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Quiet Times For Scotland

Posted on March 19, 2023 by

You might think that Scottish political journalists would all be in a shark-like frenzy of excitement at the events of the last few days. But not over on The Guardian.

Apparently it’s all a bit too much for the delicate wee flowers.

Carrell last tweeted five days ago.

And it’s not that he’s been too busy pumping out stories for the paper to be on Twitter – the Scotland section on the website has had just two articles on Scottish politics in the last two days, both penned by “Scotland correspondent” Libby Brooks.

Carrell’s last byline was on Tuesday, a soporific 560-word piece on the BBC debate. (For reference, the post you’re reading now is 235 words long and took us about 12 minutes, most of which was spent taking the screengrabs.)

Brooks, meanwhile, has had little to say either. Her last tweet of any kind was three days ago, and her last one about the current events in the SNP was also on Tuesday.

The entire coverage of Scotland in today’s Observer is this, on page 9:

We don’t know what being a Scotland correspondent/editor for the Guardian pays, but it definitely looks like it should leave a person plenty spare time for a few tweets, and possibly also to write several novels, learn Mandarin and climb Mount Everest. We might get our CV in, just in case a vacancy crops up. We could do with the rest.

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  1. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    Surely nothing to do with the fact that the job description for many Scottish political journos seems to be regurgitating copy from SNP spin Dr’s…

    Or that many journos have been so bought into the fantasy of “oor Nicola”, scotlands answer to Jacinda Ardern, that when the scheming corrupt lying wee besom has been outed for what she is, they don’t want to face up to the resultant eating of humble pie and self reflection that would be required for them to face up to how wrong their judgement on Nicola Sturgeon has been.

  2. Cuilean
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘Stepping back from delivering the news, until there is no news to deliver’.

    Gee, I wish I was employed by a ‘newspaper’ that daft.

  3. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry, Rev, they wouldn’t take you on as it would show the others up.

  4. Charles Hodgson
    Ignored
    says:

    Should’ve got Owen Jones on it – the trans activist case for a misogynist independent Scotland.
    Creep even threw Jeremy Corbyn under the bus for the Israel Lobby’s trumped-up antisemitism charges.
    The Guardian is pathetic.

  5. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Murrell on the turnip page?

    Surely not a coincidence

  6. SteepBrae
    Ignored
    says:

    They’ve been telt

  7. Cath
    Ignored
    says:

    Kind of difficult to report the news when you’ve been complicit in the worst parts of it.

  8. The Black Douglas
    Ignored
    says:

    Alex Salmond mis-judged the wee besom also and paid for it big-time.
    She has that on her conscience as well.

  9. Big Jock
    Ignored
    says:

    No mention on Radio Shortbread of the link between the missing money, membership lies, possible illegal election activities, Murrell, Salmond, Livingstone and possible perjury.

    Nothing to see!

  10. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    As a long time Guardian reader, I can say without fear of contradiction,
    that the Guardian, Severin Carrell, and Libby Brooks, are anything other than pro-Union.
    I’d go further and say the Guardian is barely interested in Scotland, and holds the traditional Colonial view.
    So why read it, you may well ask.
    Well, the Guardian is not owned by anyone in particular, is not pro-Tory,
    and has some really excellent writers, of whom I particularly enjoy John Crace
    and Marina Hyde.
    As for the SNP collapse, it is of little consequence to the Guardian,
    as it is to the rest of England.

  11. Geoff Anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    The so called journalists enjoyed the easy life of rehashing Party Political Press releases and
    Spewing out Unionist propaganda without challenge.

    We are educated, (thanks Stu), that headlines are unconnected to the drivel that follows.
    We are no longer sitting in awe as the State presents a glossy Pathé News style story.

    I watch those pathetic journalist presenting a propaganda piece with the fake prop of a little notebook in hand.

    I have gained a greater insight into politics over the last 10 years from bloggers and posters than from any so called journalist that a certain judge recognises as correct/legitimate.

