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Wings Over Scotland


The Nurse Who Wasn’t An Actress 331

Posted on February 26, 2015 by

Well, now, there’s a thing.

suzanned0

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The plot stupids 110

Posted on February 26, 2015 by

The comical furore about The Nurse Who Definitely Isn’t An Actress shows no signs of making sense any time soon.

24 hours and several demented pages of hysterical tabloid shrieking later, we’re still not sure whether a No activist and Labour supporter from Clackmannanshire is called Suzanne Duncan (as “Better Together” called her until at least June last year) or “Suzanne Hunter” (as the Daily Record calls her), though a bit of Facebook detective work suggests the latter.

We do at least seem to have cleared up her employment history, as the Daily Record has now very quietly and subtly changed its article of last night, which claimed she’d worked for eight years at a hospital that’s only been open for five.

fvh

But a whole bundle of other questions remain unanswered.

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The Record’s Revenge 209

Posted on February 25, 2015 by

You can never accuse the Scottish media of being knowingly underhysterical.

hatredparanoia

Tonight the Daily Record snuck out its semi-apology for telling the Scottish people the biggest lie we’ve seen on the front page of a newspaper since its parent the Mirror published fake pictures of soldiers urinating on Iraqi prisoners.

You can tell they’re not awfully pleased we forced them to make that “correction” by reporting the lie to the Independent Press Standards Organisation, because they even reference it in the editorial above.

Speaking of which – well, heck, where do we even start?

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Thrown to the wolves 210

Posted on February 25, 2015 by

Before we start, let’s make this plain: we will NOT be submitting any sort of complaint to any healthcare body regarding what we’re about to discuss, and we ask readers not to either. When push comes to shove, we don’t want nurses losing their jobs.

richardsimpson1

We just wish Scottish Labour felt the same way.

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This is Wednesday, tax is bad 85

Posted on February 25, 2015 by

We’re starting to think that we could save ourselves an awful lot of trouble by only posting every other day. Obviously that’d reduce the workload in numerical terms, but also we could avoid the impossible task of having to keep track of Scottish Labour’s endless litany of U-turns, flip-flops and reverse ferrets on policy, which as far as we can make out appear to switch 180 degrees on alternating days.

Whichever one we picked we’d end up with positions that were at least consistent, and not have to try to make sense of which of two totally conflicting viewpoints the party was professing to hold according to whether the date was odd or even.

As it stands, we have to deal with this sort of thing.

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The Unrefuteables 211

Posted on February 25, 2015 by

On the left below is part of a Scottish Labour election leaflet that’s currently being put through Scottish letterboxes, featuring an alleged quote from an alleged NHS Scotland nurse identified as “Suzanne” from Clackmannanshire.

On the right is the CastingNow profile of an actress named only as “Suzanne” from Clackmannanshire, who describes herself by saying: “I’m very good at making people believe things which aren’t true hence why I’ve always been told to pursue acting.”

suzanne

While they have very similarly-shaped faces and features, we have no idea whether the two Suzannes are the same person or if it’s just a strange and potentially amusing coincidence. But the point is, there’s no way of finding out.

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Unfortunate error proves contagious 136

Posted on February 25, 2015 by

The gift that keeps on giving.

hotherballs2

Mr McNeill still hasn’t publicly explained how he came to be telling Labour supporters to vote Tory and let the Conservatives gain four seats on Labour, but we assume his private reasons for his “Twitter mistake” must have been really really good to win over the “comrades” in such a short space of time, so that’s nice.

The trouble is, he’s not alone.

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The Vow remains an orphan 103

Posted on February 24, 2015 by

Another letter from the government. Sounds a lot like the others.

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To thine own self be true 102

Posted on February 24, 2015 by

Some of the Scottish media has picked up on our post yesterday about the senior Labour official calling on Labour voters to tactically vote for the Tories against the SNP. The Scottish Sun and The National both carry the story, reporting that Robert McNeill has resigned his positions on the party’s Policy Forum and as chair of the East Lothian constituency party, having first joined a growing list of Labour figures to have wiped their social-media history.

rjmc14

(Kathy Wiles, Braden Davy, Yvonne Hama and Susan Dalgety, among many others, had preceded the hapless McNeill in attempting to obliterate their tracks after this site uncovered some of their unsavoury activities.)

And today has seen the discovery of a tweet from last month by the Labour peer Lord Moonie, caught in conversation with a couple of Conservative bloggers expressing the view that Labour would be much happier in coalition with the Tories than working with the SNP. (Echoing comments from other party sources a couple of weeks ago.)

And it got us to wondering why they don’t just do it.

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The truth of the matter 122

Posted on February 24, 2015 by

The last few days have not been proud ones for the Scottish media. Following the Daily Record’s humiliation at the hands of the independent press standards body over the Smith Commission, we don’t see this letter from the chair of the Scottish Prison Officers Association in today’s Scotsman (and the article in question doesn’t appear to have been corrected), so it looks like we’re going to have to print it here.

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In case you missed it 240

Posted on February 23, 2015 by

This (from Sunday) is priceless.

14reasons

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Scottish Labour’s new policy: vote Tory 167

Posted on February 23, 2015 by

Robert James McNeill is the vice chairman of the East Lothian Constituency Labour Party and chair of the Tranent Local Labour Party. He’s also a member of the Scottish Labour Party Policy Forum, which develops the Scottish Labour manifesto.

rjmc

Within the last hour he’s removed all that information from his Twitter bio. But why?

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    • sam on There May Be Justice: “sarah, The former Irish President, Michael Higgins said, “Our diaspora is one of Ireland’s greatest resources: through the contribution our…” Oct 9, 11:43
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    • Aidan on There May Be Justice: ““Professor Baird has knowledge of Scottish political issues, academic qualifications and long experience of maritime business. His involvement in the…” Oct 9, 09:38
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    • sarah on There May Be Justice: “Stay in the false union until we find better local administration? What a very strange position to take.” Oct 8, 14:44
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