We’ve already noted that today is a confusing news day. But when we were listening to the radio this morning we thought we maybe hadn’t woken up properly.
The segment concerned a report by the Tory-leaning think tank Reform Scotland, and saw both the organisation and Labour MSP Hugh Henry trying doggedly to find a bad spin on the news in the fact that crime in Scotland is at a 40-year low. So desperate were they to do so that they ended up denying the existence of arithmetic.
So first of all there’s this (click pic for full story):
…in which the figures appear to show that Iceland’s policy of imposing justice and imprisoning the greedy bankers who caused the world financial crash – rather than just shovelling money at them and letting them carry on robbing everyone – actually saw its economy recover at least as well as anywhere else’s.
Thank you for your e-mail to Kezia with regards to her exchange with the First Minister in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 23rd April 2015.
Kezia can confirm that the person mentioned in the exchange has had their membership of the Labour Party put under administrative suspension and an investigation is currently being conducted by the General Secretary of the Scottish Labour Party.
If you have specific questions on the investigation you will need to direct them to the Scottish Labour Party, not Kezia’s Parliamentary office.
If there is anything other issues Kezia can help with as your MSP, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
We’ve already brought you the First Minister’s appearance on last night’s The Daily Show in the US, but in addition to the seven minutes that were shown on TV there were a further seven minutes of interview which didn’t go out on air, but were shown on the Comedy Central website, region-blocked so only US residents could see them.
When the FM goes abroad to represent Scotland in the outside world, though, we think it’s only fair that Scots get to see what she’s saying and doing on their behalf, so we didn’t let such trifling obstacles get in our way.
The Daily Record’s conscience is evidently still bothering it.
Having sold Scotland a pup back in September, the paper has spent much of the time since then frantically trying to present itself as the doughty and fearless champion of home rule. But it’s hard to see what it’s getting itself so worked up about.
The Daily Mail, having unaccountably failed to notice the slew of Unionists who tried to blame the SNP for Charles Kennedy’s death before the body was cold on Tuesday, suddenly remembered to look at its Twitter timeline again today.
There’s an unmissable piece in today’s Guardian about the last days of the general election campaign, as seen from inside the headquarters of the Labour Party.
The reason it’s fascinating isn’t because (as it claims) it provides an insight into why Labour lost the election, but because it reveals how the party’s most senior staff, by pathologically avoiding any non-stage-managed contact with actual voters, lost all grip of reality and sleepwalked into their most crushing defeat in decades.
I had no time for the way that Charles Kennedy conducted himself in the referendum campaign and it would be hypocritical to pretend that I did.
But before that he was one of the main reasons I voted Lib Dem for over 20 years – a compassionate, principled man who took some difficult stands and left his party in a far healthier place, both politically and morally, than it occupies now.
Northcode on A matter of class: “Correction: The Ethnic Egyptians are known as Misriyyun not whatever nonsense Wordpress created when it processed the text of my…” Dec 21, 16:16
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@factchecker 2.3ppm In fact, his concept of each country being run by a separate ethnic group seems distinctly wrong. Is…” Dec 21, 16:09
Northcode on A matter of class: ““The eminent professor…” As usual the point being made immediately, and irredeemably, soars swiftly over the minds of colonists. There…” Dec 21, 16:00
Mark Beggan on A matter of class: “And there was me drinking Guinness with the Irish. It all went well until I happened to mention I was…” Dec 21, 15:51
Mark Beggan on A matter of class: “You need to get over that or you will not go forward.” Dec 21, 15:49
Mark Beggan on A matter of class: “You will be arrested for that.” Dec 21, 15:41
factchecker on A matter of class: “The eminent professor says “You know, like ethnic Norwegians run Norway. Or ethnic Finns run Finland. Or ethnic Indians run…” Dec 21, 14:39
Alf Baird on A matter of class: “Hatey, I assume you have good reason for suggesting that ethnic Scots should not run their own country? You know,…” Dec 21, 14:05
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “Westminster parliament of England and Ireland simply pretended through deceit and lies it was the same legal construction and legal…” Dec 21, 14:03
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “Some information omitted perhaps on purpose is that when you dissolve the GB parliament treaty 1800 you dissolve the monarch…” Dec 21, 13:41
Captain Caveman on A matter of class: “Oh good grief, here I am sat with a “negroni hangover” following a rather spectacular dinner with friends (Mrs C…” Dec 21, 13:40
Northcode on A matter of class: “DANCE, SLAVE, DANCE! Yet another imprinted sex-bonded colonist to add to my entourage of sex-bonded colonists.” Dec 21, 13:36
Northcode on A matter of class: ““… does not an imprinted sex-bonded slave make.” This is an example of another flower of rhetoric called Hyperbaton. Made…” Dec 21, 13:31
Alf Baird on A matter of class: ““Why, oh, why… do the colonists on here come across as being a tad thuggish?” Maybe because ‘colonialism is force’…” Dec 21, 13:26
Northcode on A matter of class: “I mispeeled incomprehemsibeness (I’m big enough to own my literary failures)… it should, of course, read as incomprehensibleness (which is…” Dec 21, 13:20
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “Perhaps Scots do not wish to replace pretend union for the civic nations kind of union,” Dec 21, 13:08
Northcode on A matter of class: “A colonist speaks… and, as usual, it speaks incomprehemsibeness… and Inglis its first lingo tae. I shall deal with its…” Dec 21, 13:06
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “The responses BTL from the usual suspects tend to give the lie to your assertion though Northy. We all know…” Dec 21, 13:01
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “For a English Irish parliament and the Queen of England and Ireland cannot fit that Humpty dumpty parliament again,” Dec 21, 12:59
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “History is replete with the ghosts of vanished States. So it is, No more Succession to the Hanoverian dynasty since…” Dec 21, 12:54
GM on A matter of class: “Interesting juxtaposition Ben Hope. Dinnae gie up hope o’ a court case or twa in the new year. I haven’t.…” Dec 21, 12:45
Captain Caveman on A matter of class: “Hey Fatso, are you still looking down on the hardworking poor, e.g. McDonalds workers getting up at 6am to work…” Dec 21, 12:38
James on A matter of class: “Northy; The Site Prick proved your point – within 25 meenits! Watch oot, the resident Yoons have got the hots…” Dec 21, 12:25
Northcode on A matter of class: “Why, oh, why (anyone know what this sweetly scented thing is?) do the colonists on here come across as being…” Dec 21, 12:17
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “Kudos to Northcode for introducing the esoteric concept of egrogores to BTL discourse, if for little else in his nativistic…” Dec 21, 12:12
Northcode on A matter of class: “DANCE, SLAVE, DANCE!” Dec 21, 12:00
Hatey McHateface on A matter of class: “Moving whit, Northy? Yer bowels? A poignant and moving text written in (checks notes) the lying language of the coloniser?…” Dec 21, 11:57
Northcode on A matter of class: “How does one deploy a Diacope in a sentence? A Diacope is a flower… a flower of rhetoric. Some folk…” Dec 21, 11:56
Northcode on A matter of class: “Thanks, Alf. A moving quote from Jones. Filled with a poignancy only the colonized could appreciate – or even understand,…” Dec 21, 11:27
Northcode on A matter of class: “Thanks, diabloandco. Imprinted sex-bonded slaves are a guid laugh (I think James acquired some to play with, too). I wrote…” Dec 21, 11:22
