We just watched, jaws agape, as the BBC news channel gave Scottish Labour an uninterrupted 50-minute party political broadcast for no immediately obvious reason. It mainly took place at Loanhead Miners’ Welfare, and featured speeches from a warm-up man, then Johann Lamont, and finally Gordon Brown.
The ostensible event justifying this extraordinary coverage lasted just 2m 36s.
And having sat through the whole circus, we still have no idea what it was for.
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Category
comment, disturbing, media, scottish politics, video, wtf
First Owen Jones’ stinging rebuff to the odious fauxcialist John McTernan, now this:
As another famous Unionist might say: Oooft!
Category
comment, uk politics
The alert readers of this site have encountered currency trader Alpesh Patel of equity company Praefinium Partners before. We were more than a little bit scathing about a previous appearance of his on the BBC News channel back in February, on which it seems fair to say that he nailed his Unionist colours very firmly indeed to the mast.
So this clip from the same channel this morning was interesting.
We don’t think his words need any comment from us, save perhaps that we commend Mr Patel for having learned from his previous errors when it comes to assessing the attitude of businesses to the prospect of Scottish independence. Anyone can make a mistake. The key is to not keep repeating it when the evidence proves you wrong.
Category
comment, scottish politics, uk politics, video
We apologise for any images conjured by that headline.
Above is our Chris Cairns cartoon from June 2013. And here’s today’s news.
Tags: cartoons, Chris Cairns
Category
pictures
You have to laugh.
Anyone would think WE were the ones who’d had to remove, apologise for and pay compensation for defamatory articles about THEM.
Category
comment, media, scottish politics
Save it from what, exactly? Democracy?
(More here.)
Category
comment, culture, media, scottish politics, uk politics
Here’s what George Osborne actually said on today’s Andrew Marr Show:
“You will see in the next few days a plan of action to give more powers to Scotland. More tax powers, more spending powers, more plans for powers over the welfare state.
That will be put into effect – the timetable for delivering that will be put into effect – the moment there is a no vote in the referendum. The clock will be ticking for delivering those powers – and then Scotland will have the best of both worlds.”
(From 32m 40s.) It’s not actually very hard to follow.
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Category
analysis, comment, scottish politics, uk politics
New YouGov poll tonight. Yes 51 No 49 excluding Don’t Knows. Interesting.
The Observer’s front page splash is the No camp’s last-ditch Hail Mary – a new devolution talking shop. They just don’t get it. This is about tomorrow, not yesterday.
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Category
analysis, scottish politics, uk politics
Today’s Daily Mail carries a dismal article under a hysterical essay of a headline reading “Homes vandalised, accused of stealing jobs and an atmosphere of discriminatory intimidation: The savage racism turning Scotland into a no-go zone for the English”. (It actually describes a couple of minor incidents, spread over several years, affecting a single elderly couple in Stirling, without a shred of evidence that they were in fact motivated by their Englishness.)
There are undoubtedly small pockets of anti-English racism to be found in parts of Scotland, like there are small pockets of every kind of racism and prejudice found in every country in the world. But why would any Scottish person ever be driven to feel animosity towards the English – our friends, our family and our neighbours?
Not just because of a few isolated nutters on Facebook, surely?
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Tags: britnats, the positive case for the union, too wee too poor too stupid
Category
media
Alert readers will already be aware that former Labour MP, minister and nuclear-power lobbyist Brian Wilson is one of our least favourite figures in the independence debate.
A man utterly consumed by tribal hatred of the SNP – even by the standards of Scottish Labour, which is no mean accolade – his Scotsman columns are some of the most mendacious, bilious propaganda to be found in the country, to the extent that we don’t even link to them in our “Zany Comedy Relief” section.
Today, however, he’s outdone himself in spectacular style.
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Tags: arithmetic fail, flat-out lies, liars
Category
analysis, media, scottish politics
