The day Scottish Labour died
Posted on
April 04, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Barely 18 months after this, here’s East Lothian Labour councillor Norman Hampshire (centre) and pals campaigning today with the aid of their new best friend.
As the story collapses and investigations begin into a cut-and-dried case of unlawful civil service interference in politics (and possibly worse), may they reap what they sow. If the current polls come true, never will a party’s fall have been more abject or more complete, nor its fate more richly deserved.
I’m trying to think of an equivalence but even if that rag had the headline ‘Murphy Eats Babies’ I still would not pin it up and stand there with a big cheesy grin like a complete walloper
Couldn’t argue with a single word, brother.
Part of me grieves for what used to be, you know. That’s something I don’t admit often, but it’s like having fallen in love with a woman who everyone else in the town knew was pretty much taking you for a ride.
When you find out it breaks your heart, and there’s momentary anger. But you don’t feel truly cheated until those nights when you look back, in hurt, not for the awful moment you found out what everyone else knew but at all the good moments you shared with her …
Then you realise that this is the ultimate deception, her last victory over you … because the person you thought you knew, and loved, never existed at all.
I grieve for me. For being an idiot. For having believed at all. Because looking back, all the signs were there. This is who these people have always been.
The long fall has been coming for years. It makes my skin crawl now to think of nights spent in the pub, being mocked by the rightwingers in the party as a dinosaur, as someone who didn’t belong.
I always thought they were the interlopers.
All the time, though, it was me.
Fuck them, now and forever.
Yee .. feckin …. haw
Why shouldn’t they believe the Daily Mail & Telegraph?
Oh yeah cos they’ve been smearing Labour for god knows how many years too.
A far worthier recipient of our ire than James Cook.
Labour, a party of halfwits facing electoral wipe out and they deserve it for everything they’ve done to undermine Scotland since their 1970’s betrayal of devolution and democracy.
I’m waiting for the guy on the right to say, “I don’t believe it!”
Looks as if the whole thing has backfired on them right enough. In hindsight, one wonders how they could have believed it wouldn’t.
No, strike that. Labour in Scotland have two delusions. One is that whatever they declare to be so automatically is so. A sort of breath of God creation myth. The other is that they’re untouchable. That no matter how wrong they are or how big the lie or how appalling the screw-up, their faithful press hounds will cover up for them. So maybe it does make sense.
The Telegraph’s position is interesting. The story was obviously “too good to check”. Either they or its originator had hung on to it, waiting for a moment when the SNP was riding high, and it was just what they needed after Nicola’s triumph in the leaders’ debate. They presumably thought the mud would stick so long as they plastered as much on as they could for as long as they could before they were forced to back down.
I think they might have miscalculated. The Guardian headline is a belter.
The Telegraph effectively ran the Better Together campaign for Labour. Old habits die hard.
Low life
Sunday Herald front page;
https://twitter.com/newsundayherald/status/584467740058091524/photo/1
I am from Tranent, East Lothian. I am afraid my county of East Lothian is split between a poor, loyalist west and a very wealthy, anti snp East. The east being ‘ma da was a miner so am voting labour’ type and the East being a North Berwick toff who hates anything remotely relating to snp! I absolutely lack any belief my county and would be shockingly surprised if they were to vote for a snp candidate
Abject FUDdery. I know that part of me should feel sorry for them, but I just can’t bring myself to it. After the positivity of todays rally in George Square, I really have no sympathy for these kind of clowns. I mean …. what do they REALLY think they are standing for? What is going through their minds? Not much, by the look of things.
I thought I had seen it all when the Labour Party in Scotland rejoiced at UKIP getting and MEP in Scotland. But now we have them rejoicing in Tax Dodgers right wing fascistic papers stories. Made up is bad enough but the Laboir Party clearly love the Daily Mail and Telegraph. Red Tories indeed.
It’s been a farcical 24 hours in so many ways.
The Telegraph’s latest headline is totally risible.
Proud to be deluded
so sad, in so many ways.
He’s still maintaining on Twitter that there is truth in it, thereby implying that everyone at the meeting, including the French Ambasssador, is lying. Either he’s unable to find it within himself to do the decent thing and climb down, or he’s fuelled by irrational, pathological hatred that blinds him to the spectacular stupidity of what he’s saying.
Going by the usual Labour response to anything remotely connected to the SNP, I think we know which it is.
“Scottish Labour” goodbye………………
Campaigning,literally, with the Daily Mail. The founders of the Labour Party must be so proud.
I’m utterly sickened by Labour’s handling of this. The fact that I once voted for this party shames me.
