Several weeks on, we still await answers from the No camp to several serious questions about their biggest donor, Ian Taylor of Vitol. But the ongoing furore (we’re really not sure issuing the Herald with a legal threat worked out the way Mr Taylor hoped it would) over his £500,000 donation has kept attention away from the other substantial contributors to the “Better Together” campaign fund.
Aberdeen local paper the Evening Express has decided to put that right, though.
Damn. That concerted Unionist smear campaign directed at us last month really hurt.
That’s 1,233,872 pageviews in April – almost quarter of a million up on the previous high, thanks to over 10,000 new first-time readers. We’ll try to struggle on.
We’ve spent a fair bit of time over the course of this website’s existence documenting the multi-media witch-hunts that invariably arise in the Scottish media whenever some obscure and/or anonymous independence supporter on the internet says something slightly intemperate (or even just expresses an unpopular opinion).
We especially enjoy contrasting it against the way that the elected, taxpayer-funded representatives of major political parties can get away unremarked with comparing the First Minister to dictators and genocidal mass murderers (of the sort “Better Together” donors like to give hundreds of thousands of pounds to).
The vast difference in the amount of media weight given to abusive behaviour from British nationalists and that from the independence side (the infamous “cybernats”) has long been a feature of Scottish political debate, but over the last 12 hours the phenomenon has seen an intriguing new twist.
This is Labour leader Ed Miliband on Radio 4’s “World At One” yesterday:
(From 16m 12s on iPlayer.)
“I think people are asking this very very important question about the country, which is, y’know, are our problems so deep that NOBODY can actually make a difference to them? My emphatic answer is yes.”
Ours is too, though to a slightly different question.
We had to be out most of yesterday, so we didn’t have time to cover a story which broke in the morning in several UK papers. 24 hours later, though, we can still find no mention of it in the Scottish media, which remains fully occupied in filling its pages with recycled wittering drivel about the pound.
This is a worrying state of affairs, because yesterday’s story is of direct concern to an awful lot more Scots than a hypothetical scaremongering fantasy about currency.
Weirdly, the front-page lead story of today’s Herald newspaper is (at the time of writing) completely absent from the online edition. We did a little digging and found that it had been somehow fused into a piece about three women and a baby being involved in a car crash, with no text.
Hopefully the Herald will fix the glitch soon, but in the meantime we’ve managed to get a hold of this low-resolution but (just barely) legible image.
Our survey of Scottish political website readership closed last night, and the results are in. And we must admit, we really didn’t see this one coming.
Remarkably, the winner of the poll – excellent news resource BBC Scotlandshire – was on 0 votes the day before voting closed, largely because we’d forgotten to include it. But to our surprise, in the small hours of the morning a whopping 1,011 votes arrived out of nowhere – or more specifically, according to our IP tracking, from a single building close to the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood.
When we checked, we found that it was the headquarters of a smaller and more amateurish news-reporting organisation, so we assume that lots of employees working the late shift had all decided to vote to express their admiration for a respected rival at once. (Curiously all from the same computer, and now we come to think about it, several hours after the poll had in fact closed.)
An alert reader pointed something interesting out to us this morning. STV News, the Telegraph and the Paisley Daily Express all carry an almost word-for-word-identical story (the only one with a byline is the Telegraph’s version, which credits it to the grumpy-looking Josie Ensor), all three of them headlined with slight variations on the phrase “Over 60 per cent unconvinced on Scottish independence”.
It refers to a poll conducted for the “Better Together” campaign, and reports its findings accurately. Or to be more precise, reports some of its findings.
We stumbled across this quite by accident yesterday. We think you’ll enjoy it.
The clip is from last year, and was aired on Canadian national news channel Sun News. Douglas Murray is a British writer who claims to be half-Scottish on account of unspecified links to Unionist breeding ground the Isle of Lewis, popular haunt of No-camp luminaries like Alistair Darling, virulent Labour anti-devolutionist Brian Wilson and controversial “Better Together” donor Ian Taylor.
Murray studied at Eton and Oxford and writes for august UK journals like the Spectator and Guardian, as well as appearing on numerous BBC political shows. For some reason, the Canadians consider him an expert on Scottish politics, qualified to inform and enlighten their viewers. See what you think.
The Scottish Co-operative Party’s 2011 manifesto is one full of co-operative and mutual solutions to the challenges faced in Scotland, issues of independence, devolution or the constitutional settlement did not feature. The annual Co-operative Party conference has passed motions which promote a view of Scotland playing a vital role in a United Kingdom.
