The general election 2015 has rounded the last bend and is heading down the final straight, with no clear winner in sight. Four days from now the UK electorate will go to the polls and deliver, if the numbers are to be believed, an unholy mess. Only one part of the country seems to know with clarity what it wants, and that’s “not Labour”.
The North British branch of the party has in truth been a political Easter egg for years – big and impressive-looking on the outside, but entirely hollow within – and this year it looks like the voters are finally going to shatter the shell and leave nothing but a small heap of fragments revealing just how little chocolate was ever there.
And the realisation has sent Labour completely out of its mind.
So there’s this, which isn’t the biggest surprise.
Having already told the people of Scotland to get stuffed and forget about having any sort of voice in government if they wouldn’t vote for Labour, there’s no major shock in Miliband doing the same to those in Wales.
But alert readers may have noticed that there’s one more Celtic nation in the UK that hasn’t been mentioned yet. What’s the Labour position there?
We know that politicians are allowed to lie in election literature, but we’re struggling to see how this isn’t fraud, which is something different altogether.
Do you remember the Labour and media outrage a while back when SNP candidate Mhairi Black said she felt like “putting the nut” on some gloating Unionists at the indyref count, readers? Remember the pious scandal at such dreadful thuggery? (If you’d forgotten, don’t worry, because it’s in the Telegraph again today.)
Remember how the Daily Record and Scotsman have now been hammering away for a full week at another SNP candidate, Neil Hay, for tweeting a link to a satirical website and arguably being slightly rude about a small subset of pensioners, while glossing over a lengthy catalogue of abusive tweets calling the SNP “fascists” and “Nazis” (and more) from a prominent Labour activist and BBC pundit?
There’s your actual former First Minister and peer of the UK realm, Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale, setting the example Labour would have everyone follow today by celebrating a threat to “f*****g boot” any Tories in Wishaw (we’re not told whether the young ladies in question were Labour activists he was with or just Labour voters).
The Daily Mirror’s “Ampp3d” offshoot used to be a fantastic resource for statistical debunking, and sometimes still is. But ever since it’s been officially absorbed into the Mirror, it’s been increasingly deployed as a Labour spin tool.
Today it tries to juggle numbers to excuse Gordon Brown’s bargain-basement sale of the UK’s gold reserves in 1999 – a subject that was raised by an audience member on last night’s Question Time special and which we now know with certainty cost the country a whopping $19bn (or £12.5bn at current exchange rates).
We’ve added the emphasis on that last sentence. And it’s a fair enough point broadly speaking, although of course with the gold sell-off we’re looking back with the benefit of hindsight about what actually did happen, not trying to guess, so calling it “fantasy maths” is somewhat inaccurate, given that it’s exactly the opposite of a fantasy.
The trouble is that Ampp3d isn’t always so dismissive of predicting the future.
Today’s Scottish Sun has a full breakdown of all 59 Scottish seats at Westminster, including bookies’ odds for the favourite in each one. It suggests that nine Labour MPs will have jobs in Scotland a week from today, along with two Tories and a single lonely Lib Dem, with the SNP sweeping the other 47.
We ran the incumbents in those 12 seats through MP Report Card, an independent site which tracks the activity of all the UK’s MPs including expenses claims, outside earnings, how often they turn up to vote or speak in debates and how good they are at replying to constituents’ letters, to gauge their calibre.
We’re only doing stats posts quarterly now, but since the last one we ran was for the January readership figures that means it’s time for a quick update.
Almost 23,000 extra readers compared to last month and nearly 600,000 more page views? Yeah, we’ll take that. (For perspective, here’s April 2014.)
You’re probably going to see this misreported in the press quite a lot tomorrow. We thought we should get the whole thing up for the record, to avoid confusion.
We were as stunned as everyone else for a moment. On the Question Time special earlier tonight, Ed Miliband appeared to state that he’d rather not form a government (ie he’d let the Tories in) than do so with the support of the SNP. It sounded like he’d gone dramatically further than he’d ever gone before.
And then he realised what he’d done, and panicked.
As far as we know, this is the final major set-piece interview that Jim Murphy will have to give before the general election.
As Sally Magnusson of Reporting Scotland makes an admirably dogged but ultimately unsuccessful effort to get a straight answer on just about anything out of Labour’s regional branch manager, we’d swear it was possible to actually measure the delirium of relief on his face as the end draws near and the desperate evasion is over forever.
