Jim Murphy’s practiced air of nonchalant bonhomie was coming apart at the seams all over today’s “Good Morning Scotland” (from 2h 10m). Pressed hard by presenter Bill Whiteford, the beleaguered Scottish Labour branch manager spluttered and blustered and interrupted constantly in a desperate attempt to stop Whiteford from even finishing any questions, never mind getting answers to them.
Murphy tried determinedly and repeatedly to punt the hopelessly-discredited line about the biggest party forming the government, on the sole basis that it had always been the case before, seemingly unaware that the election wasn’t being held in the past. He even tried to use the recent catastrophic Ashcroft polls to Labour’s advantage.
You can marvel at the entire nine-minute trainwreck by clicking the link below. But let’s just pull out that one argument and take a closer look at it.
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Tags: arithmetic fail
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analysis, audio, scottish politics
The very few readers who don’t immediately just snort and turn the page when they see the words “George Foulkes” may have noticed in yesterday’s Herald that the thirsty peer could be found gloating gleefully that had Scotland voted for independence last September it would now be “bankrupt” due to the decline in oil prices.
We can’t be bothered pointing out for the 500th time that a Yes vote wouldn’t have seen Scotland actually independent until March 2016, and that the oil price NOW is therefore about as relevant to anything as, well, Baron Foulkes himself.
But we couldn’t help noticing a couple of small arithmetical details.
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Tags: arithmetic fail
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analysis, idiots, scottish politics, stats, uk politics
Alert readers will know that we very often like to bring to your attention both Scottish Labour’s fondness for radically rewriting history and its frequent struggles with basic counting. Today, though, the North British branch office has spectacularly outdone itself and managed to pull off both at once. This is going to be hard to beat.
Above is an extract from the official record of today’s proceedings in the Scottish Parliament. And we can only applaud Rhoda Grant’s ambition.
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Tags: and finallyarithmetic fail
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comment, idiots, scottish politics
Ever since the referendum, we’ve documented the various ways in which Unionists have constantly tried to rewrite history and inflate the magnitude of their victory.
We had Alistair Darling saying before the vote that 60-40 would have been too close for comfort, but then his team attempting to portray 55-45 as a resounding win, and we had the Labour peer Baroness Liddell try to claim the real result was 67-33 based on a near-Stalinist approach to voter attribution.
And yesterday, bless his heart, No campaign mascot Wee Willie Rennie had a go.
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comment, idiots, scottish politics
“Wait, this story’s entirely true. Do something, Torcuil.”
“Sorted, boss.”
Tags: and finallyarithmetic fail
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media, world
We missed this on Sunday, because it was 17 minutes into on the short-lived and unlamented “Crossfire” (now binned for a Sunday edition of “Good Morning Scotland”) and therefore pretty much everyone in Scotland missed it. It’s former Labour minister Helen Liddell, or as we should properly address her, Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke.
[audio http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/liddell-crossfire-21dec2014.mp3 ]
We’ve spared you her subsequent painful bleating about a general election 35 years ago that she doesn’t seem to have quite gotten over, but we couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at her curious assessment of the referendum result, which we suspect fellow guest Andrew “Lallands Peat Worrier” Tickell was simply too stunned to react to.
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Tags: arithmetic failmisinformation
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audio, comment, scottish politics, stats, wtf
…are closer than they appear, runs a (slightly depressing) inscription that must by law be engraved on the door mirror of cars in the USA.
Objects in the Telegraph, though, follow different rules. (Thanks, we’re here all week.)
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comment, media, scottish politics
Well, at least now I know how a bullet feels when it gets fired from a gun.
I got home on Saturday evening, and started with a wander around the former social-housing estate where my parents live, now bisected by walls and fences and hedges where people bought their houses under Right To Buy and privatised wee patches of once communal ground. The policy clearly didn’t bring the Tories the gratitude they’d hoped for. Somewhat to my surprise I counted 21 Yes houses to 3 No.
The next day I went to Glasgow.
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comment, culture, scottish politics
Alert readers will already be aware that former Labour MP, minister and nuclear-power lobbyist Brian Wilson is one of our least favourite figures in the independence debate.
A man utterly consumed by tribal hatred of the SNP – even by the standards of Scottish Labour, which is no mean accolade – his Scotsman columns are some of the most mendacious, bilious propaganda to be found in the country, to the extent that we don’t even link to them in our “Zany Comedy Relief” section.
Today, however, he’s outdone himself in spectacular style.
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Tags: arithmetic failflat-out liesliars
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analysis, media, scottish politics
Thank goodness there are only 18 days of the independence campaign remaining. We’re not sure we have the capacity to absorb much more idiocy like the below.
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Tags: arithmetic fail
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comment, idiots, media