    The MSM are pointless propaganda “tools” ( in both senses)

  12. Vestas
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone who remembers “Libby” Brooks from 2014 KNOWS what she is. A lying piece of shit who has a fleeting acquaintance with truth.

    Severin Carrell of course is a privately educated tory dedicated to unionism. End of story.

    The Guardian has as many privately educated hacks as the Telegraph (some of whom work/worked for both papers at the same time) and under Viner you’d be a fool to beleive anything they publish.

  13. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Every day a school day.

    I had absolutely no idea that the leadership contenders had all vowed to eradicate poverty. Although the meat of the article waters down the commitment to just “eradicating poverty would be their main goal”.

    Still fantastic news though, and mystifying to me how I am only just finding it out.

    It’s on a par with the pledge to end homelessness that I remember so well from the bad old days of SLab.

    Anyone care for a continuity carrot? I can’t help thinking that if eradicating poverty is your main goal, then Indy can be no more than your secondary goal.

  14. Vivian O’Blivion
    Ignored
    says:

    Kath Viner turned the Guardian media group into an outstation of Thames House and Vauxhall Cross.

  15. sadscot
    Ignored
    says:

    “I’ve said from day one, since I launched my campaign, that internal reform is very much needed and certainly I will be looking to see what I can do to shake up that operation at headquarters from day one.”
    Reposting this here. This was Yousaf today in an interview. It was another lie he wasn’t challenged on. He has not been talking about internal reform or shaking anything up. He has been for one thing only. Continuity. Yet no one challenged him. It looks like, despite everything, the media still intend to give him an easy ride.

  16. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    I was hoping to spend a quiet Sunday drinking salty tears and listening to the screeching …

    this may send shockwaves round the world – the first defeat of woke occupied satrap comprador-elite gubmint; they’ve been parachuting them in, this is the first booting out.

    rainbow flag replaced the saltire? – never

  17. bipod
    Ignored
    says:

    If it isn’t a puff piece about the SNP/Nicola sturgeon or indy ref 2 then the English media establishment isn’t going to report on it. There is a total ignorance of Scottish politics in England, watch any UK political show discussing Scotland and it will be full of commentators talking about how Nicola sturgeon is the greatest threat to the union, that she is single mindedly chasing Indy ref 2 and not governing etc…

    We all know how ridiculous that is, Nicola and the majority of the SNPs elected representatives haven’t gave a shit about independence for years.

    Stories about serious political corruption are just too complicated and don’t have the same appeal to an audience with only a very shallow understanding of Scottish politics.

  18. Wullie B
    Ignored
    says:

    Okay Stu, what is brewing, or is it another Smitty comment incoming
    https://mobile.twitter.com/hopeoverfear01/status/1637399652378062849

  19. Mark Boyle
    Ignored
    says:

    Pretentious people who want to be thought of as “nice” read the Guardian, but anyone who bothers to read a selection of newspapers knows that your dyed in the wool Guardianista is lower than vermin.

    It’s demographic is upper middle class, arts & crafts types or pseudo-intellectuals (ie. got a degree and think that makes them a fking Hogwarts Professor of Everything) who only see the world as they want to see it – those who have mentally never progressed beyond childhood – living in self styled “bohemian” parts of town or out in the sticks, preaching social justice platitudes to the rest of humanity which secretly they regard as scum.

    Just so long as the tangible effects of their “radicalism” – the asylum accommodation, the renewable energy resources, the fashionable protected groups resources never subjected to checks – are all housed far away from their homes, they’re happy to congratulate themselves on how progressive they are.

    And of course, they’re masters of “don’t do as we do, do as we say.” The private school because “girls do better in single sex classes, and Titania is a sensitive child with special needs”. The private health plan because “it helps cut down NHS waiting lists” (the fact the surgeon is an NHSer moonlighting for extra bucks isn’t mentioned). The au pair rather than the minimum wage domestic because it’s all about the “cultural enrichment”. The unpaid interns rather than paid staff.

