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A few not-very-good men 83

Posted on January 10, 2015 by

We’ve had some fun with the appointment of John McTernan as Scottish Labour’s new chief of staff this week. But he’s far from the only talent in branch manager Jim Murphy’s backroom team. Particularly alert readers may recall an obscure figure from the independence campaign by the name of Blair McDougall, who was little-seen in the last year of the debate but we think was the director of “Better Together”.

blairmcdougall22

It seems his modus operandi hasn’t changed much since the referendum.

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Tags:
Category comment, scottish politics

Business as usual 105

Posted on January 10, 2015 by

An unsurprising result.

legaldecent

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Category comment, investigation, scottish politics, uk politics

The Ne’erday Game 277

Posted on January 01, 2015 by

We’re technically on holiday today, folks, so for the first time in a very long time we’re going to write something about football and if you don’t like it that’s just your tough luck. Nobody’s making you click the “Read more” button.

Two fairly remarkable things happened in Scottish football today. The first was that Aberdeen went top of the Premiership for the first time in about 20 years, but the second was of a bit more relevance to this site’s political and media-monitoring brief.

donkeycaster

That’s because, for the very first time that we’re aware of since Rangers went bust in 2012, the chief executive of the Scottish league’s governing body, Neil Doncaster, explicitly and directly stated that the club currently 15 points adrift of Hearts in the game’s second tier was the same one that died two and a half years ago.

And that matters more than you think it does.

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Tags:
Category analysis, comment, football, media

The preposterous truth 251

Posted on December 17, 2014 by

BBC News, 12 September 2014:

“Better Together, which is campaigning for a No campaign, dismissed Mr Farage’s call for the Queen to intervene as ‘absolutely preposterous’.”

The Guardian, 17 December 2014:

“Senior figures in Whitehall and Downing Street became so fearful that the Scottish independence referendum could lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom that the Queen was asked to make a rare public intervention in the final days of the campaign.

Britain’s most senior civil servant and the Queen’s private secretary crafted a carefully worded intervention by the monarch, as No 10 experienced what one senior official described as ‘meltdown’ in the closing stages of the campaign after polls showed growing support for a yes vote.

The discussions between Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, and Sir Christopher Geidt for the palace, led the Queen to issue an appeal to the people of Scotland four days before the referendum in September to ‘think very carefully’ before casting their vote.

The Queen, who has been scrupulous during her 62-year reign in observing the impartiality expected of a constitutional monarch, intervened publicly on 14 September.”

And with a mighty rush, rebellious Scots to crush, eh readers?

Tags:
Category comment, scottish politics

Start as you mean to go on 342

Posted on December 16, 2014 by

When Jim Murphy spoke on last night’s Scotland Tonight, he’d been the “leader” of Scottish Labour for approximately 60 hours. Here’s how he’s going to play it.

Let’s quickly examine those statements, shall we?

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Category comment, investigation, scottish politics

The lie and the truth 72

Posted on December 03, 2014 by

The Daily Record, 27 November 2014:

budget2x

So, IS the Scottish Government budget going to “nearly double”?

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Category comment, media, scottish politics

A less permanent permanence 69

Posted on December 03, 2014 by

“We are agreed that the Scottish Parliament is permanent”:

vowperm

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Category comment, scottish politics, uk politics

The biggest lie in history 155

Posted on November 27, 2014 by

We’re going to hold off full scrutiny and analysis of the Smith Commission report on devolution until it’s actually released and we’ve read it, rather than going on pure speculation like most Scottish newspapers this morning.

biglie

But what we CAN talk about is this.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics

The faithful lie 155

Posted on November 19, 2014 by

Last night’s bizarre edition of Scotland 2014, in which the three Scottish Labour “leadership” candidates were quizzed by the daughter of a former Labour leader in front of an audience of the candidates’ own supporters (comprising MSPs, councillors and activists), saw all three stick doggedly to what’s clearly going to be the party’s main pitch in the 2015 general election – “Vote SNP, get Tories”.

It’s a line the party has trotted out at every election for decades, and which has been getting pumped out almost daily since Johann Lamont’s resignation – former deputy “leader” Anas Sarwar (who oddly declined to stand for the actual job when it became available) penned a column for the Evening Times on Monday, for example, entitled “Every vote for an SNP candidate is a vote to help elect David Cameron”, and he said the same thing in the Commons this very afternoon.

anasyes

As alert readers will know, we like to check the facts on these things.

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Tags:
Category analysis, history, investigation, reference, scottish politics, stats, uk politics

Did we miss a meeting? 254

Posted on November 16, 2014 by

Here’s Neil Findlay MSP on this morning’s Andrew Marr Show:

Wait, what?

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Category comment, scottish politics, transcripts, video

Be sure the truth will find you out 257

Posted on October 15, 2014 by

This morning’s Daily Record has a rather panicky-sounding editorial complaining that Yes supporters, from the First Minister down, are refusing to “move on” from the referendum result and are complaining about “betrayal”, especially in the light of yesterday’s joke of a Commons debate. The Record calls for unity and also talks, hilariously, of the “settled will of the Scottish people”.

(What is it, exactly, that the will of the Scottish people is meant to have settled on, given that they had and still have no idea which powers a No vote would bring?)

recordmast

It rather smacks of the accused in a murder trial saying “Look, sure, I killed and butchered your wife and children, but that was MONTHS ago, let’s just forget about it and get back to normal”, but it’s not actually the point.

Because it’s not the referendum result that most people feel betrayed by. It’s not even the behaviour of the Unionist parties since the vote.

The entity in the dock here is the Daily Record itself – which still claims to be the most-read newspaper in Scotland, although the Scottish Sun sells more copies – and it’s charged with the serious crime of knowingly and deliberately lying to the people of Scotland, while proclaiming itself to be their “Champion”.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics

Keep ’em peeled 326

Posted on September 19, 2014 by

Now, technically there are still around 20 minutes of the 19th left as we write this, but we’re reasonably sure that Parliament is now closed for the night and as far as we can tell this doesn’t seem to have happened.

vow2a

You’ll let us know if you spot it, won’t you, readers?

Tags:
Category investigation, scottish politics, uk politics

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