Call off the dogs 266
Posted on
April 05, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Okay, it was a serious breach of the rules, but the culprit’s been punished enough.
Dear God above, we’re not monsters.
Telling good journalism from bad 245
Posted on
April 05, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
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.
The day Scottish Labour died 161
Posted on
April 04, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
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.
The accused 343
Posted on
April 04, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
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.
La verité 179
Posted on
April 04, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re going to let this speak for itself.
Leesten varry caurfelly 245
Posted on
April 04, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
…we shall say zees only wance.
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.
Marbles down 189
Posted on
April 03, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
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.
The repelling magnets 184
Posted on
April 03, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
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?
New friends 165
Posted on
April 03, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Nicola Sturgeon is brilliant. Can we just outsource all our politics to Scotland and make Parliament into a Weatherspoon’s? #leadersdebate
— Brian Millar (@arthurascii) April 2, 2015
Pay attention this time, Mr Murphy 413
Posted on
April 02, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Journalist of the day 156
Posted on
April 02, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Ladies and gentlemen, golf and lynching enthusiast Mr Fraser Paterson:
When oh when will the First Minister condemn these vile cybernat oh wait.
