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.
So just to clear that up: four times £12 million is £200 million. The mystery of why people are increasingly reluctant to believe what they read in newspapers continues.
And has no more luck this week with hapless Scottish Labour list MSP Claire Baker than he did with her habitually mendacious colleague Jackie Baillie last week:
(The Big Debate, BBC Radio Scotland, 13 November 2015) .
When it comes to Scottish Labour’s great brainwave about “restoring” Tory tax-credit cuts, the madness just won’t stop. Here’s Magnus Gardham, formerly political editor of Scotland’s staunchest Labour paper the Daily Record, in the Herald today:
The media and Unionist politicians (we really need to come up with a word to describe that single entity), when not concocting hysterical frothing diatribes against Michelle Thomson or complaining about the Scottish Government giving money to T In The Park – a position we must confess we find ourselves in some sympathy with – have recently been loudly protesting about last year’s “underspend” in the Holyrood budget.
There’s an extremely good article here by Dr Craig Dalzell of the Scottish Greens dealing with the broader issue of why such complaints are idiotic, so rather than go over the ground again we thought we’d look at another angle.
Kezia Dugdale talking to Gordon Brewer on BBC Scotland today:
“I’m astonished that you’ve spent 10 minutes in this interview talking about independence and Trident when almost 50% of the poorest kids in the country can’t read […] I’m sure you’d be shocked to know that 50% of the poorest kids leave our schools unable to read.”
We suspect he would too. Because it’s total cobblers.
There’s been a veritable flurry of polls commissioned to mark the impending one-year anniversary of the independence referendum. In the last 48 hours alone we’ve seen ones from Survation, YouGov and Panelbase, making a variety of interesting findings. As ever, though, the trick is in the interpretation.
We’re sure we’re not the only people for whom the hours are dragging and we wish the election would just hurry up and get here, but all the same we’re pretty sure that if there were 11 days left to save the UK on Sunday morning, then by Tuesday morning there should be fewer than 10 still to go.
So, let’s just get this one straight, this morning’s English edition of The Sun – two parties with 316 seats are “stealing” an election from two parties with 309 seats?
Want us to walk you through that whole “counting” thing again?
Because almost nobody in Westminster, whether they’re politicians or the media, ever pays any attention to anything outside SW1A, Alex Salmond’s comment in London yesterday that the SNP would vote against any Tory government in the event of a hung Parliament – which to any Scottish person was news as surprising as a weather forecast for rain – has been greeted with seemingly-genuine shock and horror.
Reporter after reporter has treated the non-revelations (which have been official SNP policy for as long as we can remember, and were stated explicitly by Nicola Sturgeon in November) as a stunning bolt from the blue, and Tory politicians and the right-wing media alike have burst into frothing, spluttering rage, based on the fact that apparently none of them grasps how either the UK electoral system or basic arithmetic work.
Mark Beggan on Safety First: “Here’s some of the Anti-Trump comments from protesters: 1.” I despise him. He has no right to be here, Iam…” Jul 27, 02:38
willie on Safety First: “I don’t think anyone thinks what has been attempted on Nurse Peggie is a laugh. our government is a laugh,…” Jul 26, 22:15
willie on Safety First: “Oh and one last thing before I retire I was thinking about intimidation which as we know in the good…” Jul 26, 22:01
agent x on Safety First: “Sandie Peggie, the claimant, is an A&E nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy with 30 years’ experience at NHS Fife.…” Jul 26, 21:57
willie on Safety First: “Ah Hatey c’mon now you’ve probably rumbled Dr Theodore Upton’s future business plans. There is as been noted thems that…” Jul 26, 21:39
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Alf Baird says @ 26 July, 6:20 pm – « We may perhaps reasonably conclude that nothing a colonial administration…” Jul 26, 20:13
agent x on Safety First: “Earlier this month, Swinney said, “it is in the interests of the country that he meets US President as he…” Jul 26, 20:00
Xaracen on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Your turn, Aidan. Where’s your formal evidence that the C-24 ‘rejected outright’ Scotland’s Petition, to the extent that it will…” Jul 26, 19:47
Insider on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Eh ????? Since when have Sturgeon, the “greens” and all the other gender woo woo trans activists been considered “right…” Jul 26, 19:44
Hatey McHateface on Safety First: “Ah, c’moan noo, Stuart. If nobody is getting their bits chopped, where are the people who want extra bits gonna…” Jul 26, 19:21
Hatey McHateface on Safety First: “Ah, c’moan noo, Stuart. If nobody is getting their bits chopped, where are the people who want extra bits gonna…” Jul 26, 19:21
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Very depressing that so much of the money for the renewables infrastructure is going to foreign-based companies whose governments have…” Jul 26, 19:17
Dan on Safety First: “I’ve yet to establish if Dr Oetker has connections to the genderwoowoo and pharmaceutical industry, but have long questioned where…” Jul 26, 19:16
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Alf, Would you care to give us an example or two of your perceived “ongoing discrimination against the Scots language”?…” Jul 26, 19:09
Dan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Other stuff going on in Scotland aside from genderwoowoo and dung beetle battles. https://www.isp.scot/july-19th-july-25th-2025/” Jul 26, 18:56
Stuart on Safety First: “What’s more amazing is that If genitals do not determine gender, then why do they have to be removed to…” Jul 26, 18:54
Alexander Gavin on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “It always amazes me, and makes me laugh, at how obsessed with sex or sexuality the right wing are!” Jul 26, 18:36
Alf Baird on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “We may perhaps reasonably conclude that nothing a colonial administration promotes is in the best interest of the colonized, the…” Jul 26, 18:20
Hatey McHateface on Safety First: “Dinna grudge her a new dress or two. Politics is, after all, show biz for ugly people. If we have…” Jul 26, 18:04
Hatey McHateface on Safety First: ““Trump, himself, may not have yet acquired political diplomatic skills” Yet even his most pathologically hating detractors, Guardianistas for example,…” Jul 26, 18:01
Nae Need! on Safety First: “I couldn’t agree more, GM. Sadistic tendencies. I’ve not found much about any of the TRA shite, laughable. Far too…” Jul 26, 17:54
agent x on Safety First: “The National front page 25 Jul “CONVICTED US FELON TO ARRIVE IN SCOTLAND Republican leader, who was found liable for…” Jul 26, 17:41
Nae Need! on Safety First: “Not that Stu hasn’t done a sterling job holding the fort in your absence, but it’s good to see you…” Jul 26, 17:41
Mark Beggan on Safety First: “Their power of permit has dissipated. I think it’s going to be a defensive election campaign with a few squirrels…” Jul 26, 17:37
Hatey McHateface on Safety First: “Sure, Anthem, what matters Indy or even the prosperity and well-being of Scotland’s people, compared with giving Trump the finger?…” Jul 26, 17:33
Nae Need! on Safety First: “Political Diplomacy is a dying art form. Alex Salmond had it. A true statesman if there ever was one. Trump,…” Jul 26, 17:28
Anthem on Safety First: “Utter nonsense!” Jul 26, 17:21
Anthem on Safety First: “Ach, away and gaslight somewhere else.” Jul 26, 17:19