It seems that it’s fine to farm important judgments out to mysterious shadowy figures who just make important chunks of them up out of thin air, and then issue them in your own name. Back in your boxes, plebs.
This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.
It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.
My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.
Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.
It’s almost – almost – worth voting SNP in May because of this:
Because it would be at least momentarily absolutely hilarious watching Swinney try to explain why his “100% guaranteed” second indyref didn’t happen if the SNP actually did get a majority on 30% of the vote (which is narrowly feasible on current polling).
This week The National published a poll it commissioned from Find Out Now for this May’s Scottish Parliament election, alongside a seat projection from Sir John Curtice. Here are the list-vote figures from the poll.
The seat projection calculated that the election would result in 59 SNP MSPs (six short of the number John Swinney says is the minimum needed to force a second indyref), 25 for Reform, 13 for the Greens, 12 each for Labour and the Tories and eight for the Lib Dems.
It didn’t specify how many of the seats were constituency ones and how many were list ones, so we dropped Sir John a line and asked him.
Yesterday we noted in passing that independence support now outstrips that of the SNP by more than 20 points, making the party into a gigantic liability as the vehicle for enabling Scots to leave the UK. Put simply, even when voters want independence (as most now do), they’re not willing to vote SNP to get it.
(Not, of course, that they WOULD get it if they voted SNP – the party still having no coherent or credible strategy to achieve it – but more than 40% of would-be Yes voters are no longer prepared to even try giving them the benefit of yet another mandate.)
And since what everyone loves most of all on New Year’s Day is a good old wade in some political stats, we thought we’d take a little more detail on that.
With Reform now pretty consistently miles in front in polling for the next UK election, logically this is brilliant news for the Scottish independence movement, isn’t it?
So can anyone explain why the SNP is so desperate to stop them?
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “You are all singing from the same BBC hymn sheet. Nothing will distract from the disaster that is now Scotland.…” Jul 6, 19:56
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “You don’t vote but you could go on and on about Reform. You are suddenly an expert on Reform corruption.…” Jul 6, 19:38
Alf Baird on Search And Replace: ““committed racists” Colonialism is described as ‘hateful racism’ (Cesaire); thus, colonialists must be ‘committed racists’. Scots ‘unionists’ evidently still need…” Jul 6, 19:13
Hatey McHateface on Search And Replace: ““The oppressive jackboot of the coloniser will never be lifted from the throats of the wretched, nor the alien, colonising…” Jul 6, 19:02
Hatey McHateface on Search And Replace: “The Central and Southern American peoples who practiced centralised government, settled agriculture, irrigation and monumental building in stone were not…” Jul 6, 18:53
James on Search And Replace: “Is it no past your bed time wee man? “…..I don’t know whether you’re doing your regular piss take or…” Jul 6, 18:39
robertkknight on Search And Replace: “Sure, and the only way to beat a cocaine addiction is to use heroine and vote Reform. Any other random…” Jul 6, 18:33
TURABDIN on Search And Replace: “on the subject of «areswipes», this ought to win a prize for the AI generated variety. https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/eustons-transformation-success-depends-on-taking-a-people-and-place-based-approach-03-07-2026/ London the Great…” Jul 6, 16:40
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “The only way Scotland can even begin to start a fresh independence movement is to learn from the past and…” Jul 6, 16:26
Marie on Search And Replace: “Hate-filled @ 11.59hrs. You haven’t been cruel to me in the slightest. I am well aware of the theft of…” Jul 6, 16:04
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “Dave the Jewish Jew hater.” Jul 6, 15:56
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “@Hatey That’s the point about these people. They are in a constant state of funeral.” Jul 6, 15:45
Hatey McHateface on Search And Replace: “Finding out his real name is Dave was the last straw.” Jul 6, 15:31
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “Police told “stop the woke culture and get on with catching criminals” Are Police Scotland listening?” Jul 6, 15:17
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “Big ugly Zak is getting the chop. Way to toxic for the liberals and not Marxist enough for the Antifa…” Jul 6, 15:02
Hatey McHateface on Search And Replace: “In excess of 7 million deaths were attributed to Covid by April 2024 when the gathering of international statistics ceased.…” Jul 6, 14:59
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “Is it not time you started sharing those drugs you are on so the rest of us can keep up?” Jul 6, 14:47
Hatey McHateface on Search And Replace: “Credit where credit’s due, Mark. They know how to stage a good funeral. I doubt that even the North Koreans…” Jul 6, 14:31
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “Tuberculosis was the weapon used. Very effective. Maximum fatality. No cure at that time. The same method used successfully all…” Jul 6, 14:29
Hatey McHateface on Search And Replace: “Ah, c’moan noo, Confused. I can’t believe you’re lumping appeals for G@z@ in with that.” Jul 6, 14:19
Mark Beggan on Search And Replace: “You never mentioned the Tea Towel carpet lickers. You know. The inbreds who think it’s still the 8th Century and…” Jul 6, 14:11
Hatey McHateface on Search And Replace: “I wondered if somebody would post that the Aztecs “had it coming”. Thanks, Confused. Good to be reminded occasionally, if…” Jul 6, 14:09
james on Search And Replace: “Lorncal There is no specific statutory laws under Scots law that concern the “ring-fencing” of internal political donations. However case…” Jul 6, 14:08
Captain Caveman on Search And Replace: “Do you reckon Fanon would send the ‘keeper the wrong way in a penalty shoot out, Alf? He might be…” Jul 6, 14:08
Lorncal on Search And Replace: “crazycat: I’m not doubting you. I am doubting their sanity. Why would anyone who is a Green donate to a…” Jul 6, 14:02
Alf Baird on Search And Replace: ““Between them, Fanon, Cesaire, Elkins, Purves and Jonesy have covered everything else we will ever need to know.” Yes, that’s…” Jul 6, 13:33
Confused on Search And Replace: “I raised, in total, 50 quid for the venezuelan earthquake victims. – after expenses (a nice jalfrezi and a couple…” Jul 6, 13:23
Confused on Search And Replace: “america’s early ruling class were all puritans; remember the puritans were mad protestants who were too fucking mad even for…” Jul 6, 13:19
MaryB on Search And Replace: “STV, BBC, Yes Scotland, OBE. Hmm” Jul 6, 13:16
Southernbystander on Search And Replace: “Excuses, excuses, never-ending excuses. You’ll get nowhere like this you know.” Jul 6, 12:44
