It’s never usually terribly difficult to get a Scottish Labour MSP to express a view on anything. It’s hard to open a newspaper without being forced to hear Jackie Baillie or James Kelly’s opinion on something or other.
(Admittedly it’s generally the SNP, and the opinion is invariably that they’re bad and whatever they do is wrong – but still, they’re not shy about coming forward with it.)
So when Neil Findlay attacked the SNP for all having the same view on bombing Syria last night (about which he was inexplicably furious, even though that view was exactly the same as his own opinion), we thought it’d be easy enough to find out how many of his MSP colleagues were on the respective sides of the debate.
The meme of the week among the Unionist media and politicians is once again that the SNP is a sinister Borg-like organisation where independent thought is outlawed.
Bewilderingly, this evening Labour MSP Neil Findlay bitterly tweeted a complaint that all of the SNP’s elected members apparently agreed with his own position on bombing Syria, the vile swine that they are. (Presumably he’d prefer if some of them voted with the Tories just for the sake of it.) But he’s not alone.
We’re not aware of a single elected Scottish Labour official previously expressing unequivocal public support for independence. Is this a small, self-interested one-off, or just the first cracking of the dam? We can only wait and see.
We were considering having a day off today, readers. There’s absolutely nothing of any note happening in Scottish politics, and the papers have been reduced to scraping up all manner of barely-reheated leftover dregs to fill their pages.
But then someone drew our attention to something in Scotland On Sunday about the ongoing Women For Independence fiasco, and we were too annoyed to let it lie.
For reasons which defy all known science, John McTernan remains the first number on the BBC’s speed-dial list when they need a commentator to represent Labour views. It’s a remarkable editorial decision, given that McTernan despises the party’s current leadership almost beyond words, and it doesn’t seem too fond of him either.
But on today’s Good Morning Scotland, McTernan really kicked it up a notch.
Yesterday George Osborne treated us to an Autumn Statement in which he performed one of the most remarkable political U-turns in living memory.
The apparent need to cut £12bn from the welfare budget has long been sign-posted by the Tories as a requirement to getting us “back in the black” and on the road to a “higher wage, lower welfare, lower tax” society as part of their oft-cited “long-term economic plan”. (Or what academic economists prefer to call a “risky experiment with the economy in order to score political points“.)
Alert readers will recall David Cameron saying before the general election that child tax credits wouldn’t be cut in pursuit of that goal. But after the election, Osborne decided that they would. The Institute for Fiscal Studies determined that these cuts would have the worst effects on some of the poorest families in Britain.
Despite widespread opposition to the cuts, Labour infamously abstained on the critical vote in the Commons. Then, when the welfare bill reached the Lords, Labour once again abstained on a Lib Dem motion that would have completely killed the bill, in favour of a Labour one which phased in the cuts over three years, but meant Osborne would have to find another £4.5bn in his budget.
So we were somewhat surprised to hear Osborne say yesterday that the best thing to do was “not to phase these changes in, but to avoid them altogether”.
At today’s First Minister’s Questions, the Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale oddly chose to spend her entire allotted time not on any current issues affecting Scotland, but on attacking the SNP’s 2013 White Paper on independence, seemingly unaware that the referendum was held 14 months ago and resulted in a win for the No side.
Happily for Scotland, that decision resulted in a huge £200bn oil bonanza.