It is indeed like indyref all over again. Hopefully more folk can see it this time and realise these are the people running Britain for their own ends. They have wrecked the uk, not salmond/sturgeon.
Its time for the people of Scotland to get to the polls and vote for our country. Also will the polls in this country? Well if its anything like the last 24 hours would anyone be surprised. Gutter politics.
It is not only The Dunbar SLAB that I found wanting today.
If Milliband was to be a prime minister he should have held back and then condemded the story but no – he was one of the first to put the boot in.
At least Malcolm Chisholm still has some integrity.
So therefore I am not sure we really want to have anything to do with the Labour Party or Westminster.
Can we not just ignore Westminster and let our MPs stay in Scotland to work locally and let us concentrate on Holyrood?
Boycott Westminster and their mouthpieces the BBC and the UK MSM.
Marcia, that is an epic front page. I am delighted to see it.
Please let this be an accurate picture. If it is it must be the death knell for Labour.
Earlier today I wondered why a Tory paper would run a story that would probably really only benefit Labour and concluded that they must have done it for “the greater good” in that the unionist parties are terrified the SNP would get anywhere near the books and get proof that the McCrone report wasn’t even the half of it!
Another thought was that the Lib Dems were involved and were trying to shore up their support, hence why Rennie was able to be interviewed.
The only other option I can think of is that the Tories set up SLab knowing how quickly they would pounce on it.
A labour campaign stall in Scotland?! A real rarity that. Not spotted one yet in Edinburgh only SNP ones. Thought they would be too feart.
“Jim Murphy bummed my dog.”
Sorry…
Contrast those snide red tory weasels with this.
East Lothian SNP ?@EastLothianSNP 9 hours ago
An absolutely incredible crowd for our hub opening. Thank you all!! #VoteSNP #GE15
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBwHtdAW0AACm8_.jpg
If you want to really hit back hard at these red tory smearers then please help out the East Lothian SNP campaign in any way you can or just help your own local candidate.
The one thing they fear above all else is the scottish public getting active and making certain they pay for their smearing pile of lies and bullshit.
In the words of a certain J. Bailie – CHEERIO!
Labour first, Scotland second, the electorate last.
Amen.
What fools Scot Labour are, but well paid fools, goodbye to them.
It is pleasing, in my life time, to witness the dismantling of UK imperialism and the financial corruption by which they held the Empire together.
UK Overseas aid? Don’t believe it for a minute, (Scots government excepted). A means to enrich those in power in whatever country, and so be awarded contracts to supply said country with goods they may or not need. Arms for instance?
Alistair Carmichael seems very quiet on the subject. Is he hiding in an Orcadian cave, or elsewhere (e.g. under the bed), doing his best to avoid his shifty looks being caught on camera by those who suspect his involvement in this shabby smear campaign?
A truly terrible rag. I felt for both Ed and David Milliband when the rag printed the ‘article’ tearing down the reputation of their dead father. He was obviously well loved and deeply affected their lives with his political thoughts and writings. They later, and rather begrudgingly, apologised for haranguing relatives at a family funeral.
In light of articles like that we see their bile poured out towards Nicola.
I’m somewhat shocked, however, to see anyone connected with Labour displaying a copy of it. Still, some people are not troubled with a conscience.
The same Daily Mail that smeared Eds Dad? You couldnt make it up!
The labour party in Tranent got a visit from Kezia Dugdale today,to boost their campaign,and she got a telling off from her Dad on twitter.
They havent given up here in Eastlothian yet,as George Kerevan still needs a big swing to beat Labour,but its going well so far and George is the man to do it!
“Labour” died a long time ago. Back in the 1940s, George Orwell described Labour as being “fatally in thrall to the establishment”. It is interesting that Elaine C. Smith left the Labour Party during the miners’ strike, when she felt the party was doing nothing for the miners.
Labour reminds me of the story of Brezhnev in the Soviet Union. He died clinically a few times in the 1970s, but they resuscitated him and he longered on for another few years as a complete vegetable.
Labour has similarly been a vegetable for a long time. But today, judging by the outrage throughout the UK at the Red Tories allying themselves with the Torygraph and the Daily Heil (which supported Hitler), and with many former Labour members finally deciding, in their disgust, to join the SNP as a matter of principle, I would say that today was the day the life-support machine was turned off.
It is now time for the SNP led by Nicola Sturgeon to be HM Opposition in Parliament and for the English to wake up to why the Daily Heil calls a woman campaigning for free education, free healthcare and no sanctioning of the poor, unemployed and disabled “the most dangerous woman in Britain”. As Nicola herself would say: “You’d better believe it!”
