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.
sam on The Modern Politician: “Cambridge Journal of Economics, Volume 44, Issue 2, March 2020, Pages 319–342, https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bez037 “1979 and all that: a 40-year reassessment…” Feb 12, 21:54
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: ““a fully liberated people will need to remove its colonial collaborators” You’ve got some balls, Alf. Respect. You’ve made it…” Feb 12, 21:00
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Looks like you’ve got SFA practical, plausible or sensible that could make a start on righting the troubles Scotland is…” Feb 12, 20:51
David Holden on The Modern Politician: “Looks like the troll collective has got some overtime pay. Oh deep joy.” Feb 12, 20:21
Lorna Campbell on The Modern Politician: “Alf: ditching England is not going to be the final answer because there are other kinds of colonisers just waiting…” Feb 12, 19:39
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: ““We adhere to national guidance set by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in relation to custody searches involving transgender suspects”…” Feb 12, 19:16
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Well now, willie, why didn’t you say earlier? If Prince Andrew and Peter Mandelson are for selling off the SNHS…” Feb 12, 19:05
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “The point is that it’s 35 years since Thatcher exited stage right, and despite some of the opportunities I list,…” Feb 12, 18:59
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Modern Politician: “NORFOLK POLICE CRITICISED OVER INACCURATE RECORDING OF SUSPECTS’ SEX Norfolk Constabulary has faced strong criticism for recording suspects’ preferred gender…” Feb 12, 18:30
willie on The Modern Politician: “Nigel Farage’s policy is to privatise the health service in the style of the corporate market supplied healthcare in the…” Feb 12, 18:28
sam on The Modern Politician: “You are such a fucking idiot I usually ignore what you say. UK life expectancy has been improving ever since…” Feb 12, 18:20
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: ““one in four Scots is intending to vote Reform, a party with a leader who supports USA style privatisation, the…” Feb 12, 17:27
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Aye, sam, ye’re a grand auld fossil so ye are. We should slap a protection order oan ye. You can’t…” Feb 12, 17:15
Willie on The Modern Politician: “To be fair Sam the Scottish Government under Alex Salmond did much to try to minimise the Thatcher type policies…” Feb 12, 17:01
sam on The Modern Politician: “Just a little bit of the effect of Thatcher on the NHS https://www.pilc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/PILC_OS_Sum_PRESS.pdf A survey last year of 9000 Unison…” Feb 12, 15:47
Alf Baird on The Modern Politician: ““we need to cleanse the Augean Stables first” By implication, a fully liberated people will need to remove its colonial…” Feb 12, 15:23
PC Foster on The Modern Politician: “@andrew scott Aye- a woman in a dress actually means- a man in a frock (MIAF).” Feb 12, 15:09
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Lorna, thanks for your reply. “most SNP voters who want independence, and they are not the only ones who vote…” Feb 12, 15:07
Lorna Campbell on The Modern Politician: “H McH: if you believe that politicians get voted in because they are doing nothing wrong in the public’s perception,…” Feb 12, 14:43
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Sure, Bilbo. You’re gonna slag off Ratcliffe, not because he’s wrong, but because he’s got more money than you. I’m…” Feb 12, 14:30
Lorna Campbell on The Modern Politician: “Willie: I think the fundamental problem is that adherence to this ordure is a mental ill-health issue, not a physical…” Feb 12, 14:25
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Denying the very existence of the female sex would be the ultimate in anti female hate, Marie. But I’m unaware…” Feb 12, 14:23
Marie on The Modern Politician: “Denying the very existence of the female sex is the ultimate in anti female hate. That has come from the…” Feb 12, 14:04
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: ““In the 20c Europe initiated two apocalyptic wars” We don’t do that any more, TURABDIN. We’ve lost all will to…” Feb 12, 13:52
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Worth asking, Confused, have you ever submitted material to Viz? For some reason “The Bottom Inspectors” comes to mind.” Feb 12, 13:39
Rab Pollock on The Modern Politician: “Does the Daily Record ever feel like they are flogging the wrong horse?” Feb 12, 13:37
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “You spent too long cooped up in barracks, YL. Normal Scots don’t think being nice requires blow jobs to be…” Feb 12, 13:26
TURABDIN on The Modern Politician: “THE 1973 futurist fantasy by the french travel writer/trad. catholic/monarchist/ nationalist Jean-Paul Raspail called Le Camp des Saints deals graphically…” Feb 12, 12:46
