In the last 24 hours the Scottish and UK media has circled the wagons around the BBC’s James Cook, a good and balanced reporter who perhaps didn’t have his best day on Saturday. Predictable condemnation has poured in on “cybernats” alleged to have rained “vicious abuse” on the journalist in a co-ordinated fascist bullying attack etc etc, though as ever, actual quoted examples are in short supply.
(We’re aware of exactly two abusive tweets – one nutter identified by the Huffington Post calling the entire BBC “the scum of the Earth”), and one we ourselves saw and chided, which was then deleted by the normally-sensible user and which we honestly don’t remember the content of, beyond that it was unpleasant and excessive. It should go without saying that we deplore and condemn such abuse, while defending the right to civil, legitimate criticism of a public servant where justified.)
As alert readers will already know, this site’s core long-term aim is to eventually render itself redundant, by showing people how to read between the lines, spot what isn’t being said and understand the various tricks that newspapers use in order to get the public to believe things that aren’t true without ever doing anything so crass (and more to the point, legally-actionable) as directly lying.
Today’s papers provide an especially clear-cut example.
Barely 18 months after this, here’s East Lothian Labour councillor Norman Hampshire (centre) and pals campaigning today with the aid of their new best friend.
As the story collapses and investigations begin into a cut-and-dried case of unlawful civil service interference in politics (and possibly worse), may they reap what they sow. If the current polls come true, never will a party’s fall have been more abject or more complete, nor its fate more richly deserved.
This is quite something. It took 15 hours into “MemoGate” before anyone got a Scottish Government representative on air – even though they’d found time to get quotes from Willie Rennie, who isn’t the leader of a Westminster party and whose party isn’t even involved in the story. When they did, here’s what happened.
Readers can form their own opinions about the interview. But at the very end of the piece the BBC’s James Cook says “this memo does exist”. It may do, but we’re not sure what his current grounds for that statement are.
To the best of our knowledge nobody is claiming to have seen it personally except the Telegraph. The Foreign Office have denied all knowledge of any memo, the Scotland Office apparently refuses to comment, and we have no idea who allegedly wrote it.
Cook has already made, then rowed back on, some rather questionable statements in the last 24 hours. Viewers may feel it might be better if he just stuck to the facts.
That clip (from just past midnight on the BBC News channel) isn’t a bad starting-point summary of last night’s extraordinary story, except by our count the Telegraph’s piece was fourth-hand rather than third-hand.
(First-hand would have been Nicola Sturgeon. Second-hand would have been the ambassador. Third-hand would have been the consul-general. The civil servant – who doubted the story him/herself – is fourth-hand.)
This is also a pretty good primer. Now let’s get to the fun stuff.
Sheesh. We pop out for a couple of hours to feed the Wings Emergency Kitten and we get back to find that it’s the UK press that’s barfed up hairballs all over its front pages.
And the contradictory cross-vortex coverlines aren’t even the mad bit.
In over 20 years of living in Bath, spanning five general elections, we’ve never seen a political billboard in town before. There’s been no point. In vote-share terms the city is the 4th-safest Lib Dem seat in the UK (and the 2nd-safest in England), and it has been since the party won it from the Conservatives in 1992.
But we’ve got a billboard now, featuring two men whose parties haven’t got an earthly hope of winning here (one of them because it’s not standing). What’s that all about?
