Handed back on a plate 288
Posted on
September 11, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
From a press conference a few minutes ago:
We must admit, this is our favoured mode for the First Minister.
If newspapers told the truth for one day 156
Posted on
September 11, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Today’s might read something like this:
“In a huge boost for the independence campaign, Royal Bank of Scotland today announced that it would move its registered office from Edinburgh to London in the event of a Yes vote. First Minister Alex Salmond was reported to be delighted that the possible future burden of having to bailout the failed bank had been lifted from the shoulders of the Scottish Government.
(The threat was in fact a mythical one, as bank bailouts are not conducted on the basis of head-office location, but had frequently been rolled out as a scare story by the anti-independence campaign.)
With RBS unlikely to pay any Corporation Tax for decades on account of its gargantuan and ongoing losses from the financial crash, there was no downside for Holyrood, with the bank stating unambiguously in a letter to employees that it had ‘no intention to move operations or jobs’.
(Corporation Tax is in any event levied on where business activity takes place, not where the headquarters is located.)
In other words, an independent Scotland would keep all the benefits of the bank – employment, services and employee taxation and spending – with none of the dangerous liabilities. The news will encourage businesses to invest in the Scottish economy, knowing that their money is secure. The outcome would give an independent Scotland the best of both worlds.”
Just imagine it, viewers. Maybe one day.
Spelling it out 77
Posted on
September 11, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Yesterday the three UK party leaders all came to Scotland to “campaign”. None of them would appear in public or be interviewed on TV, speaking only to small crowds of invited supporters before scurrying south again. Nevertheless, their fleeting presence north of the border meant that the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions was conducted by substitutes. Standing in for David Cameron was William Hague.
So that’s all a bit clearer now.
No Scot left behind 83
Posted on
September 11, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re the fire in the sky 188
Posted on
September 11, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
I had a night off this evening, readers. Poker and banter and laughs (and a Chinese takeaway) with some chums, a quick stop-off to chat a bit of strategy with the Wings Fulfilment Department and then home. I was just a few yards away when a song came on the stereo and I had to change my mind. I stomped on the accelerator, turned the volume up so loud it was distorting my sense of smell and gunned it out to the hills on the edge of town at full tilt just to feel the cool night breeze and release the pressure.
This one’s for all of us.
Politics is satire plus time 509
Posted on
September 10, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Here’s an image we made back in October 2012:
It’s based on a graphic from the movie version of “V For Vendetta”.
Point and counterpoint 202
Posted on
September 10, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Spoiled for choice 133
Posted on
September 10, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
George Monbiot in the Guardian, 10 September 2014:
We could have picked almost any paragraph. A tour de force.
A case apart 569
Posted on
September 09, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve long argued that whatever the small print, when it comes to an independent Scotland’s membership of the European Union common sense and realpolitik will prevail, because nobody wants Scotland to be out of the EU for even a day and it’s in nobody’s interests for it to be.
Of course, we’re just some idiots with a website and nobody should listen to OUR opinion about anything. But it seems as though people like Graham Avery (Honorary Director-General of the European Commission), Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, (the former Deputy Secretary-General of the UN) and Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, (author of a book on EU constitutional law and professor of European law and human rights at Oxford University) ought to have a pretty good inside track on Europe stuff.
And if all those still aren’t enough, how about the esteemed Pat Cox, former President of the European Parliament? He ought to know what he’s talking about, right?
A list of nothing 261
Posted on
September 09, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Daily Record today outlines what it’s pushing hard as a triumphant intervention from Gordon Brown which justifies a No vote in the referendum. (It also claims the credit, comically suggesting its Monday front page drove Brown’s announcement.)
It lists “12 new powers” in Brown’s plan. Let’s take a look.
