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Wings Over Scotland



Timewaster wastes time 79

Posted on October 15, 2015 by

We wonder how many papers we’ll see this in tomorrow.

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In chronological order 146

Posted on October 08, 2015 by

We hate to be picky, but aren’t these the wrong way round?

November 2014: “The Vow has been delivered, ahead of schedule.”

vow1

That’s past tense, right?

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Damned if you don’t 155

Posted on October 06, 2015 by

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.

bailliespend

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?

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When you lose your friends 135

Posted on September 29, 2015 by

Neil Kinnock, 1987:

kinnock87

Did voters come home to Labour? No.

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Yet another bad day for irony 224

Posted on September 23, 2015 by

The editor of the New Statesman just tweeted this image, trailing an interview with Jim Murphy, who alert readers may recall led Scottish Labour for a few months this year before its apocalyptic disaster of a general election campaign which saw it lose 40 of the 41 Scottish seats it won in 2010:

murphyposttruth

Oh, wait – maybe he’s trying to claim the credit for it.

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At first glance 102

Posted on September 22, 2015 by

A story in the Scotsman tonight reports how the Scottish Parliament’s independent research body SPICE has found – contrary to long-running claims from Labour – that the Scottish Government has OVER-funded the eight-year Council Tax freeze.

scotct

And that’s all very well, but not exactly stop-the-presses stuff – nobody reading this site is going to be terribly surprised at Scottish Labour being caught out in a lie. But the party’s house newspaper the Daily Record went for a subtly different angle on the story that did manage to provoke us to raise an eyebrow.

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A tale of two rallies 188

Posted on September 19, 2015 by

Hope Over Fear in George Square today:

hopeoverfear

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Many a true word 189

Posted on August 25, 2015 by

You’d put this down as a slip of the tongue, but when it came in the middle of an extended bout of bodyswerving John Mackay’s straightforward question about a referendum on Trident, maybe Kezia Dugdale really was just saying what she meant.

The suicide note 220

Posted on August 16, 2015 by

Earlier today Gordon Brown gave a speech in London, on a subject and for reasons which are unclear. It was widely trailed in the press, however, as an intervention in the Labour leadership campaign, with the particular goal of stopping Jeremy Corbyn from winning. It was – naturally – broadcast live and in full by the BBC News channel.

Corbyn wasn’t mentioned by name so far as we noticed, but to tell the truth we drifted in and out of the rambling, 49-minute, 30-page monologue full of celebrity namedrops and unconnected anecdotes, hypnotised as we were by Brown’s relentless pacing up and down the room like a caged animal.

Nobody who isn’t getting paid should have to endure the entire grimness of it, so using the magic of technology we’ve compressed it all down to a mere fraction of its length (just 20%) for you, but without losing any of the tone, content or intellectual nuance.

We offer it to you as an elegy. It marks the day that Labour reanimated the walking corpse of the only person left in the party that it considers to have any gravitas – not to win an election, but to try to crush the first man in living memory to enthuse tens of thousands of new members to join a political party in the hope of restoring the values it was created to uphold.

It is the day the soul of the Labour Party finally died.

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We have taken this out of context 61

Posted on August 11, 2015 by

But you have to admit it has a ring of truth about it.

(From tonight’s Scotland 2015.)

She lives by the river 147

Posted on August 01, 2015 by

Michelle Mone, the fake-tan-and-diet-pills tycoon who threatened to leave Scotland if the SNP won the 2007 Holyrood election (but didn’t when they did), then threatened to leave if Yes won the referendum (but did when it didn’t), now lives in a very expensive flat by the Thames in London with a lovely view of Tower Bridge.

threequays

And boy, does she ever want you to know about it.

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Things people really said 185

Posted on July 21, 2015 by

#1 in a series.

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    • Andy Wiltshire on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “If by some miracle there is a referendum, and indy wins, I sometimes wonder if we would be forced to…Mar 4, 22:28
    • 100%Yes on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “I’ll tell you who believes Swinney the one’s making a living out of pretending to support Independence when they don’t.Mar 4, 22:28
    • Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Are you having a laugh? “RUK unionists incomers are now in the majority” Why do you continue to insist that…Mar 4, 21:40
    • Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “They have been trying to kill us since 1979.Mar 4, 21:22
    • RobertG on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “I am far from convinced with the polling projections. I suspect that the curent SNP will really strugle to win…Mar 4, 21:05
    • Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “That will put the fear of God into the Leftwing activists. Explains why they always cover their faces and refuse…Mar 4, 21:04
    • Geri on Two Men Unalike: “I’m not on the new thread, unlike some I could mention. Best you keep yer shit all in one place…Mar 4, 21:04
    • Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The daddy of post colonial theocracy is Toast.Mar 4, 20:50
    • Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “Wow, Geri, that’s spooky! I just predicted your imminent re-appearance on the new thread. I hope you’re not stalking me.…Mar 4, 20:37
    • Iain More on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “And nobody “Yes Voter” with half a brain believes him.Mar 4, 20:25
    • Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The knock-off Shaheds being sent in their direction carry a heavily ironic punch. High explosive karma for 4 years supplying…Mar 4, 20:22
    • Geri on Two Men Unalike: ““people who adhere to that kind of belief systems have no place in our modern world and no place in…Mar 4, 20:20
    • Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “We need another Barbie to take her place. Is there a Barbie in the house? Actually, yes, and she’s overdue…Mar 4, 20:11
    • Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““put the UK including Scotland into a Middle East War” You need to pay better attention. The fatwa has already…Mar 4, 20:09
    • Sven on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “And now Mr Swiney has lost a candidate as Ms Sally Donald withdraws from the May elections whilst the subject…Mar 4, 19:49
    • James Barr Gardner on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Between allowing the US to use UK airbases to attack Iran and shooting down an Iranian drone over Jordan, over…Mar 4, 19:40
    • Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Don’t you just love those missiles slamming into anything Iranian. Yum yum.Mar 4, 19:31
    • 100%Yes on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “If the PM was to grant dunderhead a referendum he’d only F*ck it up. John does nothing for me apart…Mar 4, 19:04
    • agentx on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “I remember the days on here when if anybody had a negative comment about the SNP there were sarcastic cries…Mar 4, 18:57
    • Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “How does the progress being made with the UN C-24 application tie in with this? No referendum will ever be…Mar 4, 18:47
    • Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The wheels on the bus go round and round… All day long.Mar 4, 18:44
    • duncanio on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The dream shall never die. But Swinney’s wish might prove to be his nightmare.Mar 4, 18:40
    • Karen on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Ha ha, you stole my line: “Are you saying we should vote SNP1 just for the bant?”Mar 4, 18:21
    • Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: ““wise up to this shift in the global paradigm” You are coy on what you believe that shift to be.…Mar 4, 18:06
    • Aidan on Two Men Unalike: “That’s twice you’ve called me “Adrian”, are you illiterate as well as fat, stupid and obnoxious?Mar 4, 17:40
    • James on Two Men Unalike: “Bingo!Mar 4, 17:07
    • Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “Odd, isn’t it James? HR election in May. The UN supposedly declaring our Indy in June (see posts just up-thread).…Mar 4, 16:29
    • TURABDIN on Two Men Unalike: “THE «MARTYRDOM» that might signal the beginning of the end of US power? https://archive.is/WbZpc An excellent insightful text. I do…Mar 4, 16:23
    • James on Two Men Unalike: “The resident Yoons will hate this news. Excellent stuff.Mar 4, 16:02
    • James on Two Men Unalike: “Adrian; pipe down there and back to your homework, there’s a good lad.Mar 4, 15:58
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