: “Just one long grift. Rinse and repeat. “A fool and his money” etc.” Apr 7, 17:28
Aidan on The quality of mercy: “These supposedly dedicated independence fighters with the grit and determination to reclaim the nation can’t somehow pull together £1600 each…” Apr 7, 16:41
Young Lochinvar on The quality of mercy: “Beggars Mobilise your air cadets unit then did they? Well I suppose we should be grateful that at least back…” Apr 7, 15:14
sarah on The quality of mercy: “CASH NEEDED. To get new candidates/parties known to the voters, there must at least be a leaflet to every address…” Apr 7, 15:11
Young Lochinvar on The quality of mercy: “DB Yup. Uncle Sam was late for the last two world wars and is just determined to be there in…” Apr 7, 14:50
TURABDIN on The quality of mercy: “THE QUALITY OF MERDE Scots have the right to decide their own future….waffle, waffle, another ref, waffle, waffle https://www.snp.org/first-minister-john-swinney-addresses-the-nation-about-scotlands-right-to-decide-full-speech/ England…” Apr 7, 13:23
James on The quality of mercy: “That right, aye? Back to barracks?” Apr 7, 12:35
lothianlad on The quality of mercy: “All because the SNP has sold out on independence and become the administrators of the british state. All, or nearly…” Apr 7, 12:19
Alf Baird on The quality of mercy: ““they were really really strapped for cash and so had the bright idea to “make the colonies pay”” Yes, colonialism…” Apr 7, 12:15
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Aidan on The quality of mercy: “The U.K. does not offer “unions” with any other country though does it. The point is that Scotland is much…” Apr 7, 11:43
Iain More on The quality of mercy: “I recall a treacherous lying Yoon Chemistry teacher at school in the early 1970’s telling us that it was the…” Apr 7, 11:30
Confused on The quality of mercy: “let’s get into money, though, real money and deep reasons … that england was really strapped for cash was the…” Apr 7, 11:16
Confused on The quality of mercy: “but, but … https://archive.ph/t9RAY – I thought it was an ENGINE OF WEALTH CREATION the cognitive dissonance is strong in…” Apr 7, 11:15
Geri on The quality of mercy: “I’m amazed that little Engurlund doesn’t have every country in the entire world signing up to one of these fabulous…” Apr 7, 10:14
diabloandco on The quality of mercy: “Is anyone a tad worried by the actions of our great bestie to the west? Or indeed the fact we…” Apr 7, 08:04
