Earlier today we made an observation about the overblown way the media has been covering the Scottish Government’s underspend of 1.3% of its budget (a figure about which the David Hume Institute today cooed approvingly “Even Mr Micawber could not budget more accurately”).
To nobody’s great amazement, Scottish Labour rentahonk Jackie Baillie – fresh from making a complete idiot of herself over the Michelle Thomson case – couldn’t resist jumping on the bandwagon.
Quite aside from the fact that it means no such thing – there’s no less money, it’s just that some of it will now be carried over and spent this year instead – we suppose the tweet does at least mean that Scottish Labour’s policy position is clear: the Scottish Government should always spend every penny of its budget. Right?
Earlier today we highlighted some of the social-media charm of Labour blogger and BBC pundit Ian Smart, after the Scottish branch office deputy leader Kezia Dugdale demanded that the First Minister should take a more pro-active role in policing the comments of party members on Twitter and Facebook.
Mr Smart’s history of incredibly abusive and offensive comments stretches back many years. But of course, it wouldn’t be reasonable to berate Scottish Labour for its failure to act if it wasn’t aware of them. So we had a trawl through his Twitter followers list just to see if there was anyone who might have noticed and brought it to the leadership’s attention so they could have a quiet word.
Impressive as it is in a party with Jackie Baillie in it, Kezia Dugdale has carved out quite a reputation in Scottish Labour as a specialist in making categorical statements of facts which turn out not to be true. So we were naturally sceptical when she claimed on today’s Sunday Politics Scotland that Stewart Hosie of the SNP hadn’t said whether a commitment to a second independence referendum would be in tomorrow’s SNP manifesto.
We thought that he had, and so did presenter Gordon Brewer, but Dugdale was most adamant – “I listened VERY carefully, very carefully indeed” – that he’d “dodged and dived” on the matter, and spent more than a minute of her interview saying so.
So we went back and checked, because that’s what we do.
Scottish Labour clearly get a pretty good deal from the printers’ shop that makes the giant pound coins, because they’re waving them around again.
The North British branch office’s latest wizard jape is to upset all the people who they urged to join for £5 just last month – never mind the gullible saps forking out nine times that much – by offering cut-price memberships at £1 a year.
It’s what the retail trade calls a “loss leader” – in effect the party will be paying people to join, because £1 won’t come anywhere near to covering the cost of processing each new member, sending them a membership card and so on.
Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale today marked the historic nomination of Scotland’s first female First Minister with a Daily Record column in characteristically sour style, which waited until the second paragraph before sticking in a Margaret Thatcher comparison.
Here are two snippets from a couple of recent “Better Together” leaflets:
Curiously, that 16% increase has fallen to 13% in their latest “briefing” full of made-up numbers Blair McDougall has pulled out of – well, let’s be polite and say “thin air”. But since they’ve been specifically named, let’s just check the claim with Tesco.
Alert readers will be aware that even in a campaign characterised by dishonesty, the ever-smirking Labour MSP Jackie Baillie has carved a reputation for especially notable creativity with the truth. With our hands on our hearts, we don’t think we’ve ever heard her say anything that wasn’t a lie. However, on last night’s The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4, we believe she reached a spectacular personal best. Have a listen.
If you can’t quite believe your ears, we’ll transcribe that for you.
The media and the No camp, in so far as those are two different things, got incredibly excited today about some comments made by new European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in which he said that the EU wouldn’t undergo any further enlargement for the next five years.
If you’re a politician in Scotland and you want to do something with the smallest possible amount of scrutiny, Friday is the day you choose. Neither of the major nightly current-affairs shows have Friday editions (we’re actually not entirely sure why that is), so unless you make a REAL mess of something you can be sure the news agenda will have moved on by the time Monday rolls around.
We suspect that the CBI’s mind-boggling decision to abandon its position of being part of the official No campaign falls firmly into that category and will be pretty thoroughly chewed over in the next couple of days (despite them doing their very best to bury it by announcing it at six o’clock on a Friday evening), so we’re going to stick to our original plan and talk about Ed Miliband instead.
