The Sunday Herald, which enjoyed a major sales boost from being the first Scottish newspaper to officially back independence but has since seen its circulation increase partly eroded, has this morning chosen to throw a stick of dynamite onto the fire.
The paper’s front page today teases a double-page spread inside with the headline “SPECIAL REPORT: HOW INDEPENDENCE SUPPORTERS SHOULD USE THEIR SECOND VOTE”. And then things get a little strange.
Last weekend’s edition of the Sunday Times gave an article to a Green activist and party worker – not billed as such, even though until last month he was on the party’s regional candidate list for Lothian – to predict that the Greens would get 10 seats at next month’s election.
Much campaigning by the various fringe parties for the Holyrood contest has been based on “seat predictors” like the one deployed to produce the figures in the piece, purporting to show that a tactical-voting strategy on the list can deliver a large gain in numbers of pro-independence MSPs compared to using both votes for the SNP.
We’ve examined that argument in considerable depth already, both theoretical and practical. But its also worth noting that so-called “seat predictors” are a rather shaky basis for making such bold forecasts.
The Scottish press and opposition’s incandescent and somewhat vague fury at the Scottish Government working to bring billions of pounds in investment to Scotland has continued undiminished in this weekend’s newspapers. Scottish Labour in particular are getting themselves very worked up about today’s Sunday Times.
“Incredible”? Sounds exciting. Let’s find out more.
When we ran this story on Monday, some of the press got rather upset with us. Even though we’d linked to the full data tables published on the ComRes site, Scottish Daily Mail political editor Alan Roden, for example, huffily tweeted a link to a cropped table suggesting that the real sample size was higher.
Alert readers will have noticed that the Conservatives and most of the right-wing press have recently embarked on a hyperbolic campaign against the Scottish Government’s “named person” child-protection legislation. The latest assault is in today’s Daily Mail:
The shriekingly furious lead article thunders in outrage that “nearly two thirds of Scots have condemned the SNP’s state guardian scheme as an ‘unacceptable intrusion’ into family life”, which sounds like a pretty damning verdict.
It’s not until you look a little deeper that it all falls to pieces.
Even by the low, low normal arithmetical standards of the Scottish media, yesterday’s Scottish Sunday Express humiliated itself with the most stupendously factually wrong articles we’ve seen in a newspaper for some time.
The Scottish Daily Mail has been working itself into a froth this week over the idea that the Scottish Government doesn’t intend to match George Osborne’s increase in the upper-rate income tax threshold from £42,000 to £45,000.
Central to the complaint is that rejecting the increase will hurt what the Mail calls “the squeezed middle” and “middle earners”, including “nurses, teachers and police”.
There are, of course, several ways of defining “middle”.
We don’t normally ask you to watch videos as long as this, readers. (Although at 4m 22s it’s still not War And Peace.) As a rule the key part of any TV discussion can be boiled down to a few seconds, but this one needs to be taken in at a bit more length.
It happened on last night’s Question Time from Dundee, and was already 10 minutes into a discussion about whether there might be a second independence referendum and what might trigger it, in particular the prospect of Scotland voting to remain in the EU in June but the rest of the UK voting to leave, dragging Scotland out forcibly.
At that point, host David Dimbleby made an inexplicable intervention, abandoning his position as supposedly neutral moderator to pluck a “fact” out of thin air with which to attack the SNP’s John Swinney. Here’s what unfolded.
As we’ve explored many times on Wings, one of the many reasons you should never trust a newspaper’s headline is that even the ones that are technically true can be painting a highly (and deliberately) misleading picture.
For example, more than two years ago we pointed to a Scotsman story that blared “A THIRD OF SCOTS WOULD BACK EXIT FROM EU”, which is a rather curious spin to put on a poll which found a 13-point margin for staying in the EU.
A paper particularly fond of misusing stats in this way is the Daily Mail.
