The Tories kicked off yesterday’s reaction to the budget with a straight-up lie.
No promise has been broken. The basic rate HAS been frozen, at 20p, and low and middle earners HAVE been protected. Nobody who’s on less than £33,000 – which is considerably higher than the average (£23K) or full-time median (£28K) wages – will pay a penny more tax, and the large majority of Scots will in fact see a small tax cut.
(The weasel-wording justification is of course that pretty much everyone who pays tax pays some of it at the basic rate, and are therefore in a sense “basic-rate taxpayers”. But “nobody will pay any more tax” wasn’t the promise. Indeed, the manifesto pledge is a pretty clear implication that better-off people WOULD be taxed a little more.)
But the numbering was interesting. In order to try to obscure that fact that most Scots would be paying LESS tax as a result of the budget, the Tories went with a nicely vague but high-sounding “hundreds of thousands” for the number of people who’d lose out a little. And then the Scottish media went to work.
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.
Northcode on The View From Row Z: “Good God! I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed a mind so thoroughly outpaced by the speed of its owner’s unthinking…” Jun 1, 10:11
diabloandco on The View From Row Z: “Turabdin, that is another success story for the ‘sweeping under the carpet ‘ brigade. No-one held to account, absolutely shocking.” Jun 1, 10:02
Northcode on The View From Row Z: “What’s your game in this place? What’s your angle? I’m a Scot speaking up for Scotland and my people, the…” Jun 1, 09:49
agentx on The View From Row Z: ““With what certainly sounded like a warning of repercussions, she sternly rebuked those in the NEC in 2021, in a…” Jun 1, 09:48
Northcode on The View From Row Z: ““was it exposure to the English” Indeed, many peoples around the world have expressed how their interactions with England, their…” Jun 1, 09:22
TURABDIN on The View From Row Z: “STILL awaiting the punishment of those responsible for the gross neglect that destroyed the GSA «iconic» Mackintosh building. The perception…” Jun 1, 09:21
Northcode on The View From Row Z: “Good God! I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed a mind so thoroughly outpaced by the speed of its owner’s unthinking…” Jun 1, 08:36
Frank Gillougley on The View From Row Z: “Clearly, the ability to intelligently lie is inversely proportional for those in authority, hence she couldn’t have seen the motorhome…” Jun 1, 08:06
Hatey McHateface on The View From Row Z: “The Hate Crimes Act remains in force in Scotland. As it happens, no political party seems to see any popular…” Jun 1, 08:05
Rogueslr on The View From Row Z: “Is there any evidence the motorhome ever left the drive? And if so, where was it spotted on the ANPR…” Jun 1, 08:03
Hatey McHateface on The View From Row Z: “A masterclass, Northy, on how it is possible to circle even a single wagon. Here’s what a wondering world wants…” Jun 1, 07:32
Hatey McHateface on The View From Row Z: “An excellent post, Ian. There can now be no doubt that the SNP has foisted two in a row of…” Jun 1, 07:25
Roastin on The View From Row Z: “Point taken about London based journalist not being as clued up as Scottish journalists but the main Scottish papers have…” Jun 1, 07:13
Hatey McHateface on The View From Row Z: “What’s to deal with, YL? There’s not one of us who hasn’t sat up into the wee, small hours, crafting…” Jun 1, 07:09
Hatey McHateface on The View From Row Z: “Big deal, Northy. Now correct the rest of the shite.” Jun 1, 07:02
Aunty Flo on The View From Row Z: “Do you reckon that Nicola’s pathetic behaviour & exposure of many lies told during this whole corrupt pantomime has jeopardised…” Jun 1, 06:10
twathater on The View From Row Z: “The ONLY reason she is NOT on trial is because of the COPFS who are obviously NOT interested in serving…” Jun 1, 03:59
Young Lochinvar on The View From Row Z: “You know, see when you sit and slowly reflect on the human condition as it’s developed.. Well, Building another Ark…” Jun 1, 01:42
Cynicus on The View From Row Z: “Or, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde’s comment on reading of the death of Little Nell: “ it would take her heart…” Jun 1, 01:42
Young Lochinvar on The View From Row Z: “She probably did but any of the alphabetties needing “incentivised” would be one lead that should be followed..” Jun 1, 01:31
Cynicus on The View From Row Z: “Campbell Clansman says: 31 May, 2026 at 5:00 pm “With her lies Sturgeon climbed to the top of the (Holyrood)…” Jun 1, 01:19
Del G on The View From Row Z: “If oor Nicola didn’t see most of these items, my question is: Who were they going to? This sounds like…” May 31, 23:59
Mark Beggan on The View From Row Z: “No Comment. Mind your own business.” May 31, 23:52
Northcode on The View From Row Z: “Correction: Muriel Stark should of course read as Muriel Spark.” May 31, 23:38
Northcode on The View From Row Z: “You lot are too harsh on the lassie. She’s a simple wee soul who only wants to be known and…” May 31, 23:10
prj on The View From Row Z: “I suspect that when the police got involved they found a more serious crime to investigate and that was Murrell.…” May 31, 22:40
robertkknight on The View From Row Z: “Aye… Bring a tear to a glass eye, so it would.” May 31, 22:28
William G Walker on The View From Row Z: “Hello All, Whatever happened to the £667,000 which was “ring-fenced” in the late 2010s for Independence? Never mind the £410,000…” May 31, 22:26
Ex President Xiden on The View From Row Z: “She is currently on TV trying to reinvent herself amongst the wokeraty.” May 31, 22:26