We have noted the personal comments made by Mary Lockhart, a long serving Co-operative Party and Labour Party member. Mary has been a great advocate for co-operative and mutual solutions. Whilst we recognise that members of political parties hold differing, sometimes opposite, positions the views Mary has expressed are not shared by the Party. Mary has offered her resignation from the role of Chair of the Scottish Co-operative Party and the Scottish Executive committee has accepted this.“
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “Good Lord, Northy! So even the Picts are now using the lying language of the coloniser – English.” May 13, 19:30
100%Yes on The Broken Rainbow: “This policy of kicking Indy into the long grass is now showing in the opinion polls for the SNP. There…” May 13, 19:29
Northcode on The Hills Of Far Away: ““… insults aren’t meant to arguments…” To be or not to be, but where is the ‘be’… I forgot to…” May 13, 19:28
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: “You omitted to say where bare-faced lying fits in, Northy.” May 13, 19:27
Northcode on The Broken Rainbow: “Colonialists in this place very often mistake disruption for cleverness and noise for wit, but “the stone knows the difference”,…” May 13, 19:18
Northcode on The Hills Of Far Away: ““Calling people “thick cants” isn’t an argument either.” Correct, but then again insults aren’t meant to arguments… not directly, anyway.…” May 13, 19:08
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: “Well, well. So the Falklands now has an outfit backed by a state with the determination, skill, technology and balls…” May 13, 18:48
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: “@Aidan There’s a war crimes tribunal in permanent session atween Geri’s lugs. In the interests of efficiency, she volunteered to…” May 13, 18:40
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “Lucky for Scotland that the boys petitioning the UN make all of this democratic voting malarkey a pointless sideshow. Beats…” May 13, 18:35
duncanio on The Broken Rainbow: “I didn’t say it was an alternative. I said it was imperfect but less imperfect than FPTP. Otherwise you would…” May 13, 18:31
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: ““Do you think have a special, unique entitlement to type insults” Does not compute. Re-type and re-submit.” May 13, 18:25
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: ““Calling something “horseshit” isn’t an argument” Hark at Northy! Only yesterday he was calling people “thick cants”. Ken fit sane,…” May 13, 18:19
Jay on The Hills Of Far Away: “Commander-in-Chief Caveman, I’ve no idea whether you will read this.. What is pretentious in my comment? I do not pretend,…” May 13, 18:17
Captain Caveman on The Hills Of Far Away: “@Aidan “Of course people living in a rich and prosperous country cosplaying as victims is one thing you missed from…” May 13, 17:38
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “Ever since 2016, the SNP’s policy has basically been to kick it down the road for two years at a…” May 13, 17:33
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “It made zero difference to the point anyway. But gah, too many numbers flying around at once.” May 13, 17:32
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “But that’s not the alternative. The alternative is a proportional system that actually works.” May 13, 17:32
Aidan on The Hills Of Far Away: “Of course people living in a rich and prosperous country cosplaying as victims is one thing you missed from your…” May 13, 17:29
Aidan on The Hills Of Far Away: “Had Blair been tried and found guilty of being a war criminal, or even indicted?” May 13, 17:14
Captain Caveman on The Hills Of Far Away: “Regardless of the whys and wherefores, Jay, one thing is certain: you’re a pretentious, obnoxious, insufferable wanker. 🙂 Yup. Deffo…” May 13, 17:10
Aidan on The Broken Rainbow: “Then when the planned showdown in the 2029 General Election goes nowhere, there will always be the 2031 Holyrood election…” May 13, 17:03
Jay on The Hills Of Far Away: “To S. MacKay: firstly you need to learn how to express yourself, even at the level of punctuation. Secondly, constructing…” May 13, 16:49
Northcode on The Hills Of Far Away: “Calling something “horseshit” isn’t an argument. It’s a way of avoiding one. Exposing the mechanics of abusive power is not…” May 13, 16:13
100%Yes on The Broken Rainbow: “Watch yourself Kelly’s Eye will be crowing from the rooftops about the mistake, but he won’t admit he conned everyone…” May 13, 16:03
Lorncal on The Hills Of Far Away: “That should read: now concentrate…” May 13, 15:51
Lorncal on The Broken Rainbow: “O what a tangled web we weave…” May 13, 15:48
Campbell Clansman on The Broken Rainbow: “Interesting, Stu, that you peg the 2026 vote for the Indy parties (even nominally pro-Indy) at 42%. Because the latest…” May 13, 15:20
duncanio on The Broken Rainbow: “The AMS makes the overall result less disproportional rather than more proportional. It mitigates the winner tale all FPTP element…” May 13, 15:16
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “EMBARRASSING ARITHMETICAL ERROR CORRECTED.” May 13, 15:07
Geri on The Hills Of Far Away: “Blair & all his demonic spawn should be removed from every government office. He’s a war crim, not once, not…” May 13, 14:33
