At today’s First Minister’s Questions, the Scottish Labour deputy leader Kezia Dugdale launched into an ill-advised attack over an SNP candidate who’d made some foolish (but not especially outrageous) comments on Twitter in 2012. Rather than simply issuing the standard generic condemnation of abusive remarks, Nicola Sturgeon did so but also drew Dugdale’s attention to the beam in her own eye.
Labour activist, blogger, lawyer and regular BBC pundit Ian Smart (he hasn’t been seen on STV since accusing them repeatedly, without any evidence, of letting the SNP pre-approve all interview questions some time ago) is well known to readers of this blog. Bizarrely, however, Dugdale feigned ignorance of his activity.
To help her, we’ve compiled some of Mr Smart’s greatest hits.
We’re just putting this shot of today’s brief Edinburgh gathering (from Isabel Hardman of the Spectator) here for the record, so people can compare it with the footage and images that appear on tonight’s news bulletins and tomorrow’s newspapers.
We’re going to have to check what the CBI’s position on electoral reform was before First Past The Post threatened to elect a load of SNP MPs and became a democratic outrage in the process. We’ll get back to you on that one.
Alert readers were startled yesterday when a former UK Prime Minister who WASN’T Gordon Brown suddenly took it upon himself to lumber out of his crypt and unleash an unsolicited intervention in the general election campaign.
As apparently that’s now the requirement for anyone attempting to influence a vote in Britain, we’re sure Sir John – a man best remembered in the world of politics for cheating on his wife with one of his ministers and instituting the Cones Hotline – will remind us which constituency he’s standing for any minute now.
If you thought the right-wing press was having paroxysms at the weekend, readers, you’re going to love what they had lined up for the day of the SNP manifesto launch.
Let’s have a little tour of the London newsrooms, shall we?
The splendid video below is a short clip from one of a Scottish Labour “campaign rally” held on Saturday morning. (And we do mean Saturday morning – the gathering seen in the distance at the very beginning as Murphy walks up through a deserted Buchanan Street appear to be waiting outside the Sainsbury’s Local, which opens at 7am.)
One can only admire Anas Sarwar’s upbeat view of his audience. But from the broader perspective, readers might be forgiven for wondering what on Earth was going on.
Our alert readers will probably be aware of the psychological phenomenon commonly known as the five stages of grief. If not, there’s a rather good piece by Andrew Nicoll in today’s Scottish Sun about it in the context of Scottish Labour.
But while perceptive, Nicoll is a little behind the times, because it appears that the party’s branch office manager Jim Murphy has invented a sixth.
Welcome, viewers, to the new final stage of grief: delusion.
Impressive as it is in a party with Jackie Baillie in it, Kezia Dugdale has carved out quite a reputation in Scottish Labour as a specialist in making categorical statements of facts which turn out not to be true. So we were naturally sceptical when she claimed on today’s Sunday Politics Scotland that Stewart Hosie of the SNP hadn’t said whether a commitment to a second independence referendum would be in tomorrow’s SNP manifesto.
We thought that he had, and so did presenter Gordon Brewer, but Dugdale was most adamant – “I listened VERY carefully, very carefully indeed” – that he’d “dodged and dived” on the matter, and spent more than a minute of her interview saying so.
So we went back and checked, because that’s what we do.
