Alert readers will of course be aware that one of this site’s most frequently-recurring themes is “phantom news”, whereby events or unpleasant opinions that newspapers or broadcasters really want to have happened are conveniently brought to life, either by some random nobody on the internet, or an unnamed “source” or “insider”.
So when Nicola Sturgeon did something today that nearly everyone in the Northern Hemisphere knew she was going to do sometime soon, but wasn’t expecting just yet, there wasn’t time to prepare actual real people with the required quotes.
In the modern media world, though, that isn’t a problem.
Our attention was drawn today to hardcore shrieky Loyalist nutter collective Scotland In Union releasing “new research” on an independent Scotland’s finances, which in fact came out last year but which for unknown reasons they’re touting again now.
Commissioned by the loongroup from a London-based thinktank that we’d never heard of by the name of “Europe Economics”, it predictably produces a doom-and-gloom conclusion that independence would have cost over £10bn in the first year.
There are so many gaping chasms in the logic we could hardly stop laughing for long enough to type, but one in particular was worth wiping the tears from our eyes for.
We were very pleased to hear Gary Robertson challenge Kezia Dugdale on the curious matter of Scottish Labour’s membership and income figures on today’s Good Morning Scotland. Dugdale flapped and dodged and waffled for as long as she could before diverting the topic onto federalism, and eventually managed to wriggle away from the subject without any sort of proper answer (through no fault of Robertson’s).
Almost a year ago we ran a short piece mocking a Scotsman headline which claimed that “THOUSANDS” of people had signed a Tory anti-referendum petition, when the actual number was a strictly-accurate-but-pathetic TWO thousand.
We didn’t think that could ever be beaten for technically-true hyperbolic exaggeration, but we’d reckoned without the bold boundary-pushing ingenuity of the Daily Express.
Hundreds of thousands? How many hundreds, exactly?
There’s a truly abominable piece of hatemongering in today’s Times. A grotesequely dishonest Nat-bashing smear job based on stupendously misrepresented fragments of quotes, it’s penned by Patrick Harkness, someone who the paper identifies as “a past co-chairman of the RSE [Royal Society of Edinburgh] Young Academy of Scotland”.
For some reason it’s chosen to leave a few lines off his CV.
It’s a well-known fact, of course, that 87% of all statistics are made up. But as this site regularly observes, if you’re the Scottish opposition and media there’s no need to invent fake ones when you can twist the real ones to present an image completely at odds with the reality.
The Sunday Times today has some fine examples of the craft of massaging figures for the purposes of deception. It carries two separate scare stories on the NHS, both of them using figures which aren’t based on any sort of news, but on opposition spin on existing stats. One comes from the Tories, under a dramatic headline:
The banner is pulling a classic trick – the £685m figure is actually the total sum spent in a decade, not the single year that most people would assume (since there’s no good reason to measure spending in decades, so headlines usually don’t do it). But remarkably it’s just about the most honest thing in the paper’s health coverage today.
Figures released yesterday indicated that the number of full-time teachers employed in Scotland had risen by 253 over the past year, despite budget cuts imposed by the UK government’s austerity programme. This obviously presented the Scottish media with a dilemma: how could such statistics be presented as an “SNP BAD” story?
Luckily, we’re dealing with experienced professionals here.
We often say here on Wings that our job is to teach people to instantly recognise the sneaky tricks used by the media to try to create false impressions without saying things that are technically untrue. (Because despite the tiny size they’re allowed to print corrections at, they’re still rather embarrassing.)
A key technique is to look at a headline or story and immediately ask what you’re NOT being told. So here’s an easy example from today’s Scottish Daily Mail.