    They are a menace to society at large, but most bitterly ironic of all, they are a menace to those groups they parachute in and proffer patronage to (whether they want it or not – and once they start having misgivings, it’s too late) for self-aggrandisement and to hell that they do ten times more to alienate them with the general population than anything they’ll ever do themselves.

    That so many ex-Guardian columnists are now at the Telegraph says it all. Much as I love that paper (ironically I read better left-wing content there, amid all the Thatcher loving idiocy), the appearence of Burchill, Moore and the rest of those Four Estate refugees from the Scott Trust hivemind leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. The sort still fangirling over oxygen thieves like Ian “Class War” Bone who have never done a stroke in their lives any more than those they criticise.

    It could be worse. That old bastard Edward Pearce could still be alive writing for The Guardian, tutting about the ingratitude of we “Scotch” not knowing our place and how jolly luck we are to be run by the English.

  20. Beauvais
    Ignored
    says:

    mike cassidy @12:50

    “Murrell on the turnip page?” .

    Murrell on the Turpin page, it should be. Since he’s a robber. As well as being a Dick.

  21. SteepBrae
    Ignored
    says:

    manandboy at 1.16pm

    “Well, the Guardian is not owned by anyone…”

    more boy than man?

  22. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    The dog that didn’t bark.

    Compare and contrast with the media feeding frenzy at the Alex Salmond stitch up, all circled like sharks and sang from the same hymn sheet.

    Almost as if the Fall of the House of Murrell is not being driven by the UK/Britnat state.

    Technically, the Brits, should be exploiting this ‘clusterfuck’ of the SNP collapse with enthusiasm and glee. After all, it damages the Indy movement….

    Instead, they appear to have battened down the hatches and arranged damage limitation procedures.

    Right now, my guess, their biggest fear, is that the Yes movement that were loyal to Nikla, are finally hearing one bit of evidence too much for the camel’s back to withstand, and there is a real chance for the Yes movement to unite again.

    Be very interesting to identify those high heid yins within the SNP who start to steer the ship for same old, same old.

    I wonder if the rumoured Fraud (not the 600,000) but the other one, involving Scotland’s resources…. I wonder if the numbers that might come out of that, will demonstrate, once and for all Scotland’s phenominal wealth.

  23. Oneliner
    Ignored
    says:

    Let’s not forget, the SNP will be looking for a new press officer. Best not upset the (bad) applecart if you aim to be a player.

  24. Jontoscots21
    Ignored
    says:

    Matt Taibi nails the quality and character of modern journos these days. They are basically
    press release purveyors and pet cause promoters. They aren’t interested in genuine stories. Here new digital variant spend their time reading other MSM digital pages. Then if some woke cause they treasure or beleaguered left politician gets a kicking they send a defence tweet. We can also rely on them getting involved in a pile on of some hated bete noire of the woke left. Nice work if you can get it and having a posh name like Severin or Libby usually gets you in the door. Finally as MT says echoing the Rev, when a big story threatening to tell the public the truth they deflect suppress it.

  25. Ian McCubbin
    Ignored
    says:

    Mum maybe there best copy stream has stopped and its some time since any of them have actually written anything on Scottish politics from original research.
    I am being kind, ha ha.

  26. Ian
    Ignored
    says:

    While that is true of their so-called ‘Scotland correspondents’, they did run a piece by Lesley Riddoch on Wednesday, asking some pertinent questions about Murrell and Humza:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/15/post-sturgeon-snp-leadership-contest

  27. Peter C
    Ignored
    says:

    Meanwhile good ol’ Mike “Let’s Privatise the NHS” Russell steps into the breach. What a stand up guy! Just the kind of cnut you would want looking out for your back!

