Scotland has 2,174 miles of trunk roads, of which 1.7 miles (that’s just under 0.08%) comprise the Queensferry Crossing. For the next few days those 1.7 miles are going to be subject to some partial lane closures on the southbound side for maintenance.
They’ll cause almost no disruption, because as it happens there’s another very similar bridge conveniently located just a couple of hundred yards away – linked directly to all the same roads – that traffic will use instead.
Not much of a story, is it? We don’t know how many miles of Scotland’s roads have roadworks on them on any given day of any given week, but we suspect it’s quite a lot. It tends not to make the news beyond a few seconds on the traffic bulletin at the end, but today was different.
Yesterday’s Daily Record (which would increasingly be an accurate three-word name for the paper) ran an innocuous piece of page-filler fluff rubbish, and for once we’re not talking about a David Torrance column.
It featured the “psychic” predictions of a man who, the Record told us – no fewer than FIVE times in the opening few lines – previously predicted Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, and who had a track record of “incredible accuracy”.
Quite a few remarkable things were said on last night’s STV debate between the two prospective leaders of the Labour Party branch office in Scotland. This one, though, was especially striking.
That’s Anas Sarwar denying three times that he was a part of the “Better Together” campaign with the Tories. A startled Colin Mackay claims to have seen photographs of Sarwar campaigning with BT, at which point Sarwar insists no, he merely appeared on TV debates which happened to also have Tory guests.
The Daily Record have continued to run Kezia Dugdale’s weekly column despite her resignation as Scottish Labour branch office manager (North British division), and this week we were interested to note her assessment of the devolution years, which could be summarised neatly as “Labour devolution good, SNP devolution bad”.
We raised an especially quizzical eyebrow at the claim that the 1999-2007 Labour/Lib Dem administrations had apparently ended homelessness. So we thought we’d do that thing we do when Kezia Dugdale claims something.
The Scottish media this week has started to rather resemble Argentina under General Galtieri’s military junta – everywhere you look are the ghosts of the disappeared.
The best we can say is that at least this time it took four months for the Secretary Of State’s promise to completely and utterly collapse, not 48 hours.
“Colonel” Ruth Davidson took time out from her holidays yesterday to unleash an extraordinary (and unusually defensive) 35-part Twitter tirade about the reaction to her appointment as an honorary military commander. So barren is the summer political news desert that two newspapers put it on their front page today, giving the BBC an excuse to deem it the day’s biggest story.
This was David Mundell on Sunday, guaranteeing that any extra money produced for Northern Ireland to secure DUP backing for the Tory government would be matched by more funding for Scotland (as much as £4.5bn under normal Barnett Formula rules, because Scotland has nearly three times the population of the province):
We hadn’t been planning to talk any more about the curious case of Claire Austin, the suddenly publicity-shy Edinburgh nurse who – how can we put this? – seemed a rather ill-chosen figurehead for the good cause of getting more pay for a group of people who are rightly well-regarded by the public.
But yesterday, the release of a letter from Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale re-opened political hostilities after last week’s hiatus for the Manchester terror attack by shoving the now-reticent Ms Austin right back into the spotlight.
The Labour general election manifesto is officially launched today, as if it mattered. It will reportedly say that the party will block a second independence referendum if it’s in power at Westminster, which of course it won’t be.
And while Labour’s position on anything – particularly anything involving Scotland – is a complete irrelevance, it’s still quite fun to listen to them tying themselves in knots.
So with no further ado, ladies and gentlemen, we bring you Duncan Hothersall.
Something really quite strange happened yesterday. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was caught red-handed in the act of telling a bare-faced, unarguable lie in the middle of a general election campaign, and nobody cared.
Reacting to the Crown Prosecution Service decision not to prosecute dozens of Tory MPs who’d broken the law in getting elected in 2015, the PM offered up a quote, which was reported in most of the newspapers:
Nice wee bit of snark on “all the major parties, and the Scottish nationalists” there. But there’s a slight problem with the statement, which is that it’s an absolute lie.
