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.
Countless thousands of words – indeed, even an entire book – have been written by commentators and pundits right across the political spectrum about the long demise of the Labour Party in Scotland.
It remains to be seen whether the coming election will deliver the coup de grace that pollsters are predicting. Meanwhile, though, readers searching for an explanation but short on free time could do a lot worse than sit through this interview with the Scottish branch office deputy manager, Kezia Dugdale, from today’s Sunday Politics Scotland.
The Sunday Times front page today reports (although in fact we can’t find the story anywhere on its website or in its iPad app) the 8,745th “intervention” by Gordon Brown in Scottish politics, the thing which is at least notionally still his actual day job.
We’re going to need someone to explain to us why even the punch-drunk inhabitants of Scottish Labour HQ could possibly imagine that to be a good idea.
A variant on the story below appears in most of the right-wing press today.
That’s the Daily Mail version, which is the most detailed. The Express’s reporting was similar. But in order to manufacture a grievance on behalf of UKIP and the Tories, every paper which covers the story is required to torture the data beyond all reason.
In the wake of the latest Ashcroft polls, the only line being deployed by Scottish Labour is that the projected outcome of an SNP landslide would be great news for the Conservatives and lead to David Cameron returning in triumph to Downing Street. One would presume, then, that the Tory press is delighted by the prospect.
So let’s check out some stories from today’s Daily Mail and Scottish Daily Mail.
agentx on Only An Excuse: “10:43am 25/05/26 Peter Murrell has been remanded into custody after pleading guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 from the party at the…” May 25, 10:45
Alf Baird on Only An Excuse: “An oppressed people must analyse and understand their oppression and its root, which is colonialism. So weel duin Northcode. In…” May 25, 10:44
agentx on Only An Excuse: “Murrell admits embezzling £400,000 from the SNP published at 10:40 10:40 Paul O’Hare BBC Scotland reporter at the High Court…” May 25, 10:42
agentx on Only An Excuse: “Murrell has arrived at Court. https://www.thenational.scot/news/26135666.live-updates-peter-murrell-court-accused-embezzlement/” May 25, 09:52
Captain Caveman on Only An Excuse: “@Hatey Yes, I think YL is “identifying” me (how very left wing) as some thunder-thighed chubby lass, apparently as based…” May 25, 08:56
Northcode on Only An Excuse: “Here is Point Seven in my eight point pattern of points: Seven: The dignity of … Ach, you know what?…” May 25, 07:38
Bilbo on Only An Excuse: “The same is being said about Andy Burnham https://archive.is/VadTi The fake working class/poverty stricken childhood Shtick has been going on…” May 25, 06:17
Young Lochinvar on Only An Excuse: “Happy anniversary today of the birth of Robert the Bruce. Known as Good King Robert, through personal loss and hardship…” May 25, 00:44
Geri on Only An Excuse: “The military has lost a lot of respect since WW2 because it’s just not cool to mow down defenceless civilians…” May 25, 00:06
Geri on Only An Excuse: “Countries used to be treated like a pariah state for assassinating other Sovereign countries leaders. Then the Americans took over…” May 24, 23:26
Young Lochinvar on Only An Excuse: “I’mnogay McI’mnogayface @ 7.18 Yes, I did indeed laugh about C3 wanting to be a piece of ladies intimate toiletries..…” May 24, 22:58
Aidan on Only An Excuse: “He can be replaced, but only by Trump sending in the bombers!” May 24, 22:22
Geri on Only An Excuse: “They can vote him out, ya eejit. & So can his government. I know it’s hard to imagine, cause your…” May 24, 22:06
Geri on Only An Excuse: “That was a funny autocorrect…lol I really need to turn that off.” May 24, 21:50
Geri on Only An Excuse: “& btw, that was only cause they’d came back from WW1. They’d little option but amend voting rights. They’d just…” May 24, 21:41
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: “Vote out a president, Geri? You’re having yet another laugh at Scotland’s expense. You think we’ve forgotten your admiration for…” May 24, 21:37
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: “@CC 11:46 The Auld Man Of Lochnagar has quite a hyperactive imagination, hasn’t he? Forever posting about shirt lifting. Forever…” May 24, 21:17
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: “Why, Geri? Are you having an organism again?” May 24, 20:59
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: “But Geri disnae want tae gang, Sven.” May 24, 20:50
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: ““trying to tarnish an individual due to the times they may post” Wow, Dan, is that all you can find…” May 24, 20:40
Geri on Only An Excuse: “The people’s act didn’t give us democracy. It only ammended who could vote to include the working class.” May 24, 20:29
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: “Don’t you let them stop you rioting, Geri. Just say when and where. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away from…” May 24, 20:28
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: ““No one person is inherently better than the next” The loser’s charter, re-invented by the woke as their pathetic plea…” May 24, 20:23
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: “That’s only half the story, Geri. If they despise socialism, they’ll despise socialists too. Private education too, eh? There will…” May 24, 20:09
Geri on Only An Excuse: “Factchecker We don’t live in a democracy. Westminster is just pantomime for the plebs to keep us from rioting. The…” May 24, 20:04
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: “Purves, eh, Alf? The pantheon continues to grow.. Was/is he/she a Scot? Or are you going to continue to pursue…” May 24, 20:02
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: ““Call a spade a spade” Sure, Bilbo. What kind of infantile fantasist decides to call himself after a Hobbit?” May 24, 19:53
Geri on Only An Excuse: “Aye, USAID & National Endowment for Democracy (which is US snoops) written all over it. They recruit through private education…” May 24, 19:49
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: “Sae mony points, yet nae point, Northy. Can’t believe I’m the first to point that oot!” May 24, 19:21
Hatey McHateface on Only An Excuse: “Ah weel, Auld Lochnagar, yer service was in defence o a furrin croon. Might just be admirable, per se, but…” May 24, 19:18
