The Scottish Daily Mail’s front page lead today is so galactically despicable that it’s easy to overlook another story that it bundles in with the same “SNP BAD” attack.
While excoriating Dr Philippa Whitford for having the sheer shameless gall to help save women’s lives in her holidays, the alleged newspaper also devotes a page-high article to an attack on another Nat MP, George Kerevan, for employing his wife.
As we noted on Tuesday, Scottish Labour’s opening election salvo for 2016 has been to blame the Scottish Government for unaffordable house prices.
Of the 450 most obvious flaws in that argument, not least the extraordinary efforts a 13-year Labour government went to to keep the housing bubble inflated, the one that caught our eye was that in the past three years we were regularly told of one thing that definitely WOULD bring prices down dramatically, but which Labour pathologically fought every step of the way.
Kezia Dugdale made a spectacle of herself again at First Minister’s Questions earlier today. Using time intended for holding the Scottish Government to account over its devolved responsibilities, Dugdale once more decided instead to ignore her duty to the people of Scotland and attack the FM over a matter which is entirely outwith the Scottish Government’s control, namely the past actions of a Westminster MP.
Pausing only to demand that Holyrood interfere in the running of the independent Law Society, Dugdale then abandoned her casual endangerment of a live police inquiry by focusing instead on the morality of the aforementioned MP’s business practices:
But Ms Dugdale’s own ethics left a few things to be desired.
Earlier today we made an observation about the overblown way the media has been covering the Scottish Government’s underspend of 1.3% of its budget (a figure about which the David Hume Institute today cooed approvingly “Even Mr Micawber could not budget more accurately”).
To nobody’s great amazement, Scottish Labour rentahonk Jackie Baillie – fresh from making a complete idiot of herself over the Michelle Thomson case – couldn’t resist jumping on the bandwagon.
Quite aside from the fact that it means no such thing – there’s no less money, it’s just that some of it will now be carried over and spent this year instead – we suppose the tweet does at least mean that Scottish Labour’s policy position is clear: the Scottish Government should always spend every penny of its budget. Right?
The editor of the New Statesman just tweeted this image, trailing an interview with Jim Murphy, who alert readers may recall led Scottish Labour for a few months this year before its apocalyptic disaster of a general election campaign which saw it lose 40 of the 41 Scottish seats it won in 2010:
Oh, wait – maybe he’s trying to claim the credit for it.
Last night we highlighted the reaction from various right-wing columnists to the SNP’s torpedoing yesterday of Tory attempts to relax the laws on foxhunting in England and Wales. Today the same commentariat has turned its rage to thoughts of revenge, in the form of “English votes for English laws”.
And we’re confused, because we don’t know what this “England” they speak of is.
By now you should all have had a chance to marvel at the extraordinary madness that is Scottish Labour’s 51-page suicide note of SNP members who’ve said rude words on the internet since 2012.
You may even have had time to read a data protection expert (and Labour voter)’s assessment of all the ways in which the dossier breaks the law.
STV’s notorious quisling correspondent Stephen “Stevo” Daisley has an interesting piece today about the latest manufactured “cybernat” shock-horror outrage being punted by the Daily Mail (although curiously, the major “CYBERNAT WEB OF HATE!” exposé they promised readers would be published on Thursday is yet to materialise).
Daisley’s column makes some valid points about how the SNP could distance itself from the most extremist elements of its online support, but with one important flaw – it overlooks a crucial factor driving internet rage, and as a result its recommendations would only actually make the situation worse.
But fear not, gentle and sensitive reader. Conveniently, there’s an easy solution.
Amazingly enough, the Scottish press today ISN’T wall-to-wall with stories about Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale, UK peer and lawmaker, endorsing the “f***ing booting” of Conservative supporters at the weekend, in a striking contrast to when a young SNP candidate said similar but less offensive things some months ago.
(Lord McConnell’s friends were talking in the future tense about something they would do. Mhairi Black was talking in the past tense, about things which she HADN’T done.)
As far as we’ve seen, the small piece above in the Scottish Sun is the only coverage. (The Daily Record, as well as not reporting the McConnell comments at all, actually has another go at Mhairi Black instead.)
But we were having trouble recalling any “hate-filled violent mobs” (McConnell’s actual full quote) on the Yes/SNP side. And so was an alert reader who had a dig through the papers from the last couple of years.
