Manhattan skyline 180
Posted on
May 01, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Readership stats for April, for those interested.
Something to think about 345
Posted on
April 30, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
STV Sport has tonight broken the news that Scotland will play England in a friendly international at Hampden on November 18 this year.
Would you like to imagine, readers, the songs the visiting England support might sing if Scotland had voted to continue being ruled by them exactly two months earlier?
If you feel your strength sapping between now and September, remember that.
Little lies 107
Posted on
April 30, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Scottish independence debate is characterised by so many gigantic lies from the No camp and the media (no pound, international outcast, bankrupt, cataclysm, etc etc) that there’s rarely time to pick up on all the small, casual, offhand ones that also litter the news-stands and the airwaves and poison any hope of intelligent discourse.
So let’s make an effort with one, just by way of example.
A circular argument 155
Posted on
April 30, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
You can’t make this stuff up.
Yes Glasgow has been inviting No speakers to take part in this Thursday’s event for literally months. They’ve contacted every single MP and MSP from a Unionist party representing a Glasgow seat, asking them to participate. They offered from the very beginning to let “Better Together” co-organise and co-host the debate, which will be chaired by the neutral Electoral Reform Society Scotland.
The only reason that “everyone on the platform is a Yes supporter” is because nobody from the No side is prepared to face the Glasgow public and put their case. The opportunity is still there. We confess ourselves perplexed that they seem determined to refuse it, and then to complain bitterly that the debate is one-sided.
More crowdfunding required 87
Posted on
April 30, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Can we please buy the Telegraph a new picture to depict “Scottish people”?
The belly of the beast 164
Posted on
April 29, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
I had no idea what to expect from the UKIP public meeting in Bath tonight. The city is genteel, wealthy and has been solidly Lib Dem for over 20 years. While there are of course some sketchier areas and it hasn’t been immune to the UK’s recent economic troubles, generally speaking it has little to complain about.
So when UKIP booked the 730 downstairs capacity of the Forum (a rather beautiful old Art Deco former cinema from the 1930s) for a public meeting, I hung onto the hope that there was at least a reasonable chance it’d be half-empty.
No luck there, then.
Frightened rabbits 205
Posted on
April 29, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The headline ferret 120
Posted on
April 29, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers will be familiar with a phenomenon we often like to highlight in these pages – that of the dramatic newspaper headline which rapidly turns into something completely different by the time you read the text of the story.
There’s an especially fine example in today’s Telegraph.
The dividing line 112
Posted on
April 29, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers will be aware that this site spends a not-insignificant amount of time pointing out how few and how trivial are the actual political differences between the three UK parties. Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats all basically offer slightly tweaked and rebadged versions of the same centre-right policies, in an unhealthy consensus set in concrete by the UK’s undemocratic electoral system.
There does, however, remain one major issue on which there’s still clear blue water between the only two parties who might provide the next UK Prime Minister, and it’s one that’s a lot more important to the independence debate than is generally thought. Have you guessed what it is yet?
In Bruges 320
Posted on
April 28, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
If you were by any chance wondering what all the hysterical media coverage today of some innocuous comments by Alex Salmond about Vladimir Putin in GQ magazine was trying to distract attention from, it was this.
Looking out for Portsmouth 99
Posted on
April 28, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The transcript below is taken from a public meeting hosted by the Scottish Office at Murrayfield in Edinburgh last Thursday (24 April), featuring Alistair Carmichael.
You can listen for yourself by clicking the above image.
Where the money’s coming from 97
Posted on
April 28, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Anyone involved in the independence debate for any length of time will probably already have lost count of how many times they’ve heard the plaintive we-cannae-dae-it wail of “But how will you pay for all of Alex Salmond’s milk and honey promises?”
So here’s a clue.
