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.
We know that politicians are allowed to lie in election literature, but we’re struggling to see how this isn’t fraud, which is something different altogether.
If you’re trying to give someone an example of a terrible group of people from history, I think the Nazis are pretty good for that purpose. They fulfil the criterion excellently, what with all the invading and occupying and repression and genocidal murder and everything, and there’s very little ambiguity or any shades of grey about their evil.
Now, alert readers may have spotted that while the headline of this article is a genuine quote from the paragraph above, and could be technically correctly described as my words by someone with malicious and dishonest intent (something which does in fact happen regularly), it gives a highly misleading impression of what was really said.
As alert readers will already know, this site’s core long-term aim is to eventually render itself redundant, by showing people how to read between the lines, spot what isn’t being said and understand the various tricks that newspapers use in order to get the public to believe things that aren’t true without ever doing anything so crass (and more to the point, legally-actionable) as directly lying.
Today’s papers provide an especially clear-cut example.
That clip (from just past midnight on the BBC News channel) isn’t a bad starting-point summary of last night’s extraordinary story, except by our count the Telegraph’s piece was fourth-hand rather than third-hand.
(First-hand would have been Nicola Sturgeon. Second-hand would have been the ambassador. Third-hand would have been the consul-general. The civil servant – who doubted the story him/herself – is fourth-hand.)
This is also a pretty good primer. Now let’s get to the fun stuff.
Listeners to today’s “Good Morning Scotland” were treated (from 2h 7m at that link) to a consummate masterclass in the art of evasion from Labour’s Scottish branch-office manager Jim Murphy. The bulk of a 13-minute segment was devoted to Murphy’s claim that a Labour vote in this May’s general election would bring about an end to foodbanks in Scotland, although the pledge steadily degraded as interviewer Gary Robertson pressed fruitlessly for detail.
(Murphy refused to say if or when any money generated by a Labour UK government would be given to the Scottish Government, wouldn’t be drawn on when the need for foodbanks would be eradicated, shot down a straw man on benefit sanctions and eventually conceded that in fact there would always be foodbanks, by way of a brief diversion to “I do a lot of work for charity but I don’t like to talk about it”.)
We have to give Jim Murphy credit – on this week’s Sunday Politics he started off with the subtle, misleading but technically-accurate version of Labour’s line about the “biggest party forming the government”, which involves making the true but irrelevant observation that in the past it’s usually been the case. (Mainly because UK elections almost always give the biggest party a comfortable majority.)
But it only took a couple of minutes of questioning for the Scottish branch manager to lose his cool and resort to the comprehensively debunked flat-out lie again.
With apologies to Jason Donovan, we felt we should probably have a look at the latest election leaflet Scottish Labour are putting through people’s doors.
The Daily Record is currently faithfully blaring out Labour’s anti-SNP “NHS in crisis” message, as part of the embattled party’s bizarre strategy of fighting a Westminster election solely on policies that are devolved to Holyrood, like health and education.
But an article on its website today dredges new depths even for the Record.
The categorical support of Andy Murray for Scottish independence, though only finally unambiguously revealed in today’s Sunday Times (the tennis star’s day-of-poll tweet backing Yes could by a strict semantic interpretation have been said to be somewhat equivocal), isn’t much of a surprise.
So it’s perhaps worth reminding ourselves what the media told us.
