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.
Geri on The Land Of No Laws: ““Football clubs that pay exorbitant transfer fees for prima donnas then complain that they are skint andhave to up their…” May 18, 23:54
Young Lochinvar on The Land Of No Laws: ““Homo” Sacer.. Bound to have peeked Hateys attention that one, and then right on cue.. 🙂 Votes for Reform peeps…” May 18, 23:53
Young Lochinvar on The Land Of No Laws: “I hope Undertaker John Swinney* has read this and actually understood it before going off on one on yet another…” May 18, 23:43
Young Lochinvar on The Land Of No Laws: “Fair point Dan However.. Enjoy driving west on the M8 when a Knockhill Sunday has just wound up? Not really.…” May 18, 23:19
Young Lochinvar on The Land Of No Laws: “TH Sounds like a sound analysis there. What about footie in Engerlund! Engerlund!! Engerlund!!! though? Isn’t that the definition of…” May 18, 23:11
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““its collapse is expected to set off a domino effect in the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, ultimately resulting in…” May 18, 22:43
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““offshore tax haven colonial corporates” Do you reckon their boardrooms have libraries of the collected works of Fanon and Memmi,…” May 18, 22:14
Alf Baird on The Land Of No Laws: ““the city is finished” The port certainly is, done in by Westminster privatisation and offshore tax haven colonial corporates, much…” May 18, 21:30
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Land Of No Laws: “BMA U-TURNS ON CASS REVIEW OPPOSITION The British Medical Association (BMA) has backtracked on its opposition to the Cass Review,…” May 18, 21:23
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““Correspondences with the plight of Scotland (though far less stark) will be obvious to any reader of Wings” Crivens, Fearghas!…” May 18, 19:11
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““being a colonial nation of porridge wogs has internalised angst, violence and sectarianism” Sure. When we look at former colonies,…” May 18, 19:07
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: “So is this a good week to be looking to restore the Stuarts to the throne, Confused? You know you…” May 18, 18:59
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of No Laws: ““It’s not the eighteenth century any more” Quite a lot of the time, on Wings BTL, it is. As Northy…” May 18, 18:40
twathater on The Land Of No Laws: “YL I wish people in Scotland had the same enthusiasm and desire for independence as they do about fucking football…” May 18, 18:14
Dan on The Land Of No Laws: “You should try to get along to Knockhill racing circuit and support Scottish motorsport. There’s just been an excellent weekend…” May 18, 15:06
Mark Beggan on The Land Of No Laws: “The Special Needs Party are to scared to condem the Celtic Thugs. Well let me condem them. Scum!” May 18, 13:24
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Land Of No Laws: “Stuart Campbell writes: THE LAND OF NO LAWS: « But every single person reading this knows that despite the situations…” May 18, 13:03
Confused on The Land Of No Laws: “Hearts are identifying as “trans champions” and holyrood is issuing them a certificate. – there’s a lot of folks “clutching…” May 18, 12:54
Owen Mullions on The Land Of No Laws: “I may be wrong but I don’t think the clock is stopped after a goal is scored so the 30…” May 18, 12:48
Alf Baird on The Land Of No Laws: ““without England’s help we’d have remained a religiously-intolerant backwater.” Should that not read: “with England’s help we remain a religiously-intolerant…” May 18, 12:44
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: “Since there’s fuckall going on in here I thought I’d follow my last braw comment with a mair chirpy upbeat…” May 18, 12:26
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: “Ken McGoogan offers a balanced view without ever retreating into neutrality. His work is honest, evidence?driven, and capable of holding…” May 18, 12:06
David Ferguson on The Land Of No Laws: “You claim to be a ref and you appear to know nothing of the laws of the game. The clock…” May 18, 11:56
David Ferguson on The Land Of No Laws: “Here’s an alternative scenario from Saturday: Ni-nil going into eight minutes of added time. 1 substitution and four yellow cards…” May 18, 11:19
Maxxmacc on The Land Of No Laws: “I used to watch Formula 1 until it became obvious that Sky TV were gerrymandering the races to ensure the…” May 18, 11:00
Bilbo on The Land Of No Laws: “Don’t want to be hitting on Glasgow but the city is finished. The main attraction of Glasgow was shopping and…” May 18, 07:52
Willie on The Land Of No Laws: “A most topical article by the Rev. And many very interesting comments thereafter too. Football most certainly invokes popular interest…” May 18, 07:33
Robert Hughes on The Land Of No Laws: “hahahahahaha what joy, seeing all the Glesga haters trying desperately to undermine/tarnish Celtic’s brilliant late season recovery and ultimate League…” May 18, 06:55
GM on The Land Of No Laws: “The richest club in Scotland by a massive distance and that’s 15 out of 16 titles in a row. 15…” May 18, 00:22
william G Walker on The Land Of No Laws: “JAMBO of Hearts says that “there are only three inavoidable rules in life – death, taxes and the Scottish Football…” May 17, 23:01
