As it happens, one of the things that we’ve been occupying ourselves with during the current news drought is pulling together a post called “The SNPBAD Files”, collecting all the desperate smear and innuendo of the Unionist press as it systematically tries to discredit every one of the 56 SNP MPs elected last May.
Until last night we hadn’t been sure which had been the most pathetically dismal. Was it the MP who still did a few haircuts in his barber shop on Saturday afternoons? The one who bought a derelict London house many years before he was an MP, renovated it with his own hands and now sometimes stays there when working at Westminster, rather than charging expenses to the public for accommodation? Or perhaps the one who tweeted that he was opposed to the concept of monarchy, the foul monster?
As politics wakes up from the holidays, any readers still bothering to gaze at the pages of the Scottish media could be forgiven for a crushing sense of deja vu.
Alert readers may recall an incident last year in which the Scottish media got itself very worked up about some independence supporters threatening to boycott holiday company Barrhead Travel after its owner sent a barking-mad letter to staff about how the company would go out of business if Scotland voted Yes.
So we’re sure that you won’t be able to move later today and tomorrow for newspaper articles about something similar, but significantly worse, that happened this weekend.
Last night we ran a piece about a story in last week’s Daily Record in which a Scottish Labour official was given free rein to make an extended political attack on the SNP in the guise of a “business student” from the University of the West of Scotland, without his Labour identity being revealed, on the flimsy basis of a petition about college cuts with a few hundred signatures.
As it happens, another UWS student also has a petition doing the rounds at the moment. But it got treated rather differently by the Scottish press.
We’ve noted on more than one occasion that the spectacular SNP surge since the referendum appears to have completely unhinged much of the Scottish and UK press. Having pumped out a vast avalanche of hysterical coverage which utterly failed to stop the Scottish electorate returning 56 SNPs out of 59, the papers have responded to the rebuff by simply turning the volume up.
But even by those standards, today has been special.
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.
At today’s First Minister’s Questions, the Scottish Labour deputy leader Kezia Dugdale launched into an ill-advised attack over an SNP candidate who’d made some foolish (but not especially outrageous) comments on Twitter in 2012. Rather than simply issuing the standard generic condemnation of abusive remarks, Nicola Sturgeon did so but also drew Dugdale’s attention to the beam in her own eye.
Labour activist, blogger, lawyer and regular BBC pundit Ian Smart (he hasn’t been seen on STV since accusing them repeatedly, without any evidence, of letting the SNP pre-approve all interview questions some time ago) is well known to readers of this blog. Bizarrely, however, Dugdale feigned ignorance of his activity.
To help her, we’ve compiled some of Mr Smart’s greatest hits.
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.
Former Labour spindoctor Charlie Whelan in the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald:
Click to enlarge as Whelan segues seamlessly from terrible Scottish “nationalism” to racial genocide in Auschwitz, because, you know, Yes voters are all basically Nazis*.
*George Galloway’s comments (made in his capacity as a nominated representative of “Better Together”) from yesterday’s BBC “Big Big Debate” were edited out of the broadcast version. We’re sure it was just to keep the running time tight.
Mark Beggan on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “The down side of being a Wings reader is that you find yourself shouting at the English media reporting on…” Jul 14, 00:20
Young Lochinvar on Step One: “AI DUN @ 7.11 Well AI DUN, that’s just great eh? C’mon fess up, you clearly have a personal interest…” Jul 14, 00:19
Hatey McHateface on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “And on that day, everybody’s drawers will be around their ankles.” Jul 14, 00:08
ben madigan on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “I mean Scotsmen and women, wake up!!! What are we expected to believe – an individual who has been arrested…” Jul 13, 23:58
Insider on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Question… Does Alf Baird really post his repetitive mince himself ? Or does he have a bot churning out irrelevant…” Jul 13, 23:23
willie on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “When it’s all laid out like Rev Stu has done it becomes so very clear what a barefaced liar Nicola…” Jul 13, 23:20
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Step One: “QUESTION XLI. « The sovereignty is originally and radically in the people,»” Jul 13, 22:56
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Step One: “SAMUEL RUTHERFORD: LEX REX. Summary prelude for QUESTION XLIII — « WHETHER THE KING OF SCOTLAND BE AN ABSOLUTE PRINCE,…” Jul 13, 22:36
Alf Baird on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: ““The former First Minister…is nothing but a stain on Scotland’s history.” Indeed Rev, however the fact remains that “a colonized…” Jul 13, 22:16
Mark Beggan on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Anwar is a rat in a suit defending the pig in knickers.” Jul 13, 21:50
Old John on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Anwar has been a radge wee man for most of his adult life. Ever since he got a bit of…” Jul 13, 21:34
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Step One: “SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (1600-1661) Highly influential anti-monarchist Scottish constitutional thinker. « Presbyterian minister and St Andrews Professor, Samuel Rutherford in his…” Jul 13, 21:29
Fro on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Isn’t there expression meant to be “gold-standard”. “Gold-plated’ suggests it looks authentic and real at first glance but is virtually…” Jul 13, 20:35
Ex President Xiden on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Every terrorist who gave a no comment interview can now be said to have fully cooperated with the police. At…” Jul 13, 20:27
Hatey McHateface on Step One: “@Andy You are doing that Guardian BTL thing of assuming that the EU cries itself to sleep every night because…” Jul 13, 20:21
Innocent bystander on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “It is a joy to behold, that sharp common sense coupled with dogged persistance applied like an old fasioned poultice…” Jul 13, 20:15
Aidan on Step One: “@Andy – I think that’s broadly the point that a lot of posters are making, not that it can’t be…” Jul 13, 20:14
Alf Baird on Step One: “The use of a ‘local government franchise’ for a people who are also subject to extensive ‘demographic manipulation’ is clearly…” Jul 13, 20:09
Hatey McHateface on Step One: ““Indigenous Scot means ‘someone who agrees with me'” Bingo, Rob! Franchise discussions are a repeating theme on here. They usually…” Jul 13, 20:07
Hatey McHateface on Step One: “Odd, Northy. Most reasoning readers will conclude that the owner of a blog site is right. Posters BTL are wrong.…” Jul 13, 19:55
Andy Ellis on Step One: “@ Aidan 6.57pm I don’t underestimate the potential challenges posed by independence. The point is rather convincing more “soft No”…” Jul 13, 19:43
Blackhack on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Now if that was me, and I had nothing to hide I’d be demanding that the “police interview” was published.…” Jul 13, 19:43
Hatey McHateface on Step One: “Dinna fash. They’re still firing missiles every chance they get. Still leaching off and stealing from the women and kids…” Jul 13, 19:43
Tartan Tory on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “I genuinely commit a crime virtually every day. Whether it’s exceeding a speed limit, peeing in the woods when caught…” Jul 13, 19:42
John Cleary on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Ah the good old “exonerated”. That’s what I used to bring down Jeffrey Archer all those years ago. Are you…” Jul 13, 19:41
