Our favourite Euan McColm article ever 164
Posted on
May 05, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Vote Yes to live longer 114
Posted on
May 04, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
To cheer you up a bit, we thought you might like to see a couple of rather curious pieces from this weekend’s right-wing press. 300 years of the Union have infamously left Scotland with the lowest life expectancies in the UK, as illustrated in particularly stark fashion by some maps published a couple of years ago in the Guardian:
But what can be done about it?
A song we’ve heard before 205
Posted on
May 04, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Respectable author Allan Massie (father of Spectator columnist Alex) rather shames himself in today’s Scottish Mail On Sunday, with a particularly grim piece of what we assume is supposed to be comical crystal ball-gazing, painting a melodramatic picture of an apocalyptic post-independence Scotland as seen by Project Fear.
Over 2500 words long, it ticks all the boxes – no currency union, a mass exodus of business, Spain vetoing Scotland’s EU membership, economic Armageddon forcing the return of tuition fees and prescription charges, Trident staying on the Clyde permanently, Orkney and Shetland voting to stay with the UK and somehow taking the oil with them in direct contravention of all international law, and so on.
Which would all be a super piece of knockabout fun, were it not for the fact that we’ve already almost lost count of the number of times the right-wing English media, and in particular the Mail itself, has already trotted out this same dystopian drivel.
Keep fishing 87
Posted on
May 04, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Despite the strikingly unequivocal nature of David Trimble’s clarification yesterday of his comments about the independence referendum’s potential impact on Northern Irish politics, remarkably the media are today still trying to spin them into a dire warning about a Yes vote causing renewed violence in the province.
The picture below is a page from this morning’s Sunday Times.
The Really Useful Show 225
Posted on
May 04, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Our attention was drawn this weekend to a survey conducted by the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, which polled 759 Scottish businesses of various sizes about a number of issues relating to independence.
It doesn’t seem to have had a great deal of coverage, perhaps because most of the answers were in the “bleeding obvious” category – business frets about change, and the more change there might be the less they like it.
One set of figures did catch our eye, though.
Why don’t you go back to Islamia? 253
Posted on
May 03, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve quite frequently highlighted the ugly, irresponsible tone of the No campaign’s – and especially Labour’s – comments about “foreigners” in the independence debate. And the reason we do is because that sort of language feeds attitudes like these.
There is, sadly, more where that came from.
An easy mistake to make 76
Posted on
May 03, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
BBC Northern Ireland website, 2 May 2014:
Lord Trimble on “Good Morning Scotland”, 3 May 2014 (31m 30s):
Whoops, eh? Oddly, while the original story is still on the BBC NI website, we can’t seem to find one reporting the correction anywhere, even though Lord Trimble spoke to GMS more than eight hours ago. We’re sure it’ll be along any minute now.
Why there will be a currency union 139
Posted on
May 03, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A reader this morning pointed us to an article by the arch-Unionist blogger and pundit Professor Adam Tomkins, who we must once again emphasise in the interests of clarity is almost definitely NOT the gentleman in this picture:
It was a piece from a few weeks ago about the currency debate, which the reader felt made a reasonable and “quite convincing” case, so we went and had a look.
A pro journalism tip 305
Posted on
May 02, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As people who commission opinion polls occasionally, a thing that puzzles us is why other people who do it ask questions and then don’t talk about the results.
Some polls are done with the intention of being for private consumption only (this is particularly true when they’re commissioned by one side or the other in a debate, rather than by a notionally-impartial newspaper or the pollster themselves), and at other times results will be kept private because the results are unfavourable to the people who commissioned them.
(For the avoidance of doubt, we’ve never withheld any results for that reason.)
But at other times, results will be published but never discussed. Which is why, whenever a poll’s just come out these days, we get ourselves straight over to the polling company’s website and see what’s been left out.
Quoted for wait what now? 100
Posted on
May 02, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
David Cameron, Prime Minister’s Questions, 30 April 2014:
(Our emphasis.) It’s not only us finding that just the tiniest bit hypocritical, is it?
Watch closely, students 222
Posted on
May 02, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Because this is how a state broadcaster does balanced, impartial reporting.
Now some revision notes to help you.
