New coalition welfare policy unveiled 84
Posted on
September 12, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We wish we were joking. But we’re not.
Hard times 97
Posted on
September 11, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re most grateful to the eagle-eyed reader who spotted something today that had escaped our notice, and apparently also that of the Scottish media. When we were trying to figure out the likely membership of “Scottish Labour” back in June, the most recent set of accounts for the branch (or “Accounting Unit” as it’s officially termed) on the Electoral Commission website were those for 2011.
It turns out that we were in just a bit too early. The 2012 ones were published a mere four weeks later, and they paint a worrying picture for Johann Lamont and her pals.
Something something Oceania 137
Posted on
September 11, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As you can perhaps tell, we’re starting to run out of post titles referencing “1984” and the Ingsoc habit of rewriting newspaper versions of history to pretend that certain things which happened didn’t happen, and vice versa. Here’s today’s case in point:
Wait a minute – “shifts to”? Are we sure about that?
Cowardice and courage 74
Posted on
September 11, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Scottish and UK press are both leading today with coverage of the intervention in the bedroom tax debate by UN special investigator Raquel Rolnik (below).
The Guardian (which is also sharp enough to pick up government housing minister Grant Shapps’ extraordinarily petulant response on radio and TV this morning) and Daily Record both give it front-page treatment, but the former has the killer paragraph.
Dishonesty and delusion 261
Posted on
September 10, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
In our view, it’s a serious mistake to treat prominent Labour activist Duncan Hothersall as someone sincerely concerned with the best interests of the Scottish people, differing only in how those interests are to be best served. His sole aim is to advance the fortunes of the Labour Party, and himself within it.
But that’s only an opinion, based on extensive personal experience of Hothersall issuing a long string of despicable lies, defamations, smears and general falsehoods in an attempt to discredit this site, chiefly among the more gullible elements of the Yes campaign. So let’s forget about Duncan’s toxic, cowardly excuse for a personality and examine his philosophy on its own merits, because it’s an exemplary case study of the wider ideology of Labour in Scotland’s opposition to independence.
Fingers jammed in ears 105
Posted on
September 10, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Sometimes even a site like this, dedicated to spending a large percentage of its time exposing the barely-concealed bias of the Scottish press, is almost lost for words.
We’ll see if we can dredge up a few for the latest plume of billowing black smoke and flame to spurt out during the death-dive of the Scotsman, though.
We’ve got it on tape 95
Posted on
September 09, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This is what we use to record episodes of “Call Kaye”.
Honesty boxing 55
Posted on
September 09, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Shall we keep track of some of the falsehoods printed by the Scottish and UK media today with regard to the Lord Ashcroft polling, and see which ones ever get corrected?
It seems like that’s the sort of thing we usually do, so we probably should.
Making up the numbers 72
Posted on
September 09, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We know “Better Together” has a history of mangling statistics beyond all recognition, but today’s effort might just take the biscuit. Their Facebook page and Twitter feed still carries a graphic distorting the true findings of today’s Lord Ashcroft polling to a degree so spectacular as to be unmeasurable.
It’s going to be hard to count all the untruths in that single image – partly because some of them are falsehoods on several different levels – but we’ll try.
The size of the task 158
Posted on
September 09, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Yesterday we ran a couple of features examining the sort of people the Yes campaign needs to convince if it’s to win the referendum in just over a year’s time, and how it might go about tackling that job. Today saw the release of a series of polls from Tory peer Lord Ashcroft that demonstrate just how big a challenge that’s going to present.
Because it’s not that the results show an electorate deeply committed to the Union (although they do suggest a large No majority, albeit from polling which was conducted as much as almost seven months ago), but because they illustrate just how little voters currently know about anything.
The convertibles and the others 107
Posted on
September 08, 2013 by
Douglas Daniel
As we’ve already noted today, those who don’t currently support independence can be split into two groups: those who can be persuaded to support it, and those who can’t.
For the purposes of winning the referendum it’s important to be able to tell the difference between the two, so as to avoid wasting time trying to convert the non-convertible, and spend our time instead on those who can be persuaded to vote Yes.
Hearts and minds 63
Posted on
September 08, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Scotland on Sunday this week carries a piece interviewing No voters to find out why they’re currently intending to keep Scotland governed by Westminster (following on from a similar article about Yes supporters last week). It’s an interesting snapshot of both diehards and people who could yet be turned round.
Let’s take a look and see who we’re dealing with.
