Department of Are You Sure? 335
Posted on
May 28, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Here’s the beleaguered Danny Alexander, quoted by the Guardian today (11.27am):
Well, that’s a relief.
The news less fit to print 257
Posted on
May 28, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s not often that you see the same story on the front page of the i and the Financial Times. It’s even rarer – in fact, perhaps unprecedented – if that story’s about Scotland, because the otherwise-admirable mini-tabloid is barely even aware that there’s a part of the UK north of Newcastle.
(Its parent paper, the Independent, is we think unique among national UK newspapers in not even having a Scotland section, let alone a Scottish edition.)
So when it happens, you know it must be a pretty darned significant story – one which the Scottish press will be all over like a swarm of wasps at a jam-factory picnic. Right?
Sensible man talks sense 54
Posted on
May 28, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This is a lengthy piece of audio at 64 minutes, but we recommend it highly.
The man speaking is Neil Walsh, who’s the Pensions Officer of the Prospect trade union (scientists, engineers, professionals). The recording is of a conference call that he conducted for the union’s members this week dealing with the ramifications of independence for, funnily enough, pensions.
Prospect is a UK-wide union with a position of complete neutrality on the referendum, and no sides are taken. All you’ll hear is an Irishman with no dog in the indyref fight calmly and rationally assessing the issues from the perspective of his 140,000 members and their interests.
It may be the sanest and most reasonable thing you hear in the entire independence debate. If you’re worried about your pension, or you know someone who is, you need to listen to it, and the sooner the better.
Let’s be alert out there 149
Posted on
May 27, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Ever since our insanely successful fundraiser we’ve been pondering on the best way to get printed materials and promotional stuff spread across Scotland without spending hours every day lugging boxes of stuff down to the post office, what with us still being an inconvenient distance from the action.
We may have just solved the problem.
The horse’s mouth, and other parts 195
Posted on
May 27, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Yesterday the UK government put out what was even by its standards a ludicrously hyperbolic piece of scaremongering about the costs of independence, suggesting that to set up all the governmental bodies the new state would require might come with an eye-watering price tag of £2.7 billion.
Its citing of the London School of Economics made it particularly interesting to hear what Patrick Dunleavy of the LSE actually said about the figures.
The kiss of death 161
Posted on
May 27, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert followers of our Twitter feed will have learned over recent months that we have a seriously uncanny ability to influence the outcome of football matches. Need your side to grab a couple of quick goals? Just get us to tweet “Team X looks like they couldn’t score if they played till next Thursday” and get ready to watch the net bulge.
(One day we’ll reveal the size of the bribe we took from a shady consortium of wealthy Hamilton Accies fans during the SPFL playoff against Hibs on Sunday.)
And now it looks like that talent has extended itself to newspapers.
A good point well made 245
Posted on
May 26, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re rather kicking ourselves for not having spotted this one when it was staring us in the face, so kudos to Welsh professor of political science Roger Scully for the catch.
In the 2009 European elections, UKIP got 16.5% of the vote in the UK as a whole, and 5.2% in Scotland – a gap of 11.3%. In this year’s election the tallies were 27.5% in the UK and 10.5% in Scotland – a gap of 17%.
In other words, despite all the bluster from Unionists about how Scotland can no longer claim to be different to the rest of the UK in terms of supporting Nigel Farage’s party, in fact the degree of difference has substantially increased, by a whopping 55%.
It just seems worth pointing out.
Friends and enemies 178
Posted on
May 26, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
According to Mandy Rhodes of Holyrood Magazine, this afternoon Johann Lamont issued a press release bizarrely calling on all supporters of “progressive” politics to unite against the SNP and UKIP. Now, that’s fairly mindboggling in itself in all sorts of ways, but we can’t help wondering whether she ran it past her deputy first.
Because that tweet raises a whole host of questions.
Let’s talk about last night 189
Posted on
May 26, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Some considered thoughts on the evening’s events, then.
Yeah, nice work, Britain.
A day of shame 297
Posted on
May 26, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Multiple journalists are now reporting that no matter what the result of the Western Isles count tomorrow, UKIP have pipped the SNP, by a narrow margin, to Scotland’s sixth European Parliament seat.
Scots, you just let David Coburn speak for you on an international stage. Well done.
Not scared yet? 286
Posted on
May 25, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Recently we’ve been documenting a bizarre attempt by the No camp to terrify Scots with the thought that in order to continue to pay for pensions and public services and whatnot, an independent Scotland would need, um, almost exactly the same amount of immigration it has now. (Particularly alert readers may even recall when we pointed out that the UK parties used to have the exact opposite viewpoint.)
And it seems our critiques have already hit home.
