As readers may have noticed, it’s been an extremely slow news week this week. The papers, having strung out the Michelle Thomson “crisis” beyond all endurance, have been reduced (in the case of today’s Daily Mail) to printing shock-horror pictures of her still sitting beside SNP MPs in the Commons, so little else is there to report.
(As far as we’re aware the Commons doesn’t have an official naughty step, so even if Thomson HAD been found guilty of doing anything wrong she’d have had to sit on the opposition benches just the same.)
But it seems the dastardly Nats have been getting up to something even worse than associating with a (currently) former colleague.
After we highlighted the ridiculous inconsistencies in press reports last week regarding Edinburgh MP Michelle Thomson’s business dealings with a couple in Cumbernauld, we’ve been in a lengthy dialogue with Sunday Mail editor Jim Wilson over the plainly utterly wrong claim in the latter paper that:
After we provided the Mail with documentary evidence of the sale price, we naively expected a tiny mealy-mouthed correction buried in a corner of this week’s edition. But what we got was something very substantially worse even than that.
The media seems to have more or less spent its load about Michelle Thomson for now. Having spent most of last week clutching at ever-more-tenuous straws to keep the story alive, it finally petered out over the weekend with a particularly desperate stab at reporting the SNP to the Electoral Commission over claims it worked too closely with Business For Scotland during the referendum campaign.
Triggered by a demented Nat-hating pet-shop manager who may be familiar to social media users for his overpowering obsession with both BFS and this site, it’s based on recent allegations from the Sunday Herald that SNP chief executive (and Nicola Sturgeon’s husband) Peter Murrell had expressed some opinions to BFS over their management, which have now been frantically spun up into a claim that the SNP and BFS were “co-operating” in the campaign.
This could in theory be the Electoral Commission’s business because there were rules governing spending limits which applied if two or more registered participants worked together. Scottish Labour have described the allegations as “hugely serious”, which cynical readers may feel is as good an indicator as any that they’re total horse parts.
It’s a pretty desperate day for news in the Sunday papers. The Sunday Herald has a rather overplayed piece on the already-tepid T In The Park “scandal” for its front page, while Scotland on Sunday falls back on its standard last-resort panic move of getting Gordon Wilson – who last led the SNP more than TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO – to blather on about something or other.
In the Observer, Kevin McKenna (who seems to be experiencing voter’s remorse over switching to the Nats in May after a lifetime backing Labour) appears to have written the exact same column as last week – a vague and woolly “SNP bad, Labour fightback starts here” spacefiller – and the Mail On Sunday digs up the ever-reliable boss of the CBI to warn that the sky will fall in if the SNP does anything ever.
Over on the Sunday Times they’re really scraping the barrel in a desperate attempt to somehow flog yet another week out of the Michelle Thomson story, prominently (and entirely gratuitously) mentioning the MP in a piece about an allegedly-dodgy house sale which she has not even the slightest sliver of any sort of connection to.
But it was something else in the same paper that caught our eye.
Much has been made this week of the Scottish Government’s decision to award a water services contract for council buildings, schools, prisons and some other public facilities to an English company (Anglian Water) over the bid by Business Stream, a wholly-owned subsidiary of publicly-owned Scottish Water.
Opponents of the SNP have claimed that the awarding of this contract means that the Scottish Government has somehow privatised the provision of water in Scotland.
Readers may not be completely astonished to learn it’s not true.
Kezia Dugdale made a spectacle of herself again at First Minister’s Questions earlier today. Using time intended for holding the Scottish Government to account over its devolved responsibilities, Dugdale once more decided instead to ignore her duty to the people of Scotland and attack the FM over a matter which is entirely outwith the Scottish Government’s control, namely the past actions of a Westminster MP.
Pausing only to demand that Holyrood interfere in the running of the independent Law Society, Dugdale then abandoned her casual endangerment of a live police inquiry by focusing instead on the morality of the aforementioned MP’s business practices:
But Ms Dugdale’s own ethics left a few things to be desired.
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.
