The reaction of the Scottish media and political opposition to Audit Scotland’s annual report on the NHS today has been nothing if not predictable. But we thought you might like an instructive and enlightening look at the two very different types of approach they’ve taken to trying to mislead the Scottish people about it.
First up is the non-specific Scottish Labour apparatchik (as far as we’re aware he has no official role in the party since Jim Murphy quit – indeed we don’t know what he does for a living at all any more) Blair McDougall:
This is what we in the writing trade call a “flat-out lie”.
We weren’t going to take Professor Adam Tomkins’ hysterical “NATMAGEDDON!” article for this week’s Spectator seriously enough to pull it apart line by line.
But once we’d wiped the tears from our eyes we thought we’d better do our job.
After we highlighted the ridiculous inconsistencies in press reports last week regarding Edinburgh MP Michelle Thomson’s business dealings with a couple in Cumbernauld, we’ve been in a lengthy dialogue with Sunday Mail editor Jim Wilson over the plainly utterly wrong claim in the latter paper that:
After we provided the Mail with documentary evidence of the sale price, we naively expected a tiny mealy-mouthed correction buried in a corner of this week’s edition. But what we got was something very substantially worse even than that.
We apologise for another post on the subject of The Wright House, everyone, but we do love getting our teeth into a puzzle, especially when it comes with a side order of lots of juicy evidence of the Scottish media telling people outright lies.
This should be the last one for the forseeable future, and we’ve actually got some solid info to impart this time rather than just a confused expression, so buckle up.
It appeared on any possible interpretation to be complete nonsense, but Ms Dugdale – who’s pledged to make education the issue at the heart of her leadership – has been somewhat reluctant to clarify the statement.
Several queries from her Lothian constituents have gone unanswered, but one Wings viewer did manage to get a single tweet of response.
The editor of the New Statesman just tweeted this image, trailing an interview with Jim Murphy, who alert readers may recall led Scottish Labour for a few months this year before its apocalyptic disaster of a general election campaign which saw it lose 40 of the 41 Scottish seats it won in 2010:
Oh, wait – maybe he’s trying to claim the credit for it.
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.
As we were poking around with this, we thought it’d be useful to have all the basic donations and spending information about the referendum in one place. It’s normally scattered around different places and hard to access easily, and it’s quite interesting.
gm on The Party Of The Dead: “Well spotted Turabdin. The Ruling Class.” Aug 11, 22:05
James on The Party Of The Dead: ““….Who is the pathetic twat?” Still you, Bubba.” Aug 11, 21:10
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Generally speaking, TURABDIN, in our culture, we don’t expect the offspring of anybody to be held accountable for the sins…” Aug 11, 21:06
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Isn’t that how to deal with a fatberg? Divide it into smaller lumps that can then be individually flushed.” Aug 11, 20:56
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “What useful activities do you spend your day doing that you can be “diverted” and “distracted” from?” Aug 11, 20:40
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “OL Probably to hide the fact he hadn’t fully thawed out, plus all the resuscitation equipment he requires when brought…” Aug 11, 19:39
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “HMcH I suspect it was the Diet Coke supplies that got hardest hit. He’s a fan apparently.” Aug 11, 19:36
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Well hold on there Bald Eagle! True. I uncharacteristically missed that one 🙂” Aug 11, 19:31
James on The Party Of The Dead: “Well said, diabloandco. Those 4 Yoon trolls are endless. Here all day, every day to divert, distract and divide. As…” Aug 11, 19:29
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “Have you thought about moving to South West Scotland? It’d be nice to get some more English voices into the…” Aug 11, 19:21
James on The Party Of The Dead: “What a fucking clown you are, Adrian. You keep good company. Cue the SP.” Aug 11, 19:20
TURABDIN on The Party Of The Dead: “FILTHY LUCRE… https://archive.is/AkQ3T the spawn of a major war criminal keeping it in the family.” Aug 11, 18:42
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “Sure! Keep the cash rolling in. £20 on the meter so far. 🙂 Never done a good grift before, sounds…” Aug 11, 17:53
Minceheid on The Party Of The Dead: “Captain Caveman says: 11 August, 2026 at 4:39 pm No, no Aidan, I’m actually quite touched that Fatso would give…” Aug 11, 17:34
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “*margarita even 😀 Jeez, what a typo… don’t want Fatso to think I’m holding a French white daisy for him…” Aug 11, 17:21
Oneliner on The Party Of The Dead: “Gordon Brown had a black-windowed cavalcade of Range Rovers when he went to his ‘How To Save The Union’ meeting…” Aug 11, 17:17
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “I’ll be sure to do so too, just for him – marguerite in hand. 😀” Aug 11, 17:16
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “He probably hasn’t twigged that you’ll still be able to post on the internet, exactly as today, from another location…” Aug 11, 16:58
Stevie on Anatomy Of A Grift: “Mentally ill, delusional, perpetually-victimhood-angry, self-righteous = dangerous” Aug 11, 16:43
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “No, no Aidan, I’m actually quite touched that Fatso would give me his life savings to help move out. :)…” Aug 11, 16:39
James on The Party Of The Dead: “£20 towards your moving expenses, no problem. Just say the word. Good riddance.” Aug 11, 15:18
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “Some of this “analysis” borders on being absurd and is clearly written from the standpoint of another agenda. – Nobody…” Aug 11, 15:04
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Somebody would have had to count the pies and sandwiches, etc, before and after. If it’s the same employee that…” Aug 11, 14:29
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “I guess the imperial nationalist Scots aren’t “True Scots”, what with being brainwashed and all. If they might be concerned…” Aug 11, 14:20
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “I daresay even an airport catering truck is preferable to, say, a luxury campervan paid for with embezzled funds. 🙂” Aug 11, 14:14
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Batman had the Batmobile, the Pope has the Pope Mobile, JFK an open top saloon, the King a carriage and…” Aug 11, 13:50
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““definition of “Scot”” An interesting point, Hatey. We may say there are different forms of nationalist ideology at play, and…” Aug 11, 13:49
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “HMcH Those artisans hung At Lauder Bridge.” Aug 11, 13:40