Andrew Kidd on According As We Need Them: “There is another article in the Herald where a female politician is complaining that people are disagreeing with everything she…” Jul 13, 23:30
Young Lochinvar on According As We Need Them: “Unfortunately yes. Add in the DEI obsessed LibDems onto the list though, the shark lurking under the waves on this…” Jul 13, 23:00
GM on According As We Need Them: “Very true. Nothing for it but to keep the faith and take the genuine option when it is on offer…” Jul 13, 22:58
Captain Caveman on According As We Need Them: “@Lorn Excellent post, in my humble opinion. How did we get here?” Jul 13, 22:39
Shug on According As We Need Them: “What is the Herald and National doing getting tied up with such a bunch of self serving weirdos Are there…” Jul 13, 22:35
sarah on According As We Need Them: “@ GM: I agree. I can’t wait to see the back of them. We all know people in our own…” Jul 13, 21:53
Lorn on According As We Need Them: “You still haven’t told us who these paragons of modern political action are, Dan. Actually, I read very widely and…” Jul 13, 21:52
GM on According As We Need Them: “Aye Sarah, there are plenty of good people out there. That does not make the ‘Scottish’ elite any easier to…” Jul 13, 20:41
Dunx on Just Good Friends: “And English consumers subsidise Scottish renewables. Your point is ?” Jul 13, 20:28
holymacmoses on According As We Need Them: “A tweet from our Suzanne on journalistic integrity. Her kitchen is full of pots and kettles:-) “Suzanne McLaughlin @Suzemclaughlin Not…” Jul 13, 20:08
Dan on According As We Need Them: “Maybe try being a bit more alert and receptive to actually reading and taking in what other folk have said…” Jul 13, 20:04
willie on According As We Need Them: “The Scottish Government under the SNP and the Green is a quack quango Effijy. No one should be in any…” Jul 13, 19:38
sarah on According As We Need Them: “@ Lorn at 6.34: “who are these paragons?”. I think Dan may be referring to the Independents for Independence who…” Jul 13, 19:21
willie on According As We Need Them: “If they didn’t publicly fund these faux charities and their loon ball on line trolls to pump out their unwanted…” Jul 13, 19:20
agent x on According As We Need Them: ““The Scottish National party has voted heavily in favour of introducing all women shortlists and “balanced” regional lists, reversing decades-long…” Jul 13, 18:44
Lorn on According As We Need Them: “And who were these paragons, Dan? I have never in my life simply ticked a box because the candidate reflected…” Jul 13, 18:34
Effijy on According As We Need Them: “So much tax payer cash directed to nonsense quangos. I’ve never yet seen one of these bodies produce anything worthwhile.…” Jul 13, 18:33
Campbell Clansman on According As We Need Them: “Alba would have to “make a lot of ground” to get to 2% of the vote.” Jul 13, 18:26
twathater on According As We Need Them: “ALL of this pish is our own fault because we stood by and allowed these fuckwits to gain power, and…” Jul 13, 18:12
Frank Gillougley on According As We Need Them: “And so it goes. Incestuous faux academics shall speak unto incestuous faux academics funded by us the hoi polloi. The…” Jul 13, 17:58
Dan on According As We Need Them: “Some did try to start electing decent ordinary individuals who weren’t the usual political clone dross, but youse weren’t interested,…” Jul 13, 17:53
Bill Fraser on According As We Need Them: “I am wondering if this organisations status as a charity could be challenged under the “Charity Test ” it certainly…” Jul 13, 17:51
Anthem on According As We Need Them: “Alba could make a lot of ground exposing these so called “charities “, on how much they cost the taxpayer,…” Jul 13, 17:51
Captain Caveman on Just Good Friends: ““They’rrrrre grrrrreat!” https://www.frostedflakes.us/tony-the-tiger” Jul 13, 17:27
Lorn on According As We Need Them: “The one thing about politicians that I have discovered in my life is that, male or female, black or white,…” Jul 13, 17:24
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Norway’s support per capita for our fighting friends in Eastern Europe is the highest in the world. I guess that…” Jul 13, 17:23
Gaelstorm on According As We Need Them: “Surlely te issue is what were the actual questions in the survey?” Jul 13, 17:06
Craig on According As We Need Them: “I fuckin despise Scotland now and what it has become, of all nationalities to be born, I had to be…” Jul 13, 16:46
Colin Dawson on According As We Need Them: “I wonder how much of the Scottish budget gets spent on supposed “charities” that are almost entirely funded by the…” Jul 13, 16:32
https://www.frostedflakes.us/tony-the-tiger
