Reader alertness test
Posted on
January 09, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Just a quick one, folks. Here’s a story we touched on earlier today, that appeared in today’s Scotsman and Daily Record. (It even briefly showed up in the Herald, but was deleted faster than we could save it.) At first glance it appears to be identical in both papers, but it isn’t. In fact there’s a rather substantial difference. Can you spot it?
(If anyone can manage to retrieve the full Herald version, we’d be fascinated to know which one it matched.)
I couldn’t spot the difference, so I asked someone from the Yes campaign.
The Daily Record has given space to a Yes Scotland spokesperson giving a rejoinder…
Daily Record is 4 paragraphs longer, Different photo and slighlty different Headline! do I win? 🙂
The Scotsman doesn’t carry the quote from Yes Scotland. And it manages to squeeze in a mention of the LibDems supposedly “relatively detailed” plans for further devolution.
Three identical articles.
Ah, the Hootsmon Churnalists have just churned out the Project Fear press release verbatim. At least the Record has tacked on an attempt at balance from Sarah Jane Walls.
The font?
What’s the deal with papers printing word-for-word identical copy like this? No byline or “Associated Press” bit or anything. The twitter story was another example. I don’t understand it and I don’t like it!
Ha, that’s some alert readership.
So, did the openly partisan, No-supporting Daily Record have a fit of conscience and actively seek out a quote from Yes Scotland, or was it there in the newswire piece all along and the supposedly neutral, “quality” broadsheet Scotsman cut it out, even though it appeared on a web page where there’s no pressure on space?
Will we ever know?
The only difference I could find, after running them through the computer, was the quote from the Yes campaign at the bottom of the Record’s article.
Not really surprising, when the Scotsman article ends with links to articles written by the subject of the story himself.
OK So the Record had a rebuttal and the Hootsman didn’t. Is that it?
At least The Hootsmon had the integrity not to pretend it isn’t just a free advert for BT.
Glad I was correct. 🙂
Is it normal in business, for competing companies to market exactly the same product?
The rejoinder but also the titles. Scotsman calling it No campaign, Record goes with Better Together.
Naughty of me I know but I had to answer Ploppy Son of Ploppy in the comments, just for a laugh of course. 🙂
Undignified but too late now.
Jim Gallagher’s bizarre “Westminster as back-up” line is faithfully reported in both.
Neile MacKenzie
I think the Rev’s very valid point is that the overtly unionist Record had the decency to include a measure of balance whereas the ‘quality’ Scotsman still with impartiality pretensions did not.
Good luck to the Professor. I’m dying for him to make a case for the Union.
So, he is going to give us a blow by blow account of the benefits of UK policy and also what the benefits of the proposed ‘No’ vote devolution policies will be.
Great!!!!!!
We get to find out that we are really Better Together when we get involved in illegal wars; also with wars that have no end or were never going to win; or interfering in civil wars when no one in Scotland wants to be anywhere near it!
We get to find out how being Better Together helps us all screw up the economy, then we get taxed to the hilt, and then have governments imposed on us when we did not want them in the first place. Magic!!!
And then there is the Scotland Bill for the local domestic front. We get to raise our own taxes through those all important things such as dog licences, air gun licences and landfill tax. Yep, that’s what the Scottish people want to see as part of the devolution package! What incredible new powers we have been given! Yep, those new powers will really have the Scottish public salivating at the mouth. Yeah!!!!
Yep, Jim …knock yirsel out! Sell us the benefits of the Union. We’re all ears!
As I’m sure that Stu already knows!!! This is the Press Association story that was lifted for the stories in the meeja.
“A former senior civil servant who played a key role in a review of devolution has become an adviser to the group campaigning to keep Scotland in the UK.
Professor Jim Gallagher has been recruited to the cross-party Better Together campaign as an adviser on policy and strategy issues.
He said that his role would be to ” help the parties in the Better Together campaign to put their case across”.
He added he would be “helping the campaign develop the arguments that explain the positive case for remaining in the United Kingdom, and how a strong Scottish Parliament fits into that”.
Prof Gallagher previously served as Secretary to the Calman Commission, which was set up in 2007 to review the devolution settlement.
He told BBC Radio Scotland: “O ne of the things that we’re inclined to take for granted in Scotland is the constitutional settlement we’ve got, in which we have both a Scottish Parliament and the wider UK back-up as it were. My main job will be to help the campaign to explain the strength of that.”
He rejected claims that the Better Together campaign had been too negative.
” A campaign which is there to persuade people to reject the independence proposition will inevitably have to start by explaining what is wrong with it,” Prof Gallagher told the Good Morning Scotland programme.
“At the back end of last year we had the Scottish Government’s white paper on independence and the campaign were absolutely right to challenge it, to test it, to be critical of it, because to be absolutely frank it wasn’t a particularly strong piece of work.
“There always has been, to be fair to the Better Together campaign, a positive case that it has been making for keeping Scotland in the UK.
“I think my contribution to this is to help unpick and to explain just how it is we have a system in which we have a lot of power devolved to Edinburgh, but can still manage to retain the strength and the back-up of the UK on economics, on defence and on other issues.”