Nae Need! on Clocks And Calendars: “Geri, wtaf? You’ll be delighted to know, that having given up entirely on the realistic prospect of Scotland becoming a…” Apr 1, 19:00
Nae Need! on Clocks And Calendars: “Alf, I agonised over the EU ref. Cause of the fishing industry. Coming from a small fishing town in Scotland,…” Apr 1, 18:54
Nae Need! on Clocks And Calendars: “Fknell, that’s hilarious :-)) I’d go with the FES.” Apr 1, 18:48
Captain Caveman on Clocks And Calendars: “…. So no details on TEH ASSASINS of “independence supporters” then. Imagine my surprise pal.” Apr 1, 18:39
Alf Baird on Clocks And Calendars: ““vision of Scotland as a maritime nation” This should be uppermost in our minds, as maritime trade is fundamental to…” Apr 1, 18:38
Geri on Clocks And Calendars: “You worry about yer own mental wellbeing. What on earth would possess a Yoon to continually visit a Scottish independence…” Apr 1, 18:30
Alf Baird on Clocks And Calendars: “The UN approach is just as much for the benefit of Scots like you, Aidan, to help you and other…” Apr 1, 18:29
Aidan on Clocks And Calendars: “That’s good news Alf – so what are the UN currently doing with this information? When can we expect a…” Apr 1, 18:11
Nae Need! on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Sarah, thank you for replying to me. But you may not feel thankful for my response 😉 I’m gonna have…” Apr 1, 18:05
viscount ennui on Clocks And Calendars: “Much respect Alf Baird in terms of his aspirational vision of Scotland as a maritime nation. Not sure that the…” Apr 1, 18:01
Aidan on Clocks And Calendars: “I’m just feeding back to you the inevitable implication of your own statements, if you can’t stand by them then…” Apr 1, 18:01
Alf Baird on Clocks And Calendars: ““Scotland is an oppressed country with its people subjugated” Yes indeed, but thankfully this information has now been transmitted to…” Apr 1, 17:40
Jamie on Sicknote Slippers: “Aidan – To be clear, the SNP are not only irrelevant to independence, they are corrupted beyond repair due to…” Apr 1, 17:37
Northcode on Clocks And Calendars: ““…Liberate are just another English construct totally captured and serving the interests of the coloniser…” I cant’ decide whether you…” Apr 1, 17:26
Alf Baird on Clocks And Calendars: ““the SNP is undeniably dead” Yes, more or less, as the dominant national party elite co-opted by colonialism suffer from…” Apr 1, 17:24
Alf Baird on Clocks And Calendars: ““the new thinking has yet to be imagined” Not quite, some of us Scots and other oppressed peoples are already…” Apr 1, 17:19
viscount ennui on Clocks And Calendars: “I attempted to join the Flat Earth Society and the SNP today. Much easier getting into the SNP although both…” Apr 1, 17:18
TURABDIN on Clocks And Calendars: “It took the events of Easter 1916 to kickstart Irish politics which had fallen into the same doldrums as in…” Apr 1, 16:40
Aidan on Clocks And Calendars: “So just to be clear – Liberate are just another English construct totally captured and serving the interests of the…” Apr 1, 16:28
TURABDIN on Clocks And Calendars: “an extract from THE ATLANTIC magazine. «Americans were not unerring stewards of world affairs. They could be selfish, self-righteous, paranoid,…” Apr 1, 16:22
Northcode on Clocks And Calendars: “It appears you cannot tell the difference between real choice and the illusion of choice. Your ‘proper English’ processing algorithms…” Apr 1, 16:07
Captain Caveman on Clocks And Calendars: ““You are a walking knob & yer ID will show one big knob face. That’s plenty! The clerk will already…” Apr 1, 15:59
Captain Caveman on Clocks And Calendars: “😀 Being called a “gammon” by Fatso… irony-o-meter peak reading?” Apr 1, 15:53
Aidan on Clocks And Calendars: “@Geri – what a normal thing for an adult to post. You are clearly a well balanced and stable human…” Apr 1, 15:38
James on Clocks And Calendars: “Wima & Adrian. Twa great big gammons. ?” Apr 1, 15:20
Aidan on Clocks And Calendars: “I think a more rationale explanation is that your insistence that Scotland is an oppressed country with its people subjugated…” Apr 1, 15:11
Northcode on Clocks And Calendars: “Your ‘intellect’ is incapable of grasping the nuanced subtleties embedded in anything I write in this place, AI Dan; and…” Apr 1, 14:52
Geri on Clocks And Calendars: “You are a walking knob & yer ID will show one big knob face. That’s plenty! The clerk will already…” Apr 1, 14:51
Geri on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Testing … http://archive.today/3Son4 Btw, Clinton’s have about ten organisations they fund around the world that recruit rent-a-mob activist operations to…” Apr 1, 14:39
Captain Caveman on Clocks And Calendars: “So in summary: “No big knob pictures on the ballot paper” Cool beans, thanks for the info. 🙂” Apr 1, 14:19
