We’ve been so busy with the Wee Blue Book for the past week or so that we only just got round to listening to last Tuesday’s interview with Alistair Darling on Good Morning Scotland in time, before it vanished from the iPlayer. The former Chancellor gets a quite uncomfortable ride from presenter Gary Robertson, and flaps angrily for much of the ten-and-a-half minutes trying to turn every question into one on currency.
![Luckily Jim Naughtie was off ironing his Union Jacks that day. soundwave2](https://i0.wp.com/wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/soundwave2.jpg?resize=416%2C131&ssl=1)
Mr Darling also makes some startlingly and empirically false statements throughout the interview, and we thought it’d be worth noting a few of them and seeing if they crop up on tonight’s BBC1 debate with the First Minister.
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Tags: captain darlingdebatesflat-out lies
Category
audio, comment, debunks, scottish politics
Our “Better Together” mole has just leaked us this exclusive extract from a new cinema advert with a re-imaged Alistair Darling listing the consequences of a Yes vote.
It’s really from the 1981 Labour conference, of course. But it’s fascinating to note that while the No camp leader’s politics may have softened somewhat over the intervening 33 years, his modus operandi hasn’t changed a bit.
Tags: and finallycaptain darling
Category
apocalypse, history, scottish politics, video
Does anyone know if Alistair Darling (left, with banner) is still a republican?
![Special kudos to the alert reader who sent this beauty in. republicandarling](https://i0.wp.com/wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/republicandarling.jpg?resize=460%2C347&ssl=1)
He doesn’t seem to talk about it much these days.
Tags: and finallycaptain darling
Category
history, pictures, scottish politics
Honest Alistair Darling, interviewed by the BBC in 2008.
Smooth.
Tags: and finallycaptain darling
Category
scottish politics, video
There’s a considerable amount of uncertainty currently flying around on the internet with regards to Alistair Darling’s comments in an interview with the New Statesman which was published on the magazine’s website yesterday.
There seems to be no dispute that the “Better Together” leader compared Alex Salmond to dead North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, adding his name to the illustrious pantheon of assorted Unionist politicians and journalists who’ve likened Scotland’s democratically-elected First Minister to a series of genocidal murderers.
There is, however, something of a grey area around whether Mr Darling also accused the entire SNP of promoting “blood-and-soil nationalism” – an extremely offensive term normally used in reference to Nazi Germany, where it translated as “Blut und Boden”.
![We'll be amazed if one of the more demented Unionist sites on Facebook hasn't Photoshopped the face of Alex Salmond into this pic by the end of today. Or, indeed, already. blutundboden](https://i0.wp.com/wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/blutundboden.jpg?resize=460%2C313&ssl=1)
Well, let us clear that up for you. Yes, he did.
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Tags: captain darlingsmears
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analysis, comment, media, scottish politics
This is “Better Together” chairman Alistair Darling’s interview on this morning’s Andrew Marr Show. Despite the sort of respectful-verging-on-subservient treatment the former Chancellor received from Marr, who uncharacteristically couldn’t bring himself to interrupt during the 10-minute piece, Mr Darling blinked even more furiously than usual throughout a bewildering flurry of contradictions, non-sequiturs and outright falsehoods.
Even Marr was driven to remark on the wealthy Labour MP’s agitated state by the end of the piece, and while it’s very hard to keep up, we recorded a total of 777 blinks in 10 minutes with our manual clicker. Have a go yourself – we suspect it would actually be possible to get results 100 either side of that figure.
Of course, maybe Mr Darling is just overdue a trip to SpecSavers.
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Tags: captain darling
Category
analysis, scottish politics, video
Here’s the footage of Alistair Darling’s interview in Glasgow with James Naughtie a few days ago. If you want to spend 35 minutes of your life watching a man totally dodge every question asked of him, it’s your lucky day.
Naughtie does ask a few decent ones, particularly on the currency and EU, but Darling just waffles his way past all of them (a particular trick we’ve noticed among Labour politicians lately is saying “Let me just say this and then I’ll answer your question”, whereupon they trot out some boilerplate and then don’t answer the question), and Naughtie doesn’t ever press him any further.
So, y’know, saving the £20 was probably the smart call.
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Tags: captain darling
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scottish politics, video
Major kudos to the hyper-alert reader who covertly recorded the Q&A session after last night’s event in Glasgow where Alistair Darling was interviewed by James Naughtie.
Obviously it’s not exactly broadcast-quality, but it’s perfectly audible for all but the occasional couple of seconds. We were going to catalogue all the flat-out lies Mr Darling told in the 51 minutes, but frankly the “Better Together” chairman was on autopilot and you’ve heard all the untruths – and their respective debunkings – a dozen times before on this site alone.
So while we see if we can summon up the mental stamina to wade through them all yet again, just watch and see how many you can spot for yourselves.
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Tags: captain darlingmisinformation
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audio, scottish politics, video
Recently discovered by an alert reader, another gem revealing the sort of razor-sharp attention to statistical detail that led the UK into the most disastrous recession of all time, from a man who thinks the population of Scotland is six million:
“Asked if he fancied another crack at being chancellor in the future, Darling said: ‘At the moment I am totally focused on the [Scottish] referendum in October 2014, after that I will see where I stand.'”
Might want to work a little more on that focus, Cap’n.
(Quote from May 2013, two months after the referendum date was announced.)
Tags: arithmetic failcaptain darling
Category
comment, scottish politics, stats
We’ve noted on several previous occasions the somewhat alarming way in which “Better Together” campaign chairman Alistair Darling can barely contain his fury at the sheer outrageous temerity of the independence movement in seeking to peacefully secure democratic self-determination for the people of Scotland.
We were all set for more of the same on BBC News this morning after Alex Salmond’s speech on currency, but were surprised to be met instead by a calm, softly-spoken and altogether more statesmanlike approach.
And in fairness, he kept it up for a good 15 seconds.
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Tags: captain darling
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comment, scottish politics, video