Last week we listened to a Radio Scotland phone-in debate on Trident, hosted very deftly by John Beattie, who managed to steer callers away from political points and keep the discussion on the merits or otherwise of the weapons system itself.
Sadly that didn’t dissuade the usual coterie of nutters/local councillors phoning in insisting that (a) North Korea would invade/blast Scotland off the face of the Earth the moment we let our guard down, and (b) Helensburgh would immediately revert to the Stone Age at the loss of jobs were the few hundred Trident sailors who spend about a week every year in the town to be reassigned to other posts in the navy.
We didn’t have time to ring in ourselves, but we did manage to think of a much better idea that solved both of those problems without lumbering Scotland with a gigantic nuclear white elephant, and one that would also free up an awful lot of valuable police time and resources that are currently spent arresting a bunch of hippies.
We try to avoid openly editorialising on this site, readers. While unashamedly partisan in our leanings, as a rule we prefer to present the facts and let people come to their own conclusions from the evidence.
But we’re not sure we’ve ever seen anything more craven and pathetic than this.
We’ve been quiet today because we’ve been wading through the 80-odd painfully-dry pages of the Labour 2015 election manifesto, folks. It’s a deeply tedious read – screeds and screeds of waffly text about how nice things are nice and good things are good but bad things are bad. A couple of things did jump out, though. Here’s one.
Alert readers will of course recall that the party’s solemn pledge in Scotland is to provide 1000 more nurses (hastily revised from the comical “1000 more than whatever the SNP say”) from the proceeds of the Mansion Tax, even though NHS Scotland is devolved and no Westminster government can in fact hire a single Scottish nurse.
But hang on. Something’s not right about those numbers.
A super-alert reader pointed out something about today’s Sunday Politics that we hadn’t noticed. Before the galaxy-class trainwreck that was the Scottish leaders’ debate, the networked section of the show had a piece on Scottish polling, and our eagle-eyed viewer spotted that the chart of projected seats wasn’t in proportion.
So we measured, and this is what it should have looked like.
With there only having been three hours of the Scottish political party leaders (and Jim Murphy) debating on TV so far this week, and four days to wait for another one, BBC Scotland thought they might need another 40 minutes on this afternoon’s Sunday Politics Scotland to discuss the issues around the forthcoming general election.
It went well, but for busy readers in a hurry we’ve edited the show down to a compact nine-minute cut, which still gets across everything the full version did.
A great example of adult discourse, expertly set. Well done, everyone.
There’s very little actual political news today, so the papers have largely been forced to either basically not have any at all (the Sunday Post and Scottish Sun On Sunday) or make up totally mad stuff for laughs to fill the space.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Scottish Liberal Democrat manifesto 2015:
I voted for this pathetic shower of useless snivellers for 23 years, folks. I’ve learned my lesson. Once again, I can only hang my head and beg forgiveness.
With the “biggest party forms the government” lie now sunk and rusting slowly on the seabed (weighed down even further by polls suggesting that Labour actually will be the largest party even if they lose all of Scotland to the SNP), and four weeks of campaigning left to fill, Scottish Labour have had to grab a hammer, smash the glass on the “EMERGENCY – IN CASE OF DESPERATION” box and clutch desperately at whatever they found inside.
The abject answer is “Project Fear 2 – This Time It’s Full Fiscal Autonomy”.
After this week’s STV and BBC debates, in which the Scottish Labour branch-office manager’s combative performances were favourably received by the Scottish media, Wings exclusively interviews armed-forces enthusiast Jim Murphy for a response to the latest numbers from YouGov, pausing first for the delivery of some refreshments.
