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When Tories tell the truth 147

Posted on January 19, 2021 by

There’s a most revealing article by George Osborne in today’s Evening Standard. It’s well worth a read in full – it’s not very long – but this is the key passage:

The deathless defenders of Plan A will of course continue to shriek that “he’s a Tory so he must be lying”. And if any of them can ever actually manage to tell us what Scottish voters can possibly DO to Boris Johnson if he keeps refusing, we’ll be all ears.

But since they never seem to be able to do that, we’re going to thank Mr Osborne for that unusual outbreak of honesty, and for admitting that a simple point-blank refusal of democracy is the Tories’ best and only strategy to keep Scotland in the UK. Because for as long as the SNP don’t have a Plan B, it’s the only one they actually need.

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Category comment, scottish politics, uk politics

Quoted for truth #83 120

Posted on January 08, 2021 by

Agreeing with Tom Gordon from the Herald is a position that we really don’t like to find ourselves in, readers. But we can’t find fault with a single word of this column.

We could quote almost any of it, and we recommend digesting the whole thing, but this is as good a passage to pick out as any:

For most of this site’s existence it was the Unionists who were denying the obvious realities staring them in the face. It’s a source of great discomfort to us that many on the Yes side are now picking up the habit too. But we are where we are.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics, uk politics

The irrefutable argument 140

Posted on July 05, 2019 by

We haven’t done a good old-fashioned Quoted For Truth in quite some time, but on occasion someone else makes a point in a way that just can’t be improved on.

We’ve always known/said that this is THE core case for independence, of course, but sometimes seeing it from another country’s perspective brings the message home.

Tags:
Category comment, scottish politics, world

One last thing to remember 74

Posted on March 09, 2016 by

The BBC’s Brian Taylor on GERS:

briantaylorgers

As we have, of course, noted before.

Tags:
Category comment, scottish politics

Presented without comment 166

Posted on February 28, 2016 by

A little snippet from a corner of today’s Scottish Mail On Sunday.

smosdavidson

Tags:
Category scottish politics

The cost of everything 70

Posted on February 06, 2016 by

From an excellent letter in today’s Herald by Chris McLaughlin of Giffnock:

oftri

The only fault in Chris’ logic is that he’s a bit too generous to Labour.

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Category comment, scottish politics

Quoted for truth #82 149

Posted on August 07, 2015 by

Frank Cottrell Boyce in the Independent, 7 August 2015:

“Only 25 per cent of the population earns more than £30,000 a year. Most media commentators (including me) do. For people like me, the country basically works. Politics doesn’t affect me. Politics, for me, is about how other people are treated. It’s easy inside my echo-chamber to believe that I am the norm, or the middle. Easy to forget that there are voices outside.

To people in my position, austerity can be read as regrettable but pragmatic. But to my friends and family, who live outside the bubble, it’s not regrettable, it’s terrifying. It’s also not pragmatic. The crackpot, gimcrack ideological nature of austerity becomes more apparent the closer you get to the point of delivery.”

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Category comment, uk politics

A revealing turn of phrase 79

Posted on March 25, 2015 by

From an editorial leader in this week’s London Evening Standard:

“The man likely to lead the SNP in Westminster, former party leader Alex Salmond, has made it clear that he is contemplating keeping a minority Labour government in power on a case by case basis. ‘If you hold the balance, then you hold the power,’ he said yesterday.

His price: an end to austerity and to Trident.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has come out fighting against the threat.“

Seems to sum it up pretty well.

Tags:
Category comment, uk politics

Something worth remembering 237

Posted on March 19, 2015 by

From politics.co.uk this morning:

“Those hoping that a Labour government would look very different from the current Conservative-led government are likely to be disappointed.

Asked by the Today programme what he would reverse from Osborne’s Budget yesterday, Ed Balls replied that there was nothing.

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Category audio, comment, uk politics

In through the out door 59

Posted on February 12, 2015 by

The Daily Mash, 12 February 2015:

dmash

Because a good satirist can sometimes make a point better in seven sentences than idiots like us can in a 1000-word article, and make it funny at the same time.

Tags:
Category scottish politics, uk politics

The Legacy 234

Posted on December 21, 2014 by

Iain Macwhirter in “Disunited Kingdom” (Cargo Publishing, 8 December 2014):

“It seems clear that the newspapers allowed their editorial agendas to get in the way of their communication with their readers. And this has had very serious consequences.

There is now a very large body of people in Scotland who are deeply disillusioned with the press, to such an extent that they simply no longer believe what is written there.

Look at any of the internet sites related to the Yes campaign and you will now find, not just criticism of mainstream media but a complete rejection of it, as if it were the propaganda arm of a foreign power.

This degree of alienation from the press, shared by hundreds of thousands of Scottish voters, is unprecedented and should be causing alarm, not just in editorial offices, but in the political parties which are also losing their ability to communicate. “

It’s a difficult assessment to dispute.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics

The man who should know 117

Posted on December 15, 2014 by

The Times, 14 December 2014:

“Scottish Labour has an ‘intellectual deficit’ because it is filled with ‘time-servers’ given seats to keep them quiet, according to Paul Sinclair, who served alongside Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader, and at the heart of the ‘no’ campaign against Scottish independence.

In an excoriating attack on the moribund state of Labour north of the border, Mr Sinclair said that the party will pay the price in May.”

As someone who wrote Johann Lamont’s speeches for the last three years, on this occasion we’re going to defer to Mr Sinclair’s superior expertise.

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Category comment, scottish politics

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