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/11/its-only-words/

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/11/michael-russell-neo-liberal/

  28. sadscot
    Ignored
    says:

    I saw that article by Riddoch at the time, Ian, but I think Riddoch should have spoken up long before now. She’s had her head in the sand for a long time and would hear/see/speak no evil on everything that was happening in the SNP. She is not someone who is out of touch so that means she was deciding to wheesht. That disappointed me.

  29. Jason Smoothpiece
    Ignored
    says:

    The old SNP getting a doing on the Sunday Mail. SNP full of perverts apparently who would have thought.

  30. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    sadscot says:
    19 March, 2023 at 1:24 pm
    It looks like, despite everything, the media still intend to give him an easy ride.

    Until he is elected leader, that is. Then they wont hold back. The British establishment clearly want Humza Yousaf as FM. The cunning plan is to set up a crap FM, then completely destroy him and set back the independence movement for another 10 years (at least). The other two candidates would be much harder work.

    Mike Russell seems to be saying that the (now discredited) leadership election will continue as before, with the winner announced next week. All above board (not). Aye Mike, keep on digging – yer doing a fine job!

  31. sadscot
    Ignored
    says:

    @Luigi
    Yes, indeed. The only reason the media has backed Yousaf is they want him in. They know that with him at the helm there’s only one place the SNP will go and that’s straight out of office. And, yes, finally, they will go after him with all the lies he’s told during this period because the timing, once he’s installed, will suit their purpose.
    This is why I now believe that journalists in the MSM are even more corrupt than politicians.

  32. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotland does not matter to the Anglos, may as well be the land of the «towel heads», a far country about which they know nothing except what their prejudice tells them and they prefer it that way, with that in mind….
    On this day in 2003 the (illegal) allied invasion of Iraq began. My parents, siblings, grand parents, uncles, aunts etc remember the shock and awe of it well. A certain Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, a Edinburgh born English lawyer, believes Putin ought to be arrested for his activities.
    Being literally a child of that invasion year I can think of political and military persons Mr Khan might likewise investigate for quite serious criminal breaches of international law in the prosecution of that oleaginous intervention of «liberation»
    He might cast also his expertise over Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and all the way back to Vietnam and Cambodia.
    There is «International Law» and international law with severe amnesia it seems.
    Saddam and Qadhafi were bad but the West’s self serving, sanctimonious solutions defy words.
    An independent Scotland must be independent also in foreign policy.
    Dancing to the Nato tune is a «marche macabre».

  33. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Meh, stick a few trans-women in male prison and The Guardian will be all over it condemning the new far-right government as they appease their real readership which are the woke technorati in the USA. After all, Trump is Scottish and Bella Caledonia did feature that photo of Kate Forbes in QAnon head-gear so it’s just a matter of time before they cash in on the fascist state, somewhere north of King Cross.

  34. Grouser
    Ignored
    says:

    Mike Russell had an interview with the BBC:
    “Mr Russell said he did not know that the SNP membership numbers had dropped by about a third over about two years, and said he did not know if it was related to the controversial Gender Recognition Reform bill.

    “We were losing members and we were losing members that we should have known about, absolutely,” he said.

    “We were clearly not told about that. That is something I want to know why that took place, but I don’t want to know it this week.”

    Who was he talking to and what was he reading during that time?

    If Mr Russell did not know that the SNP were losing members over the period of two years then he was the only one that didn’t know that. It seems very unlikely given his position as President of the SNP.

  35. Merganser
    Ignored
    says:

    Wullie B @ 1.27.

    Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice springs to mind. Money paid to or for witnesses perhaps, for services rendered, which was supposedly ring fenced for other purposes. Companies set up to try and hide the trail?

    Plod has stumbled on something big by the looks of it – much bigger than just the ‘woven through the accounts’ allegation.

    Just a guess.

  36. Geoff Anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    “,,,after most folk have voted”

    She slipped up and it is clear she has inside knowledge.

    https://twitter.com/MhairiHunter/status/1637408506667048960?s=20

  37. Andy
    Ignored
    says:

    One might almost suspect that Mr Carrell is angling for a certain recently-vacated Holyrood senior comms position.