Cynicus on Shield Of The Phantom: ““The main issue is that an obvious mistake was made…..” ====== Should not the second word in the above statement…” Jan 27, 13:17
Alf Baird on Shield Of The Phantom: “Oor Scottish Constitution, in Scots an Englis: https://salvo.scot/scottish-constitution/” Jan 27, 12:15
Alf Baird on Shield Of The Phantom: “Yer hope has been realised Willie, its just got the go-ahead. Lets now see what legal acrobatics our imperial oppressor…” Jan 27, 11:58
willie on Shield Of The Phantom: “And while we are considering the matter of a lying dissembling judge and wider compromised judiciary where, o where, has…” Jan 27, 11:09
James Cheyne on Shield Of The Phantom: “Alf Baird, It does however confirm the Colony condition that Scotland has been claiming and goes further into the new…” Jan 27, 10:54
James Cheyne on Shield Of The Phantom: “Difficult to define Scotland position on Constitution regards monarchy, Scotland as a republic Country does not seem to taken up…” Jan 27, 10:38
Alf Baird on Shield Of The Phantom: “We should not be so shocked that a colonial government and justice system oppresses the people and ignores their cries…” Jan 27, 10:07
PC Foster on Shield Of The Phantom: “https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/why-i-am-suing-my-trade-union/ You are correct Colin 100%.” Jan 27, 09:50
J Robertson on Shield Of The Phantom: “This clause seems engineered to prevent complaints over judicial case conduct – presumably means it can be included in an…” Jan 27, 09:29
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “I was worried I might have missed something, so I just did a quick check of my loose change. Yup!…” Jan 27, 09:29
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: ““We are under a deliberate falsified illusion” Never a truer word, James. Now define “We”. “we could walk away legally”…” Jan 27, 09:18
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “You’re likely right about that, Cynicus, but that’s not the main issue. The main issue is that an obvious mistake…” Jan 27, 09:05
Robert Burns on Shield Of The Phantom: “From this article… https://sanityunleashed.substack.com/p/ai-facilitating-the-misleading-and The piece doesn’t just discuss Sandie Peggie’s ‘trial’, but the use of A.I. by law courts.…” Jan 27, 08:49
Willie on Shield Of The Phantom: “Banana Republic you say RK and it wouldnt be a quip too far to opine that a banna republic is…” Jan 27, 08:41
Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “I realise that teaching you to sing a new dirge is as impossible as teaching an old dog new tricks,…” Jan 27, 08:40
Cynicus on Shield Of The Phantom: ““ Why would a tribunal judge make such gross errors?” Use Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is that the “judicial…” Jan 27, 02:45
Cynicus on Shield Of The Phantom: ““This Judge Kemp has been shown to be a liar” ========= That is too strong. Less diligent than his high…” Jan 27, 02:35
Saffron Robe on Shield Of The Phantom: “Colin, your point about a deliberately flawed judgement makes sense and seems very likely to be true.” Jan 27, 01:43
robertkknight on Shield Of The Phantom: “Zero accountability in the Banana Republic that is the SNP’s Scotland. Only thing to do…kick the B***ARDS OUT!” Jan 26, 23:43
Lorna Campbell on Shield Of The Phantom: “You make excellent points, Colin. The thing is: if there was political interference, it has not served whoever did it,…” Jan 26, 23:20
Young Lochinvar on Yelling at the tide: “Who knows what goes through the heads of our super(ior) fan daby dozy southern neighbours. Probably have a contingency plan…” Jan 26, 22:59
McDuff on Shield Of The Phantom: “This is outrageous. Is there no one with power and prominence within the political and judicial system to challenge this…” Jan 26, 21:16
Colin Dawson on Shield Of The Phantom: “Perhaps the purpose of the judgement was to try to delay the resolution of the issue of safe spaces for…” Jan 26, 21:04
Iain More on Shield Of The Phantom: “Off topic probably. So when is Starmers Rent Boys Trial? Will we ever see one? I guess the days when…” Jan 26, 20:05
Nae Need! on Shield Of The Phantom: “An interesting point, lothianlad. When we consider that Sturgeons idol WAS, in fact, Thatcher. And then when we consider the…” Jan 26, 19:25
Nae Need! on Shield Of The Phantom: “It is. They will obfuscate, though. There’s a part of my mind that still can’t fully understand how government business…” Jan 26, 19:16
Lorna Campbell on Shield Of The Phantom: “I think you may be right, Rev. Had Kemp used AI, or listened to his two lay colleagues, he would…” Jan 26, 19:12
100%Yes on Shield Of The Phantom: “Just watched a political broadcast from the Scottish Greens, no mention of transgender or Independence, not surprised. What I will…” Jan 26, 19:05
