If we’re honest, readers, we almost never bother with BBC Scotland’s televised political coverage any more. We suspect the viewing figures for Scotland 2015 are down to fingers-and-toes territory now, and if last night’s edition – which we gritted our teeth and watched after noting the incredulous response on social media – is anything to go by, the state broadcaster is now using it to try out work-experience kids.
But we can cut fresh-faced new boy David Henderson (who suffered the indignity of being billed as Sarah Smith) a bit of slack for being outmanoeuvred by an experienced operator like Jim Murphy, who at one point in the show was actually interrogating the presenter rather than the other way round.
Kirsty Wark, regular anchor on the Corporation’s current-affairs flagship Newsnight, on the other hand, has no such excuses whatsoever.
When someone sent us a link last week to a picture of an Anas Sarwar election leaflet, we were immediately struck by the fact that it had the weird characteristic of being ostensibly handwritten but underlining every word in a sentence individually, which reminded us of one we’d seen from Douglas Alexander back in January.
So after a busy weekend of saving stray cats from going blind, we went to dig the two leaflets out, in the modest hope of getting a quick cheap joke about them both using the same fake-handwriting font. But instead we got a bit of a surprise.
This is how Scotland is seen in the largest part of the UK today. There’s nothing at all new about Scots being portrayed as “stealing” money rightfully belonging to England, of course, nor in the stereotype depicted by the Jimmy hat. It’s the word on the placard that tells the story: “immigrant”.
A lot of people this week quoted a line supposedly from the former Labour cabinet minister Roy Jenkins, which runs “a statement is only interesting if a sane man could say the opposite”. We haven’t been able to verify if he ever really said that or not, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s true either way.
If you ask them on social media, Labour MPs and activists will all hotly deny that the party signed up to the Conservatives’ plan for £30bn of austerity cuts in the next five years. It’ll be interesting to see whether they try to continue doing so in the light of Ed Balls’ appearance on the Andrew Marr Show this morning.
Alert readers will have noticed that this week we’ve been fascinated by the differences between the mostly-identical Scottish and English editions of The Sun. For example, the editorial below from today’s English edition doesn’t make it across the border.
Here’s a clip from last night’s Question Time from Leeds, in which Anna Soubry MP for the Conservatives, Lucy Powell MP for Labour, Charles Kennedy MP for the Lib Dems, ardent Unionist Ian Hislop from Private Eye and various audience members spent 20 minutes attacking the SNP, with no SNP representative present.
(The closest thing was Natalie Bennett, leader of the Greens in England and Wales, who was relentlessly mocked, derided and harangued from all sides for most of the programme’s duration, including by the “anti-establishment” Hislop.)
It seems to us that the solution to the problem is simple.
For some time, readers, we’ve been puzzling to ourselves about quite why the idea of having to work with the SNP in the UK parliament enrages the Labour Party quite so much. Because it doesn’t make any rational sense.
Indeed, on any intelligent analysis the arrangement currently suggested by opinion polls is a dream outcome for the party. Think about it logically for a moment. Minority government lifts the burden of responsibility from your shoulders – there’s always someone else to blame if you bail on a manifesto promise, because you can say “We didn’t have a majority to push it through”.
(The SNP, it should of course be recorded, took advantage of this benefit of minority government more than once at Holyrood between 2007 and 2011)
But in Labour’s specific case in 2015, there’s what seems an even bigger boon.
Mark Beggan on The Land Of No Laws: “International Law. Who comes and arrests you if you break it? Where’s the International Law prison? Who decides what is…” May 19, 00:37
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