Definitely kept the anti-Trident rally from the headlines.
The BBC had it briefly in their intro, but there is a suspicion showing any numbers of actual support for anything the WM machine does not approve of is off limits.
What a sorry state this bastion of ‘Innocent until proven guilty‘ has become.
Tragic how what was Labour has now departed from any sense of connection to the ordinary working people.
A complete and utter disgrace. Do they believe that was a clever thing to do today.
The kicking when it comes on the 7th May will be very hard indeed, and may I just add, that it coulnae happen tae a nicer bunch o folk.
sorry, couldnae. Whizzed away afore I could get it checked.
The sad fact is, they don’t see what they are doing.
A so called left of centre party with a right wing tory paper on display attacking another left of centre party because they want to be the only ones there, even though they haven’t realised that their leadership has moved them to the right.
My enemies enemy is my friend does not compute with SLAB. According to them, they are the one and only.
If they haven’t learned now they never will and will always continue to treat the Scottish people as morons
Tweet from Nicola Sturgeon
“For the record and IMO @BBCJamesCook is one of the best journalists in Scotland. Tough but scrupulously fair and a consummate professional”
I agree entirely.
Labour died a long long time ago – their fate was sealed when they bought into the whole Blair-shite era – jettisoned what the party was built on decades previous. Then they shafted the Scottish Regiments and that got up a lot of folks noses, then slowly people began to realise that it was really just the South East and London that would benefit from Westminister Governments – so the SNP started to ascend and won Holyrood – then it looks like Brown, smells like Brown – must be Brown – came into the spotlight (not by election but a sympathy shag if you will by his party) and showed Thatcher the door but the wrong side of No.10 – Scotland knew Brown was a Red Tory and the rest is history . . .
Gray / Lammont / Whoever it is now – one bag o shite after the other – of course the SNP walked it to total domination at Holyrood.
But who would have thought that at a Westminster level Scottish Labour’s annihnilation loomed . . . guess the Labour Yessers really thought about life under London and couldnae stomach it anymore.
So changing times ahead over next 5 years . . . and not just good for Scotland but for England too . . . because next the English may ask themselves ‘Is this all we have as a choice?’ – Perhaps the SNP really should copy/paste their manifesto/organisation and register an English party. I suspect the (is it millions) of Scots in England would seriously consider voting for whatever it was called.
ENP anyone?
SoS Rev for going O/T early.
youtu.be/fAtKVj65G0o
Katy Clarke can take a run and jump.I haven’t chapped doors and been called a Fenian communist for her to walk across floor.
Whilst she was posing at George Sq I was on a SNP stall in West Kilbride praying for her downfall.She is getting desperate she had Gordon Brown last week and Owen Jones week before.
Ian Brotherhood would have enjoyed 2 weeks ago in Saltcoats all labour canvassers were from London.The abuse was hilarious,especially when orange flute band marched past train station to our cries of your reinforcements have arrived.Red knecks were a joy to behold
There’s nothing these creatures(Slabbers) won’t do or say just to hold onto power.
They represent some of the most base characteristics of the human psyche.
Let’s show them the light.
Spotted the news breaking almost at the end of the essay, and had to redraft a new conclusion.
http://wp.me/p4fd9j-19A
@james Forrest
James..youre a Southsider like me (Gorbals, Toryglen, John Bosco). Its taken us a long time to realise the Labour of our fathers and fathers fathers has never actually existed in our life times
Times like these remind me of classic Phil Redmond Brookside
“After 25 years..youve changed”
“You havent”
Sums Labour up in my book
The Telegraph newspaper is over 150 years old,this is its most wretched and contemptible day of business.
The Telegraph newspaper is owned by David and Frederick Barclay ,both stooges of the Establishment.
The Establishment let them in and if it wants the Establishment will destroy them.
Do not blame The Telegraph ,Do not blame David and Frederick Barclay , they are just stooges of the Establishment.
Campbell: “As the story collapses and investigations begin into a cut-and-dried case of unlawful civil service interference in politics (and possibly worse), may they reap what they sow.”
Indeed so. Did this smear perpetrated by govt & pimped by Labour rise to level of a criminal conspiracy? Enquiring minds and procurators fiscal wonder.
On the other hand, back in Reality City:
dear Nicola is being exposed as a liar. She has form on this, just like her Boss.
Remember “we have legal advice”? Oh, it turned out to exist only “in terms of the debate”.
