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.
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: ““Sae we hiv tae spell it oot” In yer ain time, Alf. Spell oot fit “territorial alienation” is wi oot…” Aug 10, 08:34
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““I bet if you spent an afternoon on any Scottish High Street and asked 100 Sovereign Scots what “territorial alienation”…” Aug 10, 07:46
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Mair mince. You’re determined to never focus on anything practically useful, Alf. I bet if you spent an afternoon on…” Aug 9, 23:48
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““a warning from history about getting into Unions” Annexation inevitably resulted in the territorial alienation of Scots and Scotland, the…” Aug 9, 21:37
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Aw, Alf, I’ve only just noticed your name check. So you’re an antisemite too? It figures. Is that something else…” Aug 9, 20:42
robertkknight on The Party Of The Dead: “Jamie VI… A man of dubious morals and questionable intelligence. Dr Johnson probably had him mind when proclaiming “The noblest…” Aug 9, 20:25
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “I’m 100% certain that a Middle Ages fat quine would be regarded as super model material today. She was probably…” Aug 9, 20:20
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: “” is that simple extrapolation regarding professors?” The ‘phenomenon’ (i.e. the tendency to not employ Scots) seems to affect all…” Aug 9, 20:01
Dan on The Party Of The Dead: “No response Jay… I guess CC is busy listing his Rangey and Porsche on Marketplace, and packing his belongings for…” Aug 9, 17:21
Southernbystander on The Party Of The Dead: “Thanks Alf. One thing though you say you looked at three ‘ancient’ institutions but say above ‘all 19 higher education…” Aug 9, 17:03
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “@Alf FYI the propelling of Cambridge Professors in this manner isn’t the fault nor desire of “Reform supporters” – they’re…” Aug 9, 15:34
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““what is your actual evidence” I looked at some 40 departments in three of Scotland’s ‘ancient’ universities and found that…” Aug 9, 15:08
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Not one to celebrate, today is the 1503 anniversary of the so called “Marriage of the Thistle and the Rose”…” Aug 9, 14:18
Southernbystander on The Party Of The Dead: “Alf said: ‘Same reason all 19 higher education institutions in Scotland mostly appoint people from outside Scotland as professors’. You…” Aug 9, 14:15
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““Had a wee chuckle at a Reform supporter stating they’ve had enough of the UK, and he and wife now…” Aug 9, 14:06
Ex President Xiden on The Party Of The Dead: “So in this scenario if it was the wife who had been defrauding on a massive scale, buying camper vans…” Aug 9, 10:36
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “Dry your eyes, Dan. You were the one mocking “Reform supporters” for bemoaning what even you (now) consider to be…” Aug 9, 10:32
Dan on The Party Of The Dead: “So another day and yer still acting an arse and pathetically jist casting untrue derogatory assertions about in a woeful…” Aug 9, 10:20
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “Oh do be quiet, thicko. It wasn’t Englishmen “like me” who promoted this fake professor and lauded him to the…” Aug 9, 09:08
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Party Of The Dead: “Just saw this Turkish proverb somewhere: « The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe as…” Aug 8, 22:18
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “If roles were reversed, maybe the wife would have bought a smaller camper van, and a smaller Jag. And no…” Aug 8, 20:47
Jay on The Party Of The Dead: “Caveman, (he of mega-loot and high-flying career) regarding your 11.41am comment: I was wondering whether you might be a well-informed…” Aug 8, 20:34
agentx on The Party Of The Dead: “The “I won’t say any more on the matter” Sturgeon: “She argued the scrutiny she faced had a gendered dimension.…” Aug 8, 20:25
Dan on The Party Of The Dead: “Ach, now yer jist acting out like a spoilt bairn due to yer lack of tolerance of other folk’s often…” Aug 8, 18:59
Stevie on The Party Of The Dead: “I would add, the same people who attacked me are the same gullibles travels, believing Hamas are freedom fighters and…” Aug 8, 18:12
Chas on The Party Of The Dead: “Maybe, just maybe your ‘speech’ is being censored because it is the same shite over and over again? The learned…” Aug 8, 17:17
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “That’s right Dan. Fed up of twats like you.” Aug 8, 16:57
Dan on The Party Of The Dead: “Had a wee chuckle at a Reform supporter stating they’ve had enough of the UK, and he and wife now…” Aug 8, 16:39
Stevie on The Party Of The Dead: “Reading through this thread, reminds me of my being te first voice to point out that they/them had discarded all/any…” Aug 8, 15:12
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: ““It is a spectrum, none of which is any worse, or less or more worse, but it is a spectrum…” Aug 8, 14:05
