As life’s cruel weight bears increasingly down on your weary and creaking shoulders, readers – and it will, if it hasn’t already – you may find that you become decreasingly tolerant of those who waste your remaining time on Earth.
Earlier today we made an observation about the overblown way the media has been covering the Scottish Government’s underspend of 1.3% of its budget (a figure about which the David Hume Institute today cooed approvingly “Even Mr Micawber could not budget more accurately”).
To nobody’s great amazement, Scottish Labour rentahonk Jackie Baillie – fresh from making a complete idiot of herself over the Michelle Thomson case – couldn’t resist jumping on the bandwagon.
Quite aside from the fact that it means no such thing – there’s no less money, it’s just that some of it will now be carried over and spent this year instead – we suppose the tweet does at least mean that Scottish Labour’s policy position is clear: the Scottish Government should always spend every penny of its budget. Right?
The media and Unionist politicians (we really need to come up with a word to describe that single entity), when not concocting hysterical frothing diatribes against Michelle Thomson or complaining about the Scottish Government giving money to T In The Park – a position we must confess we find ourselves in some sympathy with – have recently been loudly protesting about last year’s “underspend” in the Holyrood budget.
There’s an extremely good article here by Dr Craig Dalzell of the Scottish Greens dealing with the broader issue of why such complaints are idiotic, so rather than go over the ground again we thought we’d look at another angle.
We apologise for another post on the subject of The Wright House, everyone, but we do love getting our teeth into a puzzle, especially when it comes with a side order of lots of juicy evidence of the Scottish media telling people outright lies.
This should be the last one for the forseeable future, and we’ve actually got some solid info to impart this time rather than just a confused expression, so buckle up.
Even the alertest readers will probably already be confused by the baffling tale of Douglas and Jacqueline Wright, who sold their home to Edinburgh West MP Michelle Thomson. We certainly were last night, but on delving a little more into the media coverage of their story, things got a whole lot worse.
Older readers may remember an ITV show called The Krypton Factor, which had an “observation round” section in which contestants were shown a short video clip and then asked a series of questions about it.
The newspaper is a fantastic concept. A cheap, accessible product, it’s a brilliant way of keeping yourself broadly abreast of current affairs. You turn a page and are presented with a diverse selection of interesting stories, often on subjects you’d never have thought to go and seek out in the self-refining echo chamber of the internet.
(Theoretically links on websites serve the same purpose, but dodging “sponsored” advertorial, gutter-level clickbait, pop-ups, autoplay video and pages that judder and leap around so much while loading all this rubbish that you’re about 50/50 to have an epileptic fit before you can read the story, has made clicking on one into a game of Russian Roulette fewer and fewer people are willing to take a chance on.)
This site has never believed that the ongoing steep decline in newspaper sales is a fundamental problem with the format. Rather, the truth is that people stop buying papers because they’re full of garbage.
Most of Scotland’s news outlets, including the Times, Herald, Daily Record, Daily Mail, Express and the BBC, run today with the story that one in three Police Scotland officers intend to leave the force in the next three years, according to a recent survey for the Scottish Police Authority.
(The print edition of the Scotsman makes it the front-page splash, although the article has mysteriously vanished from its website.)
But a couple of pieces of important information are inexplicably missing.
You might have thought that the publication of the “Project Fear” book last month was an embarrassment for the motley collection of highly-paid but hapless Labour and Tory apparatchiks who ran “Better Together”, but it turns out there was worse to come.
Politics Home today reports what sounds like some alarming news:
Connie Davidson on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Just where do you come in Hatey? And where do you get off? Is there some criminality involved here, of…” Jul 1, 18:24
Connie Davidson on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “No. Not just you. This is the state we are in. The “United Kingdom” and “the Crown” are imposed on…” Jul 1, 18:21
Jay on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Campbell clansman, please name the party or parties to whom you refer by your first word “they” in your comment.…” Jul 1, 18:13
100%Yes on ACC Houston, We Have A Problem: “When I watched the video John Logue I got the impression he was thinking a lot on how to answer…” Jul 1, 17:47
Jack Thomson on ACC Houston, We Have A Problem: “There are also huge questions re potential unrecorded income. This doesn’t seem to have been addressed. The Manchester auditors qualified…” Jul 1, 16:46
Alf Baird on The Fast Track: “We should not confuse nationalism with fascist-imperialism. The imperial state tendency has been to portray Nazism as ‘nationalism’, which it…” Jul 1, 16:17
Cynicus on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “AlMac says: 1 July, 2026 at 12:41 pm “……the 75-minute video is starting to look attractive when faced with 8000…” Jul 1, 15:59
Insider on The Fast Track: “Alf, Since you’ve made a complete fool of yourself trying to quote Orwell….how about trying Einstein next ? “Nationalism is…” Jul 1, 15:52
robertkknight on ACC Houston, We Have A Problem: ““ACC Houston, We Have Eh Problem” surely? Waiting staff in restaurants must love him…” Jul 1, 15:40
Cynicus on ACC Houston, We Have A Problem: “Incidentally, Peter Bell lavishly praises the Rev. in his piece, “ Solid Fog”, a few days ago. He is excoriated…” Jul 1, 15:13
sarah on ACC Houston, We Have A Problem: “I meant to say that the title gave me a chuckle. I daresay they are enjoying it at Police Scotland…” Jul 1, 15:10
lothianlad on ACC Houston, We Have A Problem: “Honestly STU, Your dilligence must be making them really nervous. Well done for your persistance.” Jul 1, 15:00
Captain Caveman on The Fast Track: “@Alf “Orwell was around slightly before postcolonial theory had really developed” Good grief, first you’re name dropping Orwell left, right…” Jul 1, 14:59
Hatey McHateface on The Fast Track: “That narrative would be more compelling if we didn’t have the example of the EU referendum to dispel it. There…” Jul 1, 14:06
Hatey McHateface on The Fast Track: “Chronology tells us that colonialism developed millennia before Fascism. But we don’t let awkward facts get in the way of…” Jul 1, 13:57
Hatey McHateface on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Shakespearean tragedy! WTAF are you on about! It’s a comedy the likes of which not even The Bard could have…” Jul 1, 13:52
Cynicus on ACC Houston, We Have A Problem: “Thanks for doing that, Rev. Like Peter Bell, many of us prepare reading transcripts of testimony to video. The services…” Jul 1, 13:45
Peter McAvoy on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Is it just me or does the term crown agent sound like a medieval tyrants minion or dystopian fiction.” Jul 1, 13:40
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Fast Track: “« The purpose of NEWSPEAK was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits…” Jul 1, 13:34
Hatey McHateface on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “First, a majority of the voters have to care. This is where I think all the barking up the colonialism…” Jul 1, 13:26
Alf Baird on The Fast Track: ““‘Notes on Nationalism’” The colonized native only becomes a nationalist ‘to free his people’ (Fanon). National liberation cannot come about…” Jul 1, 13:08
AlMac on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Yes thank you for that Mr Angry – it was intended as a humorous response to Wing’s Twitter suggestion that…” Jul 1, 13:06
Hatey McHateface on The Fast Track: “Orwell defo an improvement over all those third-world racists, such as Fanon, etc. We could even make a half-decent case…” Jul 1, 13:01
