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.
Cynicus on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Sarwar senior went to become Governor of Punjab. However Punjabophiles can relax since the office is not hereditary.” Jul 23, 00:49
Confused on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Question of the day must be : how many times is it permissible to hit a tory on the head…” Jul 22, 23:47
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “The dishonesty is first and foremost in the mankit annexation and ‘Union’ hoax which gives rise to its need for…” Jul 22, 23:26
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “AX Tut tut.. I don’t think anyone has seriously given that moniker to Glasgow for quite some considerable time and…” Jul 22, 23:06
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “HMcH That bad? Really? Made you reply though didn’t it? Validation an’ that eh? Enjoy lock down through the night…” Jul 22, 22:29
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Sorry, Auld Lochnagar, but as a wind up that’s a piss poor effort. Try again around 2 AM. Your output…” Jul 22, 22:22
Dick Wall on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Well now. Let’s have a wee bit of nuance. Most places have a way of appointing ministers who are not…” Jul 22, 21:16
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Chas Why do you lay that responsibility at Alfs door? Is it so you can blame him if things don’t…” Jul 22, 21:10
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “HMcH Aaaaah! In other words ie Yoda-speak; “Rampant Cringe leads to unhappiness, unhappiness leads to non conformance, non conformance leads…” Jul 22, 20:48
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “SF In fairness; “sins of the father” and that.. Not that I’m a fan!” Jul 22, 20:39
Scot Finlayson on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “His dad, Chaudhry Sarwar, was knocked back for a Lordship, `His nomination by outgoing Prime Minister, Gordon Brown for a…” Jul 22, 20:28
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““This I must say for Scotland, and I may truly vaunt it; here I sit, and govern it with my…” Jul 22, 20:08
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: “If it’s gonna take 300 years to “decolonise”, we’re beyond fortunate to have a thousand year old Pict on our…” Jul 22, 19:58
Lorncal on The Wheels Of Industry: “Alf: I have ever been the contrarian, but I have never considered our situation to be ‘colonial’ in the accepted…” Jul 22, 19:57
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Oooh err.. I see Skynet slipped the leash and started flexing its AI muscles! AI is insanity on steroids and…” Jul 22, 19:49
Hatey McHateface on Progressing To Oblivion: “Relax, James. Burnham is gonna end rough sleeping soon. Once you have a fixed address they’ll give you new clothes,…” Jul 22, 19:47
Chas on The Wheels Of Industry: “Wow. That’s a first…………. Northclown has been thinking! Did it hurt?” Jul 22, 18:34
Chas on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It is different shite Alfie boy but shite is still, well….. shite. What is surprising is not a quote in…” Jul 22, 17:55
agentx on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It’s great to see that the Second City of the British Empire – Glasgow is hosting the Commonwealth Games which…” Jul 22, 17:28
Effijy on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “He will look well in beside Baroness Money Bags Mone and Wee Baroness Ruthless. The 3 prize monkey’s, Hear No…” Jul 22, 17:26
Nick on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It’s called recycling! It’s what we do with the rubbish in this country these days!” Jul 22, 17:00
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “There is a long history of elite Scots selling out their nation for English gold and status: HoC, speech of…” Jul 22, 16:31
Mark Beggan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It’s his payment for standing up against Mr Sausage. Although he had absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.…” Jul 22, 16:20
Nicky T Naquetti on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “New Mayor of Scotland? It would not surprise anybody if that Indian tranny from the Green Party ended up lording…” Jul 22, 16:05
Andy Wiltshire on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Interesting. Were Private Eye one of the ‘Branchfoot’ offenders?” Jul 22, 14:16
Onlooker on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Fuck that racist eighth-wit, hope he fucks off down to London and never comes back.” Jul 22, 13:50
