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The magnifier 75

Posted on June 08, 2018 by

This Wings story from April about a wildly untrue Scottish Daily Mail front-page splash has been entirely vindicated by a correction in the paper today, conceding both of the key complaints we made in our piece.

The Mail has, as you’d imagine, printed the correction rather smaller than the original story, so we thought we’d blow it up a little here for easier reading.

Because we’re sure they wouldn’t want anyone to miss it.

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Tags:
Category debunks, investigation, media, scottish politics

Logic in reverse 134

Posted on June 07, 2018 by

We’re having a lot of trouble with this one, to be honest.

The Record, along with Scottish Labour and a lot of the left of social media, are up in arms that a mystery benefactor has donated a £230,000 Rolls Royce to Glasgow City Council for the use of the Lord Provost. But nobody can quite manage to explain why they’re so angry about it.

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Tags:
Category comment, media, scottish politics

Ruth Davidson Lie Watch 376

Posted on May 26, 2018 by

So it appears that Ruth Davidson has been lying again.

And as is so often the case, the lie is easy to expose.

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Tags:
Category comment, disturbing, scottish politics, video

The Angry Man 408

Posted on May 14, 2018 by

So it seems our article of earlier today rattled the Herald’s cage but good. Scottish political Twitter has been an absolute logjam of incandescent Herald Group hacks all afternoon, making all manner of wild accusations and threats. At the head of the fury, of course, was Chief Reporter And Witchfinder General Mr David Leask.

Unfamiliar with the Scottish media? God, how we wish THAT was true.

Leask issued a long (long) stream of invective on Twitter, while hiding behind a block that means we can’t post any responses to it that any of his Twitter followers will see. So for the record, we suppose we’ll have to address them here.

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Tags:
Category comment, debunks, media, navel-gazing, scottish politics

The same difference 182

Posted on May 08, 2018 by

This one won’t take long. This is the front page lead on today’s Herald:

It’s a trope beloved of Unionists (and was a particular favourite of the paper’s departed columnist David Torrance) – how dare Scotland imagine that it’s special? – and the Herald bangs the drum extra-hard this morning, with Anas Sarwar given lots of room to talk Scotland down while insisting that he’s not talking Scotland down, claiming that the idea of Scotland being “less intolerant than our neighbours” is a myth.

So let’s just check the facts.

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Tags:
Category analysis, debunks, media, scottish politics

Just plain lying 386

Posted on April 09, 2018 by

The front page of today’s Scottish Daily Mail:

The problem: it’s completely and utterly made up.

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Tags:
Category analysis, media, scottish politics

Replacement bollocks service 344

Posted on January 31, 2018 by

Alert readers may recall some articles last August in which we highlighted the total pig’s breakfast Scotland’s media had made of reporting ScotRail punctuality figures, centred around mistaking the “on time” figures (trains arriving within 59 seconds of their scheduled time, ie at the advertised minute) for the “PPM” figures (trains arriving within five minutes) which are the basis of official punctuality targets.

Several newspapers, including the Herald, Courier, Daily Record and Daily Mail, had to publish corrections after our articles, so we can be pretty sure they won’t have made that mistake again with the latest stats.

Can’t we?

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Tags:
Category debunks, media, scottish politics

An early failure 277

Posted on January 25, 2018 by

December:

January:

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Tags:
Category comment, media, scottish politics

The Fantasists 138

Posted on January 22, 2018 by

We thought it might be worth going through this in a bit more detail.

The phrase “out of control” is in quote marks in the Herald’s front-page headline, leading readers to believe someone has said it, but who? Let’s investigate.

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Tags:
Category investigation, media, scottish politics, world

David Torrance Fact Check 237

Posted on January 19, 2018 by

Remarkably, the notoriously unreliable and yet somehow omnipresent Scottish political commentator and reality-disputer David “Davey” Torrance was still digging last night in the wake of this story from three days ago.

Never, eh? Let’s see if that’s true, shall we?

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Tags:
Category comment, media, scottish politics

Alex Cole-Hamilton Fact Check 137

Posted on December 24, 2017 by

The prissy, easily-upset and extravagantly-funded Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton tweeted this this morning:

Now, we’re not sure “you’ve had the government you’ve voted for about half the time in a two-horse race” would be all that great a selling point in the first place, but shall we see if it’s actually true, readers?

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Tags:
Category debunks, idiots, scottish politics, uk politics

Tory Liar Of The Week (11-17 Dec 2017) 170

Posted on December 15, 2017 by

Because to tell you the truth, readers, we’re not sure the word “idiot” is accurate any more. The tweets you’re about to read are far beyond simple stupidity and well into the shadowy realms of deliberate falsehood. (Delivered in the secure knowledge that the media won’t challenge it, and in fact will probably exaggerate and amplify it further.)

So let’s start with one of the better-known dum-dums.

That’s serial bonehead Jamie Greene there, demonstrating that he can’t count up to two, because what he evidently meant to write was “two pictures say eleven words”.

This should be good.

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Tags:
Category analysis, debunks, scottish politics

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