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “@Sam We’re much more educated, advanced and sophisticated these days. Read Wings BTL and you’ll discover many don’t even consider…” Jun 29, 19:33
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “Sure, but never mind all that. Did you catch anything while you were away?” Jun 29, 19:29
Dan on The Con Merchant: ““I’m as Scottish as anyone else posting in here. Born, bred and lived more than half my life here.” Careful…” Jun 29, 18:45
Alf Baird on Holiday Relief: “Fearghas, the reality is you have never been able to explain “the glaringly obvious” fact that the Scottish Government heavily…” Jun 29, 18:43
Aidan on The Con Merchant: “@Andy – you are of course right and perhaps I should be less surprised, I suppose it’s a wishful thought…” Jun 29, 18:32
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “We’ve imported millions of third-world impoverished and poverty has gone up. No shit, Sherlock!” Jun 29, 18:31
Andy Ellis on The Con Merchant: “@sam I’m as Scottish as anyone else posting in here. Born, bred and lived more than half my life here.…” Jun 29, 17:51
sam on The Con Merchant: “Andy Ellis says. “Throughout our history we’ve never needed any external powers to keep us “doun hauden”,” Poverty is a…” Jun 29, 17:42
Andy Ellis on The Con Merchant: “@Aidan It’s a truth universally acknowledged that some of the stupidest and least pleasant people you’ll ever meet have degrees…” Jun 29, 17:39
sam on The Con Merchant: “Andy Ellis (English man) says of Scots (all of us who vote). “the lack of political courage of Scots voters…” Jun 29, 17:25
agent x on The Con Merchant: “Don’t worry – Freya Stewart, from South Queensferry, who just finished her second year studying social anthropology at the university…” Jun 29, 17:22
Southernbystander on The Con Merchant: “‘The constitution should be 80% Scots, 20% non-English foreigners’. Trouble with that is that under the current fees regime in…” Jun 29, 17:18
Aidan on The Con Merchant: “@Andy – no indeed, and I know that the reason these people infest WoS is because people don’t want to…” Jun 29, 17:08
Northcode on Holiday Relief: ““…the colonized’s mother tongue, that which is sustained by his feelings, emotions and dreams, that in which his tenderness and…” Jun 29, 17:04
Young Lochinvar on The Con Merchant: “Just back from holiday, none of my posts sent from there appeared, probably a poor internet signal. I do not…” Jun 29, 17:03
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Holiday Relief: “Alf, The IRONY of all this is both astounding and desolating. Despite all your valued Hauden-Doun insights, you seem entirely…” Jun 29, 16:43
sam on The Con Merchant: “YouGov March 2025 “When it comes to top priorities for the Scottish government, two issues dominate across all voting and…” Jun 29, 16:34
Andy Ellis on The Con Merchant: “Sadly Aidan any mass movement attracts a leavening of weirdos, monomaniacal obsessives and downright swivel eyed bigots. The fact that…” Jun 29, 16:27
sam on The Con Merchant: ““The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else…”” Jun 29, 16:14
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “@Sam Swinney does for baldies what Sturgeon did for wasp chewers. Very sadly, Scotland is over-represented with both groups. Hence…” Jun 29, 15:20
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “Thanks for the link, Confused. Aren’t they the perfect bunch of whiny snowflakes though? Somebody said they couldn’t understand an…” Jun 29, 15:11
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: ““a canna git fowk telt eneuch juist hou guid it feels tae speik an wryte Scots” Just as you cannot…” Jun 29, 15:02
Aidan on The Con Merchant: “Sorry – you went to a university and you’ve ended up like this?” Jun 29, 14:59
sam on The Con Merchant: “(I’m not a member of any political party or a supporter of the SNP). That said it won’t be easy…” Jun 29, 14:57
Duncan Strachan on The Con Merchant: “Agrre with that also.” Jun 29, 14:57
Hatey McHateface on The Con Merchant: “A con man has to be charismatic. A confused man has to be schismatic.” Jun 29, 14:54
Alf Baird on The Con Merchant: “This in large part explains our current (and future) mediocre meritocracy and the poor and deteriorating condition our nation and…” Jun 29, 14:45
sam on The Con Merchant: “One view is that independence will come when the English electorate believes more strongly than now that we’re spongers, ripping…” Jun 29, 14:32
Alf Baird on Holiday Relief: “Yes Northcode, it seems certain that the Scots language is the main target of discrimination here, whilst Gaelic spoken by…” Jun 29, 14:32