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robertkknight on The Party Of The Dead: “What does DEI mean again? Oh yes, “Didn’t Earn It”. The road to WOKE is paved with the worst kind…” Aug 7, 11:00
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““Why the hell Glasgow made him a professor” Same reason all 19 higher education institutions in Scotland mostly appoint people…” Aug 7, 11:00
BLMac on The Party Of The Dead: “Hopefully the staff cuts have been on the demented pronoun police types, but that’s unlikely. Probably managed to weed out…” Aug 7, 10:56
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““I’d ask you for a weather forecast” As that seems difficult for you to understand, I’ll make it easier for…” Aug 7, 10:46
Hatey McHateface on Anatomy Of A Grift: “@ Southernbystander says: 6 August, 2026 at 11:17 am The very concept of taboos becomes irrelevant in a multi-cultural context.…” Aug 7, 10:32
100%Yes on The Party Of The Dead: “That’s why getting rid of the SNP is important and will move things along. After the 2014 referendum the SNP…” Aug 7, 10:26
Ian Smith on The Party Of The Dead: “It was Glasgow that first made Arday a full time prof. That was the time to put his academic record…” Aug 7, 10:21
James Che on The Party Of The Dead: “100% Yes, We don,t require a new movement, we require our own parliament with our own people running it. Rather…” Aug 7, 09:52
James Che on The Party Of The Dead: “The insanity of having two English governing bodies means both sides of the border craziness. After all England suggested devolution…” Aug 7, 09:40
100%Yes on The Party Of The Dead: “The fall of the SNP poses a bigger problem not for Independence that’ll happen without the SNP, its The National,…” Aug 7, 09:18
James Che on The Party Of The Dead: “Alex spoke about there being no actual Union between Scotland and England but took the wrong road in placing party…” Aug 7, 09:10
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Mail absolutely ripping into the scarce believable story that is Jason Arday: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16035019/Labour-scandal-woke-dogma.html I really want to believe that this…” Aug 7, 08:43
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Cheers, Alf, that’s a great help. I’d ask you for a weather forecast, but I’m confident you’re gonna say that…” Aug 7, 08:05
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““What happens next?” Postcolonial theory is clear, Hatey, there are only two possible outcomes with colonialism (Memmi): 1. colonialism is…” Aug 7, 07:56
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Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Sorry Meant to add.. The “next” party.. What’s to stop the grifters and SPADS from just jumping ship to the…” Aug 6, 22:37
Hatey McHateface on Anatomy Of A Grift: “I think that anybody predicting anything for 5 years in the future really isn’t paying attention to the news. But…” Aug 6, 22:25
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “100 percenter That raises the fundamental problem. If an alternative Indy party is not nurtured then the death of the…” Aug 6, 22:17
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Powerful post indeed Red. Needed said.” Aug 6, 22:00
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: ““all part of the decolonization process (Fanon)”, eh, Alf? What does Fanon say about the hijab and tea towel wearers?…” Aug 6, 21:44
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Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: ““Nicola could not have done this alone” The killer punch line in a knock out post.” Aug 6, 21:36
Andrew Kidd on The Party Of The Dead: “Large amount of assets disposed of. Looks like the auditors have done a thorough inventory of what was actually owned…” Aug 6, 21:27
James Barr Gardner on The Party Of The Dead: “If the SNP gang bankrupt an’ restart again wull it be ca’d the Newco SNP, jist asking fer a freind……..” Aug 6, 21:14
Bilbo on The Party Of The Dead: “Great post Red. I only got involved in independence around late 2000’s but I always remembered that nationalism was a…” Aug 6, 21:12
James Barr Gardner on The Party Of The Dead: “Fraser MacDonald left SNP in February 2026. He took over from Murray Foote who quit after 14 months in the…” Aug 6, 21:07
100%Yes on The Party Of The Dead: “The SNP is refusing to pay it back, if I’m correct.” Aug 6, 20:24
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: “Helpful analysis, Red, and where the impending ‘disintegration’ of a national party that has been ‘co-opted by colonialism’ and which…” Aug 6, 20:16