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “” We knew you would not disappoint us…” I wonder who the “we” and “us” are. Must be aw its…” Jan 21, 14:32
Andy Wiltshire on Yelling at the tide: “In reply to your letter, we undertake to give a response immediately after the conclusion of Operation Branchform.” Jan 21, 14:16
sarah on Yelling at the tide: “The plot thickens. Very well done, Rev, and thank you once again for trying, directly, to improve public standards in…” Jan 21, 13:53
Ian Smith on Yelling at the tide: “Bear in mind that AI can be prompted to agree with the type of query it is presented with. If…” Jan 21, 13:50
sam on Yelling at the tide: ““I would bet money that is at the heart of the Kemp fiasco.” Me,too. And “correspondence”? What part did this…” Jan 21, 13:35
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “God Almighty the colonialists on here are thick. And their reading comprehension of the English language appears to be wanting,…” Jan 21, 13:26
Cynicus on Yelling at the tide: ““If you are satisfied that Judge Kemp did not derive them from generative AI, are you equally satisfied that the…” Jan 21, 13:12
sam on Yelling at the tide: “Scrutiny of the tribunal findings from Genspect. “The Tribunal maintains on the one hand that “having the protected characteristic of…” Jan 21, 13:10
Confused on The Secondhand Amendment: “let’s remember the facts of our own situation; historical interlude … the union, when you look into what happened, is…” Jan 21, 13:00
Ian Smith on Yelling at the tide: “Surely Judge Kemp must have read these landmark rulings by himself and noticed that his judicial colleague was talking nonsense.…” Jan 21, 12:57
Confused on The Secondhand Amendment: “no iranian cleric ever stole your country’s oil, resources, made you second class citizens/white n1ggers, spilled your blood for nothing,…” Jan 21, 12:57
Confused on The Secondhand Amendment: “it’s called the speculative society and its a drop your keks, grab your ankles and bite down on this ……” Jan 21, 12:56
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “sin [s?n, s?n] adv. Since, ago, from now, from that time. prep. Since, from the time of, after. conj. Since,…” Jan 21, 12:43
sam on Yelling at the tide: “I think it likely that the matter of correspondence with a judicial colleague will be raised in the EAT to…” Jan 21, 12:43
Dave Hansell on Yelling at the tide: “Sadly, for the poster known as Northcode, an award claimed immediately by a post which implies, if not effectively argues,…” Jan 21, 12:30
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Sure about that, Alf? My innate knowledge of Scots, backed up by a check in the Scots dictionary, shows “sin”…” Jan 21, 12:16
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Given that Shona is to be replaced by Susan, it would be interesting if some forensic journalist were to dig…” Jan 21, 12:05
Lorna Campbell on Yelling at the tide: “Strangely enough, for a nationalist, and a Scottish nationalist at that (though not SNP) I do not believe that this…” Jan 21, 12:04
Lord_Humblecroft on Yelling at the tide: “Stu, The judicial colleagues are in all likelihood the lay members of the tribunal: Court docs show: Employment Judge A…” Jan 21, 11:54
jim Thomson on Yelling at the tide: “I gave up holding my breath for such results a long time ago. The Establishment will, undoubtedly, close ranks again…” Jan 21, 11:52
James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “Sam, Indeed this did go on, if the pay was right and rewards of land or titles could be Acquired…” Jan 21, 11:48
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Wow, Northy, Off Topic by comment # 11. Surely a new Wings BTL record. As for self-identifying as shit, that’s…” Jan 21, 11:47
100%Yes on Yelling at the tide: “What was I written here, Lets see what they come back with as a reply.” Jan 21, 11:47
James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “What matters with the governance sent to Scotland and the judicial system along with the SNP is that they are…” Jan 21, 11:33
lollysmum on Yelling at the tide: “Methinks Alex Salmond came to that conclusion many years ago having been the target of Scotgov & the untrustworthy SNP.…” Jan 21, 11:07
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “Welcome to “The Colony of Scotland”. I fancy that the expectations of the colonised Scots on here – and throughout…” Jan 21, 11:06
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: ““…but the content is as old as the hills.” More from Iain MacKinnon So, Aonghas [MacCoinnich, historian] has recently released…” Jan 21, 11:05
James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “Divide and rule, convince populations that they are on the right side of history with in-fed propaganda…..encourage them to chose…” Jan 21, 10:53
Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: “Sin 1707 “the Scottish judicial system” haes serred anely an Englis Croun.” Jan 21, 10:34
Milady on Yelling at the tide: “Brilliant letter. Depending on the response you almost wonder if it would be worth a concerted and focused letter writing…” Jan 21, 10:28