Graf Midgehunter on That worth remembering: “Ooooh, hatey the mug’s dummy just got bitten to death…. 🙂” Nov 1, 00:27
Geri on That worth remembering: “Speaking of sponging immigrants. I’d bet good money you aren’t Scottish. You strike me as a rUK interloper. Germany is…” Oct 31, 22:46
Geri on That worth remembering: “That’s yer Union for ye. Its shit innit? You voted to keep it so suck it up, sunshine. The SNP…” Oct 31, 22:31
Geri on That worth remembering: “Who says we cant? You? You must’ve missed the seismic BRICS conference last week. Countries are trading in their own…” Oct 31, 22:22
James on That worth remembering: “Your numbers all seem to be in red though? Wee John’s too….” Oct 31, 22:13
Geri on That worth remembering: “Your country. Who are you kidding? I’ve yet to read you actually say anything positive about Scotland.” Oct 31, 22:10
Geri on That worth remembering: “I dunno why Stu puts up with his shit on here. He’d have been blocked on X within two minutes…” Oct 31, 22:07
Hatey McHateface on That worth remembering: “Sorry Rev, I didn’t realise it was yersel 🙂 “Creep”, eh? Is that one you learned when you were 8…” Oct 31, 21:22
gregor on That worth remembering: “Isn’t family awesome (and will be even better heiding forwards…). Sister Sledge: We Are Family: He’s the Greatest Dancer: “The…” Oct 31, 21:14
Michael Laing on That worth remembering: “And who are you to dictate who should be permitted to comment on WOS and what views they should express,…” Oct 31, 21:02
Michael Laing on That worth remembering: “I wish you would fuck off out of this place the first chance you get, Faceache. Where on earth do…” Oct 31, 20:54
Murdo Ritchie on That worth remembering: “Friends of Socialist China have an excellent article full of praise for him. He, along with Neale Hanvey, were among…” Oct 31, 20:48
Hatey McHateface on That worth remembering: “He’s trying to get everybody to respect and honour my country by refusing to write her name correctly. We’ve all…” Oct 31, 20:38
Hatey McHateface on That worth remembering: “Cheers. The budget just reveals the abysmal state of the UK and the decades of pain that will have to…” Oct 31, 20:34
George Ferguson on That worth remembering: “The decision to drop juryless trials was a good one. I particularly liked the representative of the Scottish Solicitors Bar…” Oct 31, 20:27
Dick Wall on That worth remembering: “Thanks so much for this thoughtful collection. The best one is from the lawyers. It is very moving indeed. I…” Oct 31, 20:21
Alf Baird on That worth remembering: “As Cesaire wrote, colonialism depends on its “confidential agents pensioned off at high reward”.” Oct 31, 20:12
Chas on That worth remembering: “Thanks. I see some of your posts are now in blue, Is this a pathetic means of trying to draw…” Oct 31, 19:49
Chas on That worth remembering: “Your posts offer a balance to some from the more extreme nutters out there. Have you noticed how they all…” Oct 31, 19:37
Hatey McHateface on That worth remembering: “I’m defo going to get one the day the AfD comes to power in Germany and throws all you carpet-bagging,…” Oct 31, 19:34
moixx on That worth remembering: “Email from For Women Scotland: DEMO AT THE GERMAN CONSULATE, EDINBURGH Germany recently passed the Gender Self-Determination Act which comes…” Oct 31, 19:32
Hatey McHateface on That worth remembering: “Sure, the tunes’s in ma heid now, although I’m picturing the Family Guy episode where Stewie is training Brian to…” Oct 31, 19:24
Graf Midgehunter on That worth remembering: “Hatey face said: “A smidge disappointed not to get a name check, Chas. Guess I’m going to have to try…” Oct 31, 19:24
Republicofscotland on That worth remembering: “You certainly weren’t missed under the moniker of Chas – pity Main/HatyMc still hangs around like a bad smell.” Oct 31, 19:20
Graf Midgehunter on That worth remembering: “Chas said: “t has been a good few months since I last posted on Wings.”. Yes, those few months were…” Oct 31, 19:18
Hatey McHateface on That worth remembering: “A smidge disappointed not to get a name check, Chas. Guess I’m going to have to try harder.” Oct 31, 19:01
Shug on That worth remembering: “Does anyone understand why Swinney is content to be the man responsible for an SNP wipe out. I really dont…” Oct 31, 18:53
Chas on That worth remembering: “It has been a good few months since I last posted on Wings. To be fair to myself I have…” Oct 31, 17:48