He continued: “T here is undoubtedly a story to be told about how the UK hangs together ineconomic terms and the benefits of that, how the UK works together on defence on security and the interesting story is how we can manage that and still have an immensely wide devolution to Edinburgh of all the powers of domestic policy.
“All of the parties in the Better Together campaign are looking at the devolution settlement at the moment, none of them has come to a firm conclusion, though the Liberal Democrats have produced some relatively detailed plans.”
While he stressed in the first instance it was up to the individual political parties to develop their own proposals for changes to the devolution settlement, he added: “What we learned from the Calman process, the process that gave us the Scotland Act, is constitutional politics is different from day-to-day politics, it has to be worked on very carefully and ideally it has to be worked on in consensus.
“All of the parties in this campaign are looking at this issue, they’ve got a lot of work to do, I’m very happy to help them in that, but the lesson they learned from the last time they did this very successfully is if they work together they can produce material that works.”
Sarah Jane Walls, a spokeswoman for the pro-independence Yes Scotland campaign, said: ” The No campaign has so far failed to provide answers to the fundamental questions people in Scotland are entitled to have as they consider the two futures on offer – what are the consequences and costs of a No vote?
“If Professor Gallagher’s first interview since his appointment is anything to go by, it appears we will have a long wait since he stated that it was up to the Westminster parties to come up with the answers.
“It’s time for coherent answers although history suggests we should take any grudging offer from the No campaign with a massive pinch of salt.
“By contrast, a Yes vote delivers a fully-empowered Scottish Parliament that can tailor specific policies to match our needs, priorities and goals as described, for example, in the Scotland’s Future white paper.”
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2014, All Rights Reserved.”
From the way he sounded this morning on the radio, the ready availability of smugness will likely be up there as one of the core benefits of the union.
Think that’s 10pm noo Rev, hint hint?
Oooh The Scotsman you devious and transparent swine!
What are these detailed Lib-Dem plans, beyond self-immolation when confronted by the Depute FM?
I am sure the Rev predicted the Devo Max offer before Xmas so no surprise that the lib dems are on task. I half expected it to appear in my iTunes 12th night offer. they are only doing a Calman and ganging up. It’s more of the same from the past 7 or so years. I suspect we could write the offer for them.
Sorry if someone has already posted the Herald article. Got this via http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/scotland.htm and then http://archive.is/ISWVO.
Better Together appoints official adviser
Thursday 9 January 2014
BETTER Together, the cross-party campaign to keep Scotland in the UK, have appointed one of the country’s leading experts on devolution as an official adviser.
Professor Jim Gallagher played a key role in the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as the UK’s most senior civil servant responsible for devolution.
He was also instrumental in drawing up new plans to make Holyrood responsible for raising half the country’s income tax, which will take effect in 2016 as part of the latest Scotland Act.
His appointment will be seen as an attempt by the three pro-UK parties in Better Together to come to an agreed position on enhancing Holyrood’s powers in the event of a No vote in September’s referendum. Campaign insiders denied he had been hired to broker a deal between the parties; however he will make his expertise on devolution available to the Conservatives and Lib Dems in addition to Scottish Labour, whom he has already advised on the issue.
Better Together will announce his appointment today, three days after Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon used a speech in St Andrew’s to urge the No campaign to set out its vision for Scotland if voters reject independence.
She insisted the referendum was not a choice “between change and no change” and demanded to know the pro-UK parties’ plans.
Mr Gallagher has been working behind the scenes for Better Together for several months but will officially become part of the campaign team from tomorrow.
Mr Gallagher said: “I’m pleased to be joining the Better Together team at this crucial time in Scotland’s history.
“My role is that of adviser on policy and strategy isses, and I’ll be helping the campaign develop the arguments that explain the positive case for remaining in the United Kingdom.”
Well, by using this website here: http://text-compare.com/ I was able to deduce that Sarah Jane Walls’ wise words were not included in the Scotsman ‘Newspaper’s version of the article.
ah, bit late
For a moment I wondered if the bombshell might be that Prince Charles supports Independence.
From the article: “Professor Jim Gallagher played a key role in the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as the UK’s most senior civil servant responsible for devolution.”
Is Jim Gallagher also responsible for handing over 6000 square miles of Scottish North sea containing 8 major oils fields to England in 1999 thereby reducing somewhat Scotland’s financial position in government accounts? http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/01/scotlandengland-maritime-boundaries/
Anyone who played a role in that would obviously fear the whole illegal scheme being exposed as it will when we are independent.
To quote a a Gallagher and Lyless (think that”s right) hit:
[…IS CLEARLY FORBIDDEN UNDER THE RULES – REVSTU]
@Chic McGregor
Quite right, and taken together with the Record’s (belated) reporting yesterday that SLab voted against free school meals, is something stirring in the MSM undergrowth?
Wow, so the Scotsman is officially the most unionist Scottish paper. What a bunch of utter cocks.
Surely theres a typo in the name of the leading Unionist paper…i suspect its meant to read:
Scots? MON?
in a “your kidding right” tone!
The normally unionist West Highland Free Press started by a certain Brian Wilson actually gave equal paper space to A Salmond and A Darling in a referendum piece yesterday,