From Kezia Dugdale’s speech to the Scottish Labour conference yesterday:
So hang on – only people born in Scotland are “Scottish”? Bit controversial. But then again, given Scottish Labour’s constant pejorative use of the word “foreigner” in recent years, we probably shouldn’t be shocked.
We can hardly contain our joy, gentle readers, that Scottish Labour have brought this magnificent graphic from January back again, tweeting it several times yesterday with all the mindbogglingly fat-headed flaws from two months ago still present.
But we couldn’t help being struck by this new comment about it, by the branch office’s notoriously truth-averse finance spokesclown:
Let’s walk through that one really quickly. People can’t afford to save for a deposit, because rents are so high. So rather than do anything about rents, Labour will double the zero they HAVE managed to save, boosting it all the way up to, er, zero.
[EDIT 24 August 2016: This article has now been updated here.]
It’s Sunday, so there is of course one last convulsive orgy of “BLACK HOLE!” articles in all the papers, as every Unionist hack and pundit in the land falls over themselves to portray their own country as a useless scrounging subsidy junkie without actually using the exact words “too wee, too poor, too stupid”.
Everywhere you look there’s a “Proud Scot” screaming about how Scottish revenue this year being 1% lower than it was last year has comprehensively demolished a case for independence that those same people have spent most of the last four years stridently insisting never existed in the first place.
So before everyone moves on to a new “SCOTLAND BAD” next week, we thought it was worth a short recap of what we’ve learned about a devolved Scotland’s financial books this week.
We don’t normally ask you to watch videos as long as this, readers. (Although at 4m 22s it’s still not War And Peace.) As a rule the key part of any TV discussion can be boiled down to a few seconds, but this one needs to be taken in at a bit more length.
It happened on last night’s Question Time from Dundee, and was already 10 minutes into a discussion about whether there might be a second independence referendum and what might trigger it, in particular the prospect of Scotland voting to remain in the EU in June but the rest of the UK voting to leave, dragging Scotland out forcibly.
At that point, host David Dimbleby made an inexplicable intervention, abandoning his position as supposedly neutral moderator to pluck a “fact” out of thin air with which to attack the SNP’s John Swinney. Here’s what unfolded.
BBC1’s weekly Question Time political debate shows are heavily over-subscribed. Only a couple of hundred tickets are typically available for would-be members of the studio audience, and far more than that apply to attend, so your chances of getting through the initial vetting are fairly slim. You’re especially unlikely to be selected if you’re not from the city where the show is being held, for obvious reasons.
While the group of failed Scottish Labour parliamentary candidates is, let’s say, rather larger than it used to be, it’s still a pretty select club of a few dozen people.
And if you DO make it into the QT audience, the chances of you being picked out to speak are also rather poor – not more than 1 in 10 at best, probably nearer 1 in 20.
This week Scottish Labour have been attacking the SNP’s rather timid plans for the reform of Council Tax, which is an entirely fair and legitimate opposition pursuit.
But as is their wont, Kezia Dugdale’s branch office just can’t help overplaying their hand and doing it in a highly dishonest way.
The dogged determination of Scottish Labour to insult the Scottish electorate is a source of constant slack-jawed astonishment to us. Over the years we’ve lost count of the number of times the party’s politicians have effectively said “People are just too stupid to vote for us”, in the apparent belief that abuse is the way to win back support.
But it’s not always so overt. The subtler ways in which the party treats voters like morons include the assumption that people’s memories only go back to yesterday’s newspapers, and there can surely be no more stark illustration than its recent adoption of the attack line that the SNP are standing “shoulder to shoulder with the Tories”.
An interesting and illuminating exchange has taken place in the last few days between the First Minister and Times columnist Kenny Farquharson, one of the many senior journalists who’ve recently jumped from the sinking ship of The Scotsman to take up less prestigious but more secure positions elsewhere.
It started on Saturday night, when Farquharson tweeted this:
In what may be a new all-time low for the broadsheet press in Scotland, this morning’s Scottish edition of the Telegraph makes a front-page lead story out of a petition with a pathetic 4500 signatures, put together by some extremist Yoon nutters to express their rage that there might be a peak-time news show actually made in Scotland.