Cook Fanboy, yawn.
keeping bbc till election night—want to see their faces
than cancelling direct debit
p.s daily mail doing a hatchet job on Nicola,s figure—before/after
Troll alert people. Ignore
From troll alert to poll alert – SNP 18% ahead of Labour. SNP up Labour down.
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/snp-lead-almost-doubles-in-panelbase.html
As for Cook, it is almost certain that he was heavily leaned on by his management to try and find yet another angle for the Sturgeon smearing and he just did what he was telt as usual. So it is clearly far more productive and sensible therefore to blame the BBC not the man. I thought his spin was amateurish and heavily biased towards giving the Torygraph lies credence they clearly did not deserve, but then so did every single other broadcaster.
Right-wing rags like the Spectator using far-right zoomers like Fraser Nelson are now back to the same old tired smearing of the SNP.
It only proves how stupid they are faking outrage over a few twitter headbangers when the massed power of the unionist press and TV broadcasters were all complicit in spreading an obvious lie and smear about scotland’s first minister. They’re still lying about it, yet you won’t find any outrage from the unionist media about the dirty tricks and blatantly obvious lies because they actually want people to believe that the westminster establishment is the victim here.
They really are that out of touch and up their own arse.
I’m absolutely convinced that this will harden SNP support.
If Miliband had said that the French comments confirmed it’s just a smear from a tory rag, that would have gone down well in Scotland. He’s obviously being advised by morons, with regard to Scotland.
I am not a religious person, but how appropriate that on this of all weekends Scottish Labour are seen actively accepting 30 pieces of silver.
They have betrayed everything that they ever stood for & history will not be forgiving of them.
Ronnie’s link and it is brilliant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAtKVj65G0o
Where is Carmichael?
.. and as for Ed Milliband, taking something on the front page of the Telegraph as gospel, is clear proof he’s not prime ministerial material. Continuing to do so, despite sworn denials by the First Minister of Scotland, the French Consulate General and the French Ambassador to the UK…. well that’s just plain dumb.
The Labour party could have done themselves a favour, by distancing themselves and demanding proof the story was correct, before commenting. You know, a wee bit of old fashioned decorum. But no, like hyenas Kezia, Murph et all, are fighting over themselves to snarl the greatest outrage.
Anything short of a full apology to the First Minister from these Labour individuals will be appalling. They are destroying the Labour Party by their own actions.
What kind of half wit would you have to be to consider voting for them?
There is, of course the possibility, that the Telegraph made it all up, or rather there was, but James Cook on the BBC stated categorically that the memo does exist – presumably he has proof of this! So given the memo exists..
….. anyone seen Carmichael lately? Was it he that dumped the carcass on the plains for the hyenas to find?
@Kevin Meina (11.21) –
Indeed mister, I was there, and witnessed their discomfiture first-hand.
Oor ain man fae Dalry was there, and got them well wound-up by relentlessly (I’m talking an hour solid, and he never paused for a drink or a fag nor nuffin!) pointing at the sad-looking Labour contingent and crying them ‘thay wattered-doon Tories ower there!’.
They did not like it one wee bit. The same comrade devised a new way to torment them today by loudly referring to ‘Ed Baws’.
Kenny: Labour has similarly been a vegetable for a long time
The problem, Kenny, with that analogy is, the crevasses we can fall into. The SNP propose to help the ‘vegetable’ called Labour achieve power and then some…
http://wp.me/p4fd9j-18P
Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Within its shade we’ll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and ("Tractor" - Ed)s sneer,
We’ll keep the Daily Mail flying here!
Now Jim and Kezia’s standing here,
They’ve joined the Tories in the smear,
No one’s in the least surprised,
Labour policy is smears and lies.
@Donald Urquart
Some tentative sightings of the incompetent numpty Carmichael on twitter. 😉
Robert Leith ?@ClatchardCraig 4 hours ago
Alistair Carmichael and Vince Cable discuss what went wrong with the #FrenchGate affair…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBxJAOAWAAAq_Ib.jpg
I can’t say I’ll shed any tears.
O/T Not only have we had a Sun journalist taking the Torygraph to task over principles (!), but tomorrow’s Sunday Times Scotland seems to be very pro-SNP, including news of a poll which I find to be wildly optimistic.
Is the Murdoch press trying to put the boot in the UK establishment for being forced to sell NOTW or are they miffed at not being asked to run the “Project Smear” story? My guess is they are probably just backing SNP as the biggest party north of the border and will no doubt be pro-Tory south of the border.
