If this site seems to spend most of its time being angry at the SNP these days, that’s because we are. And a large part of that is because there’s very little that hacks us off more than people insulting our intelligence.
Smith’s tweet is just a crassly offensive flat-out lie. This week’s vote is NOT about “EU membership”. The United Kingdom hasn’t been a member of the EU since 31 January. We’ve already left and there’s no going back. The vote is about whether we leave with a sliver of a trade deal slightly reducing the self-inflicted harm, or the total catastrophe of no deal at all, and it’s just crushingly embarrassing for all concerned that Smith thinks so little of his own supporters as to believe he can “frame” it otherwise.
We’ve just received the most extraordinary Freedom Of Information response from the Scottish Government, readers. Trust us, you want to go and make yourselves a strong cup of tea before you read it. Or get this guy to bring you one.
We’re grumpy this morning, readers, because it’s Sunday and we were planning a long lie and then someone told us about this. It’s the First Minister appearing on the Sophy Ridge show on Sky News at around 8.45am and you need to see it.
In news that will come as a shock to absolutely no readers at all, McDougall wasn’t just lying, and wasn’t just wrong about one thing, but was both wrong and lying about pretty much everything he said.
Both of the Yes camp’s “scare stories” which were sneeringly mocked by McDougall during a BBC debate in Inverness actually came true – the Tories DID win the next election, and Johnson DID end up as leader of the party and then as Prime Minister.
(McDougall burst into tears at Scottish Labour HQ on the night of the 2015 election as his party lost 40 of its 41 seats despite his services as Jim Murphy’s speechwriter and adviser, his powers of chortling seemingly having deserted him.)
The Daily Record today carries a piece by Scottish Labour MPs Ian Murray and Martin Whitfield (no, us either) bitterly attacking their leadership over the Euro election results.
The two men complain that Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Leonard won’t listen to them, and insist that the party must “heed the people” if it ever wants to wield power again.
So it’s a bit ironic that they won’t take their own advice.
Wings Over Scotland isn’t the only website dedicated to scrutinising the truthfulness of things claimed by politicians and media pundits. There’s the widely-respected and diligent FullFact.org, there’s Scotland’s own The Ferret, and there’s the BBC’s Reality Check (which frequently takes the more unconventional approach of, er, not making a finding either way about what the reality of things is).
And then there’s Channel 4’s FactCheck, which we’re going to generously assume had a liquid lunch yesterday and was a little under the weather.
Because not only is the conclusion that it reached on the subject of an independent Scotland having to use the Euro utter nonsense that’s been debunked roughly 1000 times in the last six years, it doesn’t even agree with itself.
Michael Glackin of the Sunday Times is the only serious contender to the Scotsman’s demented Brian Wilson as the most poisonously, blindly instinctive hater of anything even passingly connected to the SNP or independence in the Scottish media. His weekly bilious rants in the paper make even Scottish Daily Express hacks wince and say “Blimey, that’s a bit strong”.
But even by those standards, this week’s column is quite something. So let’s take a little look at just how much of an idiot you can make of yourself if you never allow facts to get in the way of your rage.
The extremely sharp and perceptive New Statesman writer Stephen Bush buries some of his political insight in a daily email newsletter (because, we assume, his fax machine doesn’t work, you can’t send telegrams any more and London flats don’t have enough room to keep a lot of messenger pigeons or let you send smoke signals).
And it’s a lot easier just to quote you a chunk of today’s than it is to rewrite the same observations into a new article ourselves.
Nicola Sturgeon attended a meeting of the SNP NEC yesterday.
Or maybe she didn’t.
One of these people/publications, inescapably, is flat-out lying to their readers about the event in question. Given the Scottish media’s ingrained habit of lying about pretty much everything almost all of the time, we honestly wouldn’t like to hazard a guess as to which one of them it was.