The idea of a so-called “Scottish Six”, whereby the main six o’clock news bulletin would be a single programme made by BBC Scotland and covering Scottish, UK and world news – rather than the current half-hour London-centric UK programme followed by 30 minutes of regional murdur’n’fitba in Reporting Scotland – has been exercising the media (and pretty much nobody else) for the best part of 20 years.
But now it’s become a constitutional battleground, and the funny thing about it is that the two sides are fighting bitterly over something neither of them actually really wants.
So after all the kerfuffle and commotion and comedy, a deal was done, of sorts. The unsquareable circle wasn’t squared, but the day of facing up to it was punted down the line for five years, by which point everyone hopes that it’ll be someone else’s problem. (Which is certainly the case for David Cameron.)
Every newspaper in Scotland tomorrow will look like this:
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “It’s a widely accepted point of view by many people across all of history that nothing happens that isn’t The…” Jul 25, 17:21
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I always wonder if the British Empire would have been half as successful as it was without the bagpipes, the…” Jul 25, 17:21
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Marie, 3:10 pm Aptly said, As can be witnessed The constant suppression & oppression of anyone whom speaks up for…” Jul 25, 17:15
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “For anyone seriously investigating Pictish, one resource online is the 2015 PhD thesis by Guto Rhys (329 page pdf) —…” Jul 25, 17:09
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: ““A’m aw fir gettin the Ingles AND the Scots telt tae bugger aff oot ma country” Classic Wings BTL activism…” Jul 25, 16:59
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I predict that the only “choice” this new party will offer Scotland is how many P@lestinian sizzlers we will take:…” Jul 25, 16:48
Chas on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I was reading your fascinating post. At the start of the second sentence my eyes were getting heavy. At the…” Jul 25, 16:43
sarah on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “100%Yes: Of course I would take a Corbyn-allowed vote BUT I’m not yet convinced that he would offer one. AND…” Jul 25, 16:35
Aidan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “@Bilbo – so you’re coming on here to announce you’ve been watching loads of porn?” Jul 25, 16:30
Andy Ellis on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “That presupposes the new party – once it has decided what to call itself which is hardly a great start…” Jul 25, 16:27
100%Yes on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Sarah, If Jeremy’s New party offered the Scots a vote for Independence then why wouldn’t anyone who actually wants Independence…” Jul 25, 15:53
Northcode on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Ideologies are like rubbish theatre of the romantic kind. That’s why Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s formula, ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’,…” Jul 25, 15:46
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Then that John Brown gave Victoria one for Scotland. Before you know it kilts are everywhere and the bloody bagpipes…” Jul 25, 15:41
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Mark Beggan, Nice of you to accept that they acted in Colonial behaviour when passing these three Acts in 1715,…” Jul 25, 15:23
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “If the Monarch can provide a signed Document from God that he has the divine right to rule, ….. I…” Jul 25, 15:11
Marie on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Yeah that must be why the World Bagpipe Championships is such a failure and no one bothers attending year on…” Jul 25, 15:10
Northcode on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Since the colonialists oan here be talkin pish the noo a thocht a wid broach a subject close tae ma…” Jul 25, 14:51
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Banning those bagpipes was an act of kindness by our Colonial masters.” Jul 25, 14:38
Captain Caveman on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Well yeah, I am “paid” – in stark contrast to you bloody pair, one imagines.” Jul 25, 14:35
Captain Caveman on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “‘… I suggest you calm down and maybe drink some tea. Then you can bask in the radiant glow of…” Jul 25, 14:33
DaveL on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “You’re right James, you’re right. ‘It doesn’t even matter whether the UN says yes to any of this,…’ but I…” Jul 25, 14:28
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “So what’s the problem. Just type in your age and let Pam and her five sisters do the rest.” Jul 25, 14:24
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “LORN, DAN, ALF BAIRD. Scotland were daft enough to let Colonialism happen to them. One of the first Colonial Acts…” Jul 25, 14:19
Aidan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Turns out I’m wrong, statement has just been posted from the secretariat of the UN General Assembly, the case of…” Jul 25, 14:16
Rob on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “It doesn’t even matter whether the UN says yes to any of this, assuming they are even interested. At best…” Jul 25, 14:11
Aidan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I knew you’d appear like clockwork to tell us that Elvis is still alive. If anyone in the UN is…” Jul 25, 14:10
James on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “DaveL; Don’t waste your time on these paid yoon w*nkers.” Jul 25, 14:07