  38. FionaN
    Ignored
    says:

    I have been appalled over the past two days or so, to read all the filth still burbling out the mouths of nuSNP members, and the way they have resorted to crap about AS being behind the nusnp hierarchy collapse, Regan as an Alba plant, dragging up the stitch-up to repeatedly smear AS again etc. They just refuse to look or listen to reality. And so many of them are smugly announcing they have voted for Useless.

    I’ve decided that there is no point in expending any further energy on them whatsoever, or on that party which is obviously now beyond salvage.

    Let Useless win and let him do his best(worst) and let them all reap the consequences of their blinkered foolish efforts to convince themselves that they were right all along, let them suffer the far worse hurt that will surely come to them once they can no longer find a scapegoat to hide behind. Meantime, all my energies and efforts (which isnt a lot but I do what I can) will go into Alba, Salvo and Liberation.scot. I look forward to advances in these so far untainted branches of the Yes Movement. The snp is no more as far as I am concerned.I am airbrushing it out of my reality in the same way the nusnp and media pals have tried to airbrush AS, Alba and Salvo out of popular collective ‘reality for sheeples’

  39. Paul Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    The Guardian is in mourning. It’s beloved woke agenda has been given one hell of a kicking during this episode. Hardly surprising that it is trying to pretend none of it has happened.

  40. Karen
    Ignored
    says:

    The i newspaper yesterday “Scottish Edition” only has a tiny piece about the Scotland Italy Six Nations game, about a sixth of the piece about England, and also smaller than the piece about Wales. It also said England could still finish second if they only got a bonus point over Ireland and overturn a 68 points deficit to France!

    I wonder who got the NS speech writer’s job?

  41. Geoff Anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main

    My recollection differs. Humza and Kate went on the poverty line. Ash said judge me on the NHS. I’m happy to be corrected.

  42. Karen
    Ignored
    says:

    Conspiracy, perjury, contempt of court, fraud, misconduct in public office, defamation, probably some grooming in there too…

  43. Garrion
    Ignored
    says:

    Why should Severin (bad cop) and Libby (less bad cop) need to write anything while the SNP tears itself apart?

  44. Derek
    Ignored
    says:

    Interestingly, all three candidates are mentioned by name once each in the article. Yousaf is mentioned as praising Peter Murrell (positive reinforcement), and Forbes and Regan together as questioning the integrity of systems (negative).

    Well, I thought it was interesting…!

  45. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    Carrell at least did one noticeable thing. Which was to bail up the French Consul for his side of leakgate or liagate or whatever it was.

    He came with us in Dundee RIC for a lunchtime canvass round the road from where I now work. my colleague and I uncovered a whole house full of yessers. Carrell turned up and proceeded to insult the gentleman of the house on his own doorstep. I saw the man’s hands clench. Carrell was lucky not to get lamped.

    No report of the episode ever appeared on the Graun.

  46. Jontoscots21
    Ignored
    says:

    Peter Murell; A Turnip for the Spooks.

  47. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @@Geoff Anderson 3:23

    No correction needed.

    You recall it right. I got it wrong.

  48. President Xiden
    Ignored
    says:

    There is still hope for the SNP, as the Greens have shown, in certain circumstances you can can still wield a lot of power even if hardly anyone votes for you.

  49. Vestas
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh look – a puff piece from “Libby” for Kate Forbes…….

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/19/kate-forbes-must-convert-warmth-into-votes-in-the-highlands

    What a shocker eh?

    I guess we know who the MSM want now that Yousaf is unacceptable.

    Best will in the world, Forbes is way too young and inexperienced to do the job, nor will she clear out the corruption in the SNP.

    SNP are still over and done with.