Aidan on Seven Days Too Long: “So vote for a tiny micro-party which is vanishingly unlikely to win any seats, when you could instead vote against…” May 1, 08:52
TURABDIN on Seven Days Too Long: “AS A GESTURE TO THE K&Q of ENGLAND, Trump cuts tax on uisge beatha…..that great foreign owned export. Did you…” May 1, 08:43
diabloandco on Seven Days Too Long: “can anyone tell me how to get rid of Microsoft cretinous news , which pops up every time I open…” May 1, 07:53
Athanasius on Seven Days Too Long: “Don’t vote. The government will get in.” May 1, 06:30
Peter McAvoy on Seven Days Too Long: “Has the site of the fire in union street been examined to see if the buildings and roads are in…” May 1, 02:05
Young Lochinvar on Seven Days Too Long: “FFS What is up with you lot? Vote ATLS. Simple. “Independence, nothing else”. Isn’t that what we are crying out…” Apr 30, 23:49
Rob on Seven Days Too Long: “I did vote for Fergus, its not that I don’t like what the SNP used to stand for, its more…” Apr 30, 23:27
Alf Baird on Seven Days Too Long: “The Crown as relating to the Kingdom of England seems clear enough, an thars nae doubt thon Croun is whit…” Apr 30, 22:31
James on Seven Days Too Long: “Dan; I’m south Scotland and have an ATLS choice on the list so they will get my vote, sadly there…” Apr 30, 22:12
Mark Beggan on Seven Days Too Long: “I think Scotland is about to become the land that time forgot.” Apr 30, 21:17
Cynicus on Seven Days Too Long: “If you can, vote for Fergus Ewing. #No Votes SNP.” Apr 30, 21:13
Cynicus on Seven Days Too Long: “If you van, vote for Fergus Ewing. #No Votes SNP.” Apr 30, 21:12
diabloandco on Seven Days Too Long: “Please , please go and vote – spoil your ballot paper if no-one appeals – but please vote as even…” Apr 30, 21:11
Dan on Seven Days Too Long: “The trouble is James, that after 10 years and two Scottish parliament elections, there is now a choice of voting…” Apr 30, 21:06
Doug on Seven Days Too Long: “Our only hope for independence is Farage becoming PM in England.” Apr 30, 21:02
Doug on Seven Days Too Long: “A leader with any integrity would resign. So, aye, Swinney will remain as leader. The gutless memebership will probably beg…” Apr 30, 21:00
James on Seven Days Too Long: “Are you not missing the point? Agree to disagree on anything and everything except; Independence, nothing else nothing less. That’s…” Apr 30, 20:23
Confused on Seven Days Too Long: “pessimism is just playing the odds, but it makes for a dull life 1. england is swallowed beneath the waves…” Apr 30, 19:33
Potace on Seven Days Too Long: “I’m just not going to bother voting. What an utterly depressing shower they all are, and I’m left completely politically…” Apr 30, 19:06
Highland Wifie on Seven Days Too Long: “Alf says “Scots need to elect radicals.” Alliance to Liberate Scotland made a huge mistake in parachuting in Craig Murray…” Apr 30, 18:30
Sven on Seven Days Too Long: “twathater @ 17.54. “They may not be polished or grandiose” and, I’d add, not career or would be professional career…” Apr 30, 18:20
100%Yes on Seven Days Too Long: “Have you seen this below? https://neilslegalstuff.blogspot.com/2026/04/crown-of-england-post-1707-read-act.html Just wondered your thoughts?” Apr 30, 18:18
Sven on Seven Days Too Long: “Cynicus @ 17.39. I’d guess that you have missed the opportunity to waste some hours of your life which you’d…” Apr 30, 18:12
Alf Baird on Seven Days Too Long: ““a lackey for Sturgeon Don’t you mean “a lackey” for the ‘Union’?” Apr 30, 17:56
twathater on Seven Days Too Long: “FFS whats wae awe the girnin and defeatism , a canny vote for this yin or a canny vote fur…” Apr 30, 17:54
Cynicus on Seven Days Too Long: “I have not watched a single Party political broadcast or leaders’ debate.. Have I missed much?” Apr 30, 17:39
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Seven Days Too Long: “To be clear, Fergus Ewing is of course standing as an independent.” Apr 30, 17:27
Alf Baird on Seven Days Too Long: “Independence is of course ‘radical’ in terms of totally transforming our society and governance which means Scots need to elect…” Apr 30, 17:19
100%Yes on Seven Days Too Long: “The outcome of SNP election will be, Swinney failed again. He’s no Alex Salmond and why would he be, Alex…” Apr 30, 17:10
Shug on Seven Days Too Long: “He will fet my first vote but will never see the second until the perjurer is in jail” Apr 30, 17:04