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Ah huv tae sae Alf, how come ye’ve nivver gien ony o’ yer lectchurs or speeches thit ‘uv been watchin’…” Sep 18, 10:34
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “There are several others regularly contributing BTL who post nothing but hate, single-minded psuedoacademic wibble or just plain unintelligible drunken…” Sep 18, 10:17
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “An insightful, forensic dissection of my post and the article I link to from Dave. Whilst I may not agree…” Sep 18, 10:12
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““when it comes to Scottish Indy, ideological purity is all” There you go again, Hatey, blaming the colonized native for…” Sep 18, 10:04
DaveL on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““Words of wisdom”; you have none. You have hate and death supporting obnoxious rants and that’s all. Who’d be Hatey?” Sep 18, 09:30
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “An interesting article about the people who are going to have many BTL readers unable to afford to keep themselves…” Sep 18, 08:48
TimePilot on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Exactly that. They got a 50% reduction in the fine because its a public body/tax payers money and the impact…” Sep 18, 08:35
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Guardian Opinion piece gung ho for Indy: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/18/westminster-celtic-alliance-scotland-wales-ireland-uk If Jenkins has even heard of Fanon, Memmi, etc, he sees no…” Sep 18, 08:15
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Sure, twathater, state ownership would guarantee the ports were run competently, transparently, and with the best interests of Scotland at…” Sep 18, 07:56
twathater on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “However, Forth Ports said its focus had shifted to “delivering alternative activity at the port” after considering “a number of…” Sep 18, 03:11
twathater on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “When you go on to the ICO’s website about the investigation into Police Scotland they state that ” Where we…” Sep 18, 02:59
Mark Beggan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Vasily Grossman was reporting on the invasion of the Motherland in 1942 and found himself on the run from the…” Sep 17, 22:41
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “It’s the 87th anniversary of the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland today. Polish PM Donald Tusk has made a lengthy…” Sep 17, 21:08
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “There’s a famine in Yemen right now, sam, if you woke up this morning and discovered you’d been struck by…” Sep 17, 20:50
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@ Dan says:17 September, 2026 at 6:34 pm “No sane, rational, or productive human being with any self-awarenbess” So true,…” Sep 17, 20:42
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““stop humping my leg, it was funny for a while” It’s still excruciatingly funny. As in like those Victorians who…” Sep 17, 20:28
Aidan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@Dan – I appreciate you want to rant and rave here, but let’s deal with some home truths: – the…” Sep 17, 20:08
sam on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Scotland, too during the famine caused by potato blight and gubmint policy. Charles Trevelyan, senior Treasury civil servant described Scottish…” Sep 17, 19:54
Al-Stuart on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “. The Most Reverend Stuart Campbell, Bishop of St Bartholomew., Patron Saint of Truthfulness, Church of The Clean Bath, County…” Sep 17, 18:55
Captain Caveman on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Yea chaps, ol’ Hatey’s a “leg humper” – as according to some barely coherent nutcase spewing 1.1.1 Trichloroethylene-inspired drivel and…” Sep 17, 18:50
Dan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “TBF Hatey probably can’t hear much due to blasting out da Ed Sheeran tuneage… No sane, rational, or productive human…” Sep 17, 18:34
Confused on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “another thing – you can’t let the anglos control your food supply they have a bit of previous ireland and…” Sep 17, 18:19
Confused on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “leg hump you’ve never refuted a damn thing, never won an argument, you are like the black knight in monty…” Sep 17, 18:02
Confused on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “it is for the houthis. They think strategically. Trump started a real stupid war because the “epstein people” were probably…” Sep 17, 17:58
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““Strange that Scotland as a net exporter doesn’t have decent port infrastructure” Scotland is only a net exporter because of…” Sep 17, 17:17
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Sure, Confused, £2 for a liter of diesel is one of the greatest things ever. I guess the death toll…” Sep 17, 17:06
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Dan – bang on. The Edinburgh Trams (read: Shams) was a tremendous waste of public money that caused untold suffering…” Sep 17, 17:05
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Even easier to refute than usual, and that’s saying something. Belgium 4, USA 1. 6th July 2026. Oh dear, Confused,…” Sep 17, 16:52
Dan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Not much consistency with you is there. So you were happy for shitloads of taxpayers money to be spaffed on…” Sep 17, 16:47
Aidan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “If a private operator wants to run the Rosyth to Europe ferry and they can do so on a commercial…” Sep 17, 15:30
