The broken telescope 539
Posted on
December 29, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
An alert reader spotted this today:
Because with Scottish Labour, lying is for life, not just Christmas.
Taking the strain 284
Posted on
December 03, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re on about Day 79 of NoScottishPoliticsNewsGate (today’s big “EXCLUSIVE!” in the Herald is something we told you about last Friday, and was also an “exclusive” in yesterday’s Scottish Sun), so we found ourselves getting diverted by something else in the papers this morning.
The Scottish Daily Mail had a piece on the cost of train journeys from Scotland, and living in Bath you don’t need to tell us how scandalously expensive British railways are compared to almost any other country in the Northern Hemisphere.
But the Mail is the Mail, and it couldn’t help distorting even an open-goal of a story like that until it had almost no relation to reality. And it’s a very useful illustration, should anybody need yet another one, of how this country’s newspapers vastly mislead their readers without actually technically lying.
Ifs and buts and maybes 170
Posted on
November 01, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers may have noticed that for a non-holiday period, Scottish politics is a deathly quiet place at the moment. Papers are struggling to find anything to write about at all, and were beside themselves with joy this week when presented with the chance to fabricate a ridiculous “anti-Semitism” story about an obscure blogger criticising a trade union and fill several pages with hysterical fauxtrage over it.
The sheer dearth of anything happening whatsoever is typified by the Scottish Daily Mail’s front-page splash this morning.
It sounds dramatic – a potentially catastrophic en-masse exodus of Scotland’s doctors would certainly be a crisis. But anyone reading beyond the lurid headline will swiftly discover a rather less doom-laden reality.
Another disaster for Scotland 535
Posted on
October 29, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As if it wasn’t enough that one small country had to cope with the terrible burden of hundreds of billions of pounds of volatile oil revenues, now we have to face the grim prospect that with fossil fuels being phased out across the world to protect the climate, Scotland also produces TOO MUCH cheap, clean, infinitely renewable energy.
No wonder the Unionists think we’re too wee and too poor to go it alone.
Another crushing defeat 451
Posted on
October 28, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
From today’s Scottish Mail On Sunday:
Blimey, a “hammering”? Well, we suppose after 14 years in power they’ll have had a good run, so who’s going to replace them as the next Scottish Government?
A rapid improvement 284
Posted on
October 17, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Scottish Daily Mail today has a big headline relaying the seemingly-unambiguous bad news that unemployment in Scotland has apparently risen by 11,000.
But cheer up, folks, because better times are ahead.
Before the truth has its boots on 70
Posted on
September 28, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve been keeping coverage of our ongoing court battle with former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale to a minimum on the site, partly because little of any material impact has actually happened yet.
However, there was a mildly interesting development last night, which was scooped and accurately reported by the Scottish Sun.
Reactions to the party’s statement have already seen serious amounts of what we’re generously going to call “misinformation” generated and circulating around social media, so we’re going to have to clear some of it up. Apologies.
Quick perspective check 208
Posted on
September 27, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
From today’s Scottish Daily Mail:
Sounds terrible. Let’s take a look in more depth at this rising tide.
The tin-eared soldier 191
Posted on
September 14, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Vince Cable, who was once apparently some sort of politician, took it upon himself to issue an opinion yesterday on the subject of referendums that had independence supporters on social media hooting with mocking laughter long into the night.
The estimable Wee Ginger Dug has already dealt adroitly with just the 300 or so most obviously ridiculous aspects of Cable’s tone-deaf and spectacularly hypocritical view, so we won’t step on his paws by repeating them here.
Instead we thought we’d do what we do best, and check the facts.
Data in depth 110
Posted on
September 07, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Last night we stumbled across an interesting little statistical wrinkle to our story from Wednesday about voters’ satisfaction with Scottish public services.
The middle set of figures there is especially revealing.
Getting no satisfaction 194
Posted on
September 05, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
This year’s Scottish Household Survey is out, and the press is in an absolutely gleeful orgy of misery over it. Here’s the Times, for example:
The paper’s leading line is that “only half of those polled were happy with schools, the NHS and transport provision in their area”. So readers would naturally assume that the other half were DISsatisfied, right?
The reality is somewhat different.