We gather that for the next week Scottish Labour are just bringing in boardgames.
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Of course! Duh! But it requires a hard-nosed realism at odds with the feel good vibes that an entire generation…” Sep 6, 12:16
Northcode on Anything But That: ““So what happens now the treaty of union has passed its sell by date…” Well… we could have it framed…” Sep 6, 12:08
Northcode on Anything But That: “The truth is this: The Treaty of Union is no longer a live international treaty. It’s a historical document whose…” Sep 6, 12:03
James Che on Anything But That: “Has Westminster parliament informed the UN that the 1707 treaty between Scotland and England has come to its end date?…” Sep 6, 11:54
Bilbo on Anything But That: “I was thinking about Prof Alf Baird’s posts about how an independent Scotland wouldn’t be burdened with the financial ambitions…” Sep 6, 11:48
James Che on Anything But That: “So the 1707 treaty of union that is wrote down on old parchment paper no longer exist as a treaty…” Sep 6, 11:36
Bilbo on Anything But That: “No point interacting with wee guttersnipes like Beggan.” Sep 6, 11:36
TURABDIN on Anything But That: “@Hatey McHateface I am no apologist for the theocratic system currently gripping Ir@n but that system is not Ir@n per…” Sep 6, 11:32
James Che on Anything But That: “North code, The comment you made was a bit contradictory in its overall veiw on international treaties. The old treaty…” Sep 6, 11:25
factchecker on Anything But That: “More good sense. Additionally, I would suggest that the Claim of Right was in reality simply a political negotiating tool…” Sep 6, 11:18
Alf Baird on Anything But That: ““I do believe he is shedding his skin” Maybe its the shock of finally realising the cost for Scots of…” Sep 6, 11:01
Marie on Anything But That: “Whatever country it is – it’s definitely NOT Scotland” Sep 6, 10:49
Northcode on Anything But That: “Supporters of Scottish independence – especially the more active kind – often talk about the Claim of Right as if…” Sep 6, 10:49
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “His shed skin, stuffed and cosmetically improved by a talented funeral director, will make a superb figurehead for the SNP…” Sep 6, 10:43
Chas on Anything But That: “‘Onset of dementia’ Sorry but you are wrong Insider. The ‘onset’ took place years ago. It is now full blown.” Sep 6, 10:32
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Ah well, TURABDIN. As it happens, I was just reading about a pair of Ir@nian sisters in the Guardian online…” Sep 6, 10:17
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “Yes, absolutely Hatey. Put more simply: sometimes in life, you have to wake up to the fact that you’ve been…” Sep 6, 10:12
TURABDIN on Anything But That: “@agentx FRANKLIN’s country may be counted among the least virtuous and most hypocritical on the planet, albeit «anglosaxons» do hold…” Sep 6, 09:40
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Sure, Xaracen, most of us understand how sunk costs work, and how the years of endless posts and uncounted words…” Sep 6, 09:36
TURABDIN on Anything But That: “@Mark Beggan «they’re just people who care about our country». «our country» being? Do give it a name?” Sep 6, 09:26
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “I guess if Farage ever does become PM, he’ll have far more of a democratic mandate than Burnham has. I’m…” Sep 6, 09:02
Xaracen on Anything But That: “Just to re-centre the discussion for anyone following the thread, the point I originally made — and from which all…” Sep 6, 08:55
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “The Falklanders should worry. The Argies are the descendants of the most genocidal colonists on the stolen and ethnically cleansed…” Sep 6, 08:47
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “See, Northy? You CAN post sensibly when you make the effort. I’ll gloss over the fact that much of what…” Sep 6, 08:34
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Swinney is looking more reptilian everyday. I do believe he is shedding his skin.” Sep 6, 06:42
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “” Worry” I’ve forgotten about it already. They are not my pals they’re just people who care about our country.…” Sep 6, 06:41
twathater on Anything But That: “Mark Beggan says: 6 September, 2026 at 12:14 am “corrupt and vicious” That sums up Scottish nationalism. Meanwhile wee Mark’s…” Sep 6, 03:12
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: ““corrupt and vicious” That sums up Scottish nationalism.” Sep 6, 00:14
agentx on Anything But That: “The full statement reads: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have…” Sep 5, 23:58