  50. Ann+Rayner
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotland section of the Guardian is a sick joke!

  51. gregor
    Ignored
    says:

    The Media Whores (2022): Stop Making Stupid People Famous: Zombies in Mayfair:

    “…You’re so egocentric
    You’re making me sick…

    The Zombies in Mayfair
    Never ever-ever play fair…

    You’re the corporation slut
    You’ve got your eyes glued shut…”:

    https://tinyurl.com/bdc2jn6w

  52. gregor
    Ignored
    says:

    End Wokeness (19/03/2023): Twitter:

    “…The Guardian took $12.9 million from the Bill Gates Foundation NBC took $4.3 million from the Bill Gates Foundation BBC took $3.6 million from the Bill Gates Foundation CNN took $3.6 million from the Bill Gates Foundation.”:

    Elon Musk:

    “I’m sure this didn’t affect their coverage of him at all.”:

    https://archive.ph/TOcb2

  53. Thistle Bristle
    Ignored
    says:

    Items:

    1.Non-reporting of surely UK-significant news pertaining to..

    2. The demise we may hope) or at least extreme partial discomfoture of cultist SNP corrupt wokedom.

    3. Evident keenness among SNP, Greens, and enablers in other parties to promote gender questioning and sexual awareness in school-age citizens, with puberty-blockers(sic), gender-affirming(sic) pronouns&surgery(sic), etc etc with no dissent allowed.. till the Isla Bryson(sic) debacle hit the fan..

    4. The recently-announced need for five months’ worth of repairs to Bute House, during which incoming incumbents seemingly cannot gain entry but absolutely must reside/work elsewhere in the interim.

    5. Sundry other oddities and irregularities concerning: Police Scotland, COPFS, this or that Advocate on high in ScotParl; who is prosecuted, imprisoned, identity-protected, let off scot-(!)-free..

    Well, could it all hinge on literal cultism fostered from Bute House?

    Co-devotees of Baphonet, Jabulon, or whatever, bound to obedience by oaths, shared secrecy, secret video/audio recordings used for blackmail, free-sex antics and/or intimate relationships, etc?

    How many are Free(sic)mason(sic)s?

    The Dunblane connection.. coincidence?.. Didn’t Peter Hamilton of evil memory also have a residence there and also seem to have his freedoms oddly protected despite ample prior evidence he was a wrong sort?

    At Bute House, are there profane statues to remove? Altars to dismantle? Pentagrams to erase? One-way mirrors? Bugs and taps? Soundproofing? Shackles for S&M consensual sex acts – or actual torture? Secretvrooms, secret stashes, treasure in chests, skeletons in cupboards, disjecta membra, dead bodies?

    Of course not. What silly nonsense!

    The insanity that has festered at the heart of Scottish politics for roughly a decade must have explanations perfectly rational and without any such taint of perverted or demented or outright wicked thought and doings..

    After all, we’re all modern now, aren’t we?

  54. DMcV
    Ignored
    says:

    Thin gruel, Stu. If you or your slavering acolytes seriously think Sev Carrell is going easy on the SNP leadership because he’s biased in their favour, you don’t read The Graun much. In general it’s hysterically Union Jackist in its Scottish coverage, just as much as the Daily Mail it affects to hate. And that’s all down to Sev, who’s known for his worshipful pen portraits of the likes of Ruth Davidson and Dreepy Jim Murphy. Search the Graun site. Told you. But The Graun has little interest in Scotland per se, beyond insisting it remains British, so young fogey Sev has an easy gig. Libby is a much better writer but Sev does any hard politics that’s going, when he can be bothered.

    No idea what your focus is here. Your survey suggests to me Sev is a committed Union supporter but a lazy and dilettante one. I knew that already. Move on, nothing to see.

  55. Brak+the+barbarian
    Ignored
    says:

    Just read this – what excellent news! The fact that Scottish politics are being given the Al Jazeira ‘Labour Files’ treatment and studiously ignored proves the MSM media and their masters are rattle. Clearly the Indy movement is far from dead in their eyes – otherwise it’s predicted demise would be being splashed everywhere. Woo-hoo. ?



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