Alf Baird on A matter of class: ““Reform Scotland membership now at twenty one thousand and rising.” Surprising its not a lot more considering at least 50,000…” Dec 27, 20:05
Mark Beggan on A matter of class: “Reform Scotland membership now at twenty one thousand and rising. How’s the colonized discussion going?” Dec 27, 19:30
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “….whilst conveniently completely overlooking that what the majority of Scots think is highly influenced by the UK MSM and what…” Dec 27, 19:25
Dan on A matter of class: “@ AiDan says: at 6.25 pm Above the belt? And jist what “rules” are we playing with here. Your rules…” Dec 27, 19:20
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Northcode 6.15 pm An outright lie easily disproved… your rhetoric is truly abysmal. The figures aren’t hard to find…” Dec 27, 19:19
agentx on A matter of class: “How many people on here felt colonised as they ate their Christmas dinner and went for a walk on Boxing…” Dec 27, 19:03
Dan on A matter of class: “Captain Caveman says: at 4:43 pm “Nah. I don’t care what yours or anyone else’s views are…” Yawn, then why…” Dec 27, 18:59
Aidan on A matter of class: ““These arseholes will pick up on and try to make hay out of the slightest thing” Bringing someone’s daughter up…” Dec 27, 18:25
Dan on A matter of class: “And newby AiDan enters the chat… Get your programmers to read a bit further back, and you will see plenty…” Dec 27, 18:23
Northcode on A matter of class: ““Alert readers might be interested to know that the number of Scots claiming French as their mother tongue is the…” Dec 27, 18:15
Dan on A matter of class: “Keep ripping into this shite Northcode. 2 min vid on Bloomberg of Jim Rogers stating how Scotland’s oil props up…” Dec 27, 18:11
Aidan on A matter of class: ““But no CC, FF is bonkers, and just continues on with his relentless efforts (with obvious support from unionists like…” Dec 27, 18:05
Dan on A matter of class: “Aye Alf, it’s so obvious what is going on. These arseholes will pick up on and try to make hay…” Dec 27, 17:53
Northcode on A matter of class: ““Britain doesn’t need to become great again – it already is” What utter nonsense from Piotr Wilczek… whoever he is.…” Dec 27, 17:50
Northcode on A matter of class: ““It always triggers the moonhowlers when I point out that the most influential voice in Scottish political blogging thinks their…” Dec 27, 17:49
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Alf 5.16pm Au contraire (that’s French that is…) Alf, I feel sure enough of my identity not to have…” Dec 27, 17:46
Alf Baird on A matter of class: “As demonstrated in the btl attacks here, the assimilated natives “place themselves in a considerably superior position to the average…” Dec 27, 17:16
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Dan 4.20pm For the benefit of the minimally self aware or those who read with their lips moving like…” Dec 27, 16:47
Captain Caveman on A matter of class: “Nah. I don’t care what yours or anyone else’s views are – some things just aren’t done, and that’s one…” Dec 27, 16:43
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Northcode 4.14pm In the unlikely event of the English deciding they wanted to dissolve the union I doubt they’d…” Dec 27, 16:34
Dan on A matter of class: “Ach, awa an dinae talk pish, ya pair o tag team fannies. My point was that folk, whether related* or…” Dec 27, 16:20
Northcode on A matter of class: ““…ethno-nationalist bigots don’t get to set the referendum franchise and decide on who is and isn’t pure enough to qualify…” Dec 27, 16:14
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “James, rather than clog up BTL discourse here with your cack-tsunami of ill thought out ramblings, wouldn’t you better advised…” Dec 27, 15:24
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@Capt. Caveman 2.49pm Blood and soil bigot types just can’t help themselves bud. He’s not the first and doubtless won’t…” Dec 27, 15:10
Captain Caveman on A matter of class: “@Dan Bringing someone’s kid into it is lower than a snake’s belly. I mean, I know you’re a miserable, bitter…” Dec 27, 14:49
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@Alf 6.45 pm Like gender ideology, so-called ‘civic nationalism’ ideology is also “Delusional nonsense” of the ‘snake oil’ variety, and…” Dec 27, 14:47
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “If you were educated you would know there is no Scottish government or parliament in Scotland, because there would be…” Dec 27, 14:24
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@ Dan 11.13am In the unlikely event you’ve ever been able to convince a woman to let you near enough…” Dec 27, 14:22
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “TURABDIN, Indeed a matter optics, He speaks of England as it it were all of Britain, but that Britain has…” Dec 27, 14:07
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “The thing is Turabdin, it’s not that he’s wrong exactly it’s just that the progress his own country country has…” Dec 27, 13:55