sarah on According As We Need Them: “@ Northcode: “mirkie watter”. I like it, Northcode. Your knowledge of poetic forms puts me to shame.” Jul 15, 22:58
sam on According As We Need Them: “https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52524-europeans-would-welcome-an-independent-scotland-into-the-eu “That Scotland may vote in a second independence referendum to leave the UK cannot be discounted, and Scottish nationalists…” Jul 15, 21:43
sam on According As We Need Them: “The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a United Nations treaty that the UK has ratified (meaning…” Jul 15, 21:38
Northcode on According As We Need Them: “Thanks, James. Here’s another: mirkie watter Rever stanes smuithed roond; shaped by watter no thair ain; drouned in silence, worn…” Jul 15, 19:17
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Thanks for the info, Aidan. On the face of it then, it sounds like just another ruse by which the…” Jul 15, 19:11
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Fair enough, sarah, I stand corrected. How about a link so we can all see what it’s about?” Jul 15, 18:58
Captain Caveman on According As We Need Them: “@TwatByName You know what they say, “there’s no fool like an old fool”. Silly old sod. Take up bowls or…” Jul 15, 18:56
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Sure, TH. I have little doubt that the humous boys will be hunted down to the ends of the earth…” Jul 15, 18:54
Aidan on According As We Need Them: “I’ll save you the trouble, it’s another cunning plan which says that if the Scottish Government implemented the ICCPR, because…” Jul 15, 18:34
sarah on According As We Need Them: ““clearly a good thing because Angus R…oppose it.” This is an example of humour.” Jul 15, 18:32
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Guid Gowd, sarah, but you’re a dunderheid. Things are intrinsically good or intrinsically bad. Their goodness or otherwise is not…” Jul 15, 18:17
twathater on According As We Need Them: “Ewen used to be a regular contributor BTL on Yours For Scotland and was asked by Iain Lawson to do…” Jul 15, 18:16
twathater on According As We Need Them: “There’s Chas focusing his inner franchise fanny and CLAIMING that he knows what the MAJORITY of visitors to WOS are…” Jul 15, 18:10
twathater on According As We Need Them: “The problem wi that is the humous boys have probably witnessed what is currently being done to innocent women and…” Jul 15, 18:03
twathater on According As We Need Them: “And as if any proof were required about the relationship of yoons and lunacy, immediately up pops Bastard Tax MOAN…” Jul 15, 17:50
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Ah come oan noo, sarah. We need to all focus on supporting the good news you report above to a…” Jul 15, 17:50
sarah on According As We Need Them: “O/T Ewen Kennedy [retired lawyer and an independence supporter] has made a submission to Holyrood’s petitions committee in support of…” Jul 15, 17:45
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “There is much truth in what you write here, James. A phrase I read a little while back sticks with…” Jul 15, 17:38
James Cheyne on According As We Need Them: “Sven. Indeed it appears that Labour are finishing and finalising what the Tories Started, with considerable help from the greens…” Jul 15, 17:27
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Seriously, Alf? You’re now getting info from the scatological ravings of Confused? ‘as the saying goes : “a drunk arse…” Jul 15, 17:26
sarah on According As We Need Them: “Rev, have you a proposal for the campaign over the next 9 months? It would be useful to hear which…” Jul 15, 17:22
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “That is good news, sarah. I expect they’ll agree a stern resolution calling for the humous boys to come out…” Jul 15, 17:14
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “@DaveL says: 15 July, 2025 at 2:20 am “Can you explain why or how?” I think you’re new here, Dave.…” Jul 15, 17:09
Chas on According As We Need Them: “Congratulations Sven. You must be one of the very few people who actually read any of the repetive gibberish produced…” Jul 15, 16:30
Sven on According As We Need Them: “James Cheyne @15.29. Dear Lord, “James”, how I wish I wasn’t in complete agreement with so many of those points.” Jul 15, 15:55
James Cheyne on According As We Need Them: “The social engineering experiments on the populations is an ideology effecting all governances from enforced migrations across borders being encouraged…” Jul 15, 15:29
Captain Caveman on According As We Need Them: “‘… hence also that “the moon is made of cheese” (Cesaire)’ I’m sorry, but you just have to laugh, right?…” Jul 15, 15:21
sarah on According As We Need Them: “O/T Good news today – Republic of Ireland, Spain, China, Brazil, South Africa and 15 other countries are meeting today…” Jul 15, 15:19
Alf Baird on According As We Need Them: “Thanks for the info, Confused. In particular, “Fanon’s theory of “disalienation” — the idea that for the colonized to escape…” Jul 15, 12:53