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pillars Of Sanity: “lightening rod = lightning rod” Jul 21, 02:27
Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “John Lennon described Bowie as “Rock and Roll in drag”.” Jul 21, 02:16
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pillars Of Sanity: “TYPOS: catalytistic = catalystic such as the David Bowie = such as David Bowie” Jul 21, 02:01
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pillars Of Sanity: “WHAT’S GOING ON? “At great turning-points of world-history the relativity of our traditional measures and opinions manifests itself in a…” Jul 21, 01:14
Willie on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Simple question if I may. Our services are being strangled for lack of funding. Money they say is short. People…” Jul 21, 00:23
Scot Finlayson on The Pillars Of Sanity: “The white woke middle class uni educated virtue signalers will move on to some other `cause` and fuck that up.” Jul 20, 23:32
robertkknight on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Karl Marx…”De omnibus dubitandum”. (Doubt everything.) Once upon a time I thought that The National would bring both balance and…” Jul 20, 22:59
Confused on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Let’s get back to some knockabout trivia – food, energy, water, geopolitics, war, indy-pendence Lot of stories on telly last…” Jul 20, 22:05
Lorn on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Onlooker: In Germany, at the height of their ‘witch’ madness, men and children were sent to the stake as witches.…” Jul 20, 22:04
Northcode on The Pillars Of Sanity: “No problem can be solved using the same state of mind – the same level of consciousness – that created…” Jul 20, 20:47
Alf Baird on The Pillars Of Sanity: ““Scotland’s vast potential for producing renewable energy is being hi-jacked by England” Yes, colonialism is primarily about ‘economic plunder’ (Memmi).…” Jul 20, 19:25
Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “These women are making a place in history as the biggest threat to women.” Jul 20, 19:14
Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Bumba. another Uni brat with 2 years work experience at an NHS call centre. That’s 1 year 6 months more…” Jul 20, 19:01
Dave G on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Do you never bore yourself with the endless “colonial” guff?” Jul 20, 18:51
Peter Swain on The Pillars Of Sanity: “(off topic – sorry !) An article by Craig Dalzell in the Sunday National points out the danger that Scotland’s…” Jul 20, 18:45
sarah on The Pillars Of Sanity: “O/T “Support Legal Fees for a Scottish TV Channel” – crowdfunder.co.uk See Grouse Beater’s blog on 15th July “SBC TV…” Jul 20, 18:44
Onlooker on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Name one man executed for being a witch/warlock/whatever pish. Couldn’t, could you? Always totally ignored over the women tragically murdered.…” Jul 20, 18:19
Onlooker on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Aye, nae bother, likes. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nhsfife_nhsfifelifechanger-activity-6989148339782963200-BB6u” Jul 20, 18:14
Alf Baird on The Pillars Of Sanity: “The ‘A’ team in charge of Fife NHS, some of whom were also invited here to run St Andrews uni…” Jul 20, 17:59
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pillars Of Sanity: “An Edinburgh University webpage has this: ‘The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft 1563-1736’ https://witches.hca.ed.ac.uk/faq/” Jul 20, 17:48
sarah on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Thank you for these facts, Robert Mellish. It is appalling that the Scottish Civil Service is officially present – not…” Jul 20, 16:16
Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Come on Rev when we getting the low down. I’m starting to argue with James…” Jul 20, 15:43
Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Fair point. How many Scots fill the Westminster corridors.” Jul 20, 15:35
Alf Baird on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Yes James, this is of course the reality in a colonial society which is run by external interests/values, as pointed…” Jul 20, 15:34
Lorn on The Pillars Of Sanity: “dearieme: accused ‘witches’ were nearly all women (albeit both men and children were also accused) but they were blameless of…” Jul 20, 14:59
Lorn on The Pillars Of Sanity: ““The transcripts of NHS Fife’s Kate Searle in particular bring into sharp focus how the NHS became a partisan lynch…” Jul 20, 14:44
James Cheyne on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Most of the Scottish government executors, advisors and Civil Servants are not born and bred backgrounds, I have just spent…” Jul 20, 14:31
Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “That’s exactly what is not being said but everyone is thinking. Thanks for that sane, refreshing summary of this evil…” Jul 20, 14:09
Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “You started so well and descended into ‘ how can I blame the British government for every disaster, crime, theft,…” Jul 20, 14:05
Mark Beggan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “NHS Fife is digging the biggest of all holes in front of the whole World and the Health secretary plays…” Jul 20, 13:32