It worries me that at no point did the Labour stall think proudly standing in front of a copy of the Mail might not be the wisest of things to do. Maybe I give them too much credit, maybe I think too much of the Scottish education system, but surely between the 3 of them they could have rustled up enough brain cells for at least one to utter the words “Haud oan a minute……”
The Red Tories back in bed with their old best friends – The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph. Better Together – food banks and poverty that Gordon Brown now rails against – will never die. Rats to the slaughter.
Rev Stu,
You should not be too surprised about SLAB support for the Right Wing Daily Mail.
Here are some of their former writers who you may recognise…
Alistair Darling – Labour MP
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2759265/ALISTAIR-DARLING-This-chance-save-UK-seize-sake-future.html
John McTernan – Chief of Staff – Labour
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2748876/Alex-Salmond-offering-fantasy-world-lower-taxes-higher-public-spending-says-former-Downing-Street-adviser.html
Jim Murphy – Labour MP
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2763715/Traitor-Scum-Paedophile-The-sinister-abuse-received-Labour-MP-Jim-Murphy-No-campaign-trail.html
Sorry did not archive so do not click the links – but you get the drift.
All Red Tories together.
@James Forrest
James, that made me cry. I know how you feel.
Oh well, a wee look in to see what’s going on before bed AND..
massive LOL.
That picture at the top of this article says it all.
Centre stage we have Mega Muppet masquerading as a red socialist.
Not only is he masquerading as a red socialist, he’s using a right wing Tory rag to promote himself and his party.
Not only that but the right wing Tory rag has a massive lie plastered right across it.
Come to think of it, given the amount of shite fed to us by Slaberites these days his choice of promotional material seems quite apt.
Red Tories – Thick as shit and twice as smelly.
Its been a grand day on the political front – night night folks.
🙂
The Labour Party are as much use as a burst French Letter 🙂
@ Nana Jock Scott might no be King of the Crooners but he sure can hit ah Nail ah hellava wallop lol.
Don’t worry Hoss I’ve archived them for you. 😉
https://archive.today/SnRHX
https://archive.today/dGiNO
https://archive.today/Urqgf
Where’s Carmichael? He’s looking for somebody called Rhona.
@James Forrest
Read and admired your writing on ‘On fields of green’.
Outstanding post on here too.
Will SLabour gain anything from the full on backing of neo fascism UKOK Daily Heil style? Red Tory rancid Graun goes unread in Scotland and the Mirror’s all over the shop SLabour wise.
There is a mountain of Labour realpolitik going on though, so its not too much of surprise. It just makes you want to vomit but makes May 7 even more fascinating too.
Ballot fraud must be on the cards now in SLabour wards, if they can descend to the level of the Heil and Torygraph.
Hmm.
Wonder how folks feel about Labour led InverClyde council doing the old tax avoidance thingy these days.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3025566/Inverclyde-Council-used-controversial-tax-avoidance-scheme-finance-office-upgrade.html
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/04/sturgeon-offers-new-deal-to-miliband
I like Nicola Sturgeon.
O/T Remember the heckler on the leaders debate on Thursday ? Here she is explaining why she heckled David Cameron.
Spot on !
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6_6w1RSesdw
@Donald Urquhart,
YES Shetland have posted their MP as missing.
I think Carmicheal has probably gone to ground in the Oa on Islay. Taking advice from his pal Lord Robertson.
Only a true numpty would have dreamt up this debacle for the Scotland Office and the Telegraph.
Do you know any real numpties in the Scotland Office?
I know one and as a pure coincidence he is also the Minister accountable for the actions of the Scotland Office.
Go Danus Skene – kick this numpty out of Westminster once and for all.
Is the Murdoch press trying to put the boot in the UK establishment for being forced to sell NOTW or are they miffed at not being asked to run the “Project Smear” story?
Kenny, people want to know about Sturgeon so its just sales boost for the dirty digger.
Carefull, there are still a lot of numpty voters out there.
Paul D says:
4 April, 2015 at 10:56 pm
Earlier today I wondered why a Tory paper would run a story that would probably really only benefit Labour and concluded that they must have done it for “the greater good” in that the unionist parties are terrified the SNP would get anywhere near the books and get proof that the McCrone report wasn’t even the half of it!..
————-
It was a very clever smear.
Designed to hurt the SNP in Scotland and Labour in England (not PM material).
And with a disclaimer that something may have been ‘lost in translation’ to cover their arses when the lies were uncovered.
The Tories have nothing to lose in Scotland, so they would prefer to see tame Labour MP’s elected, instead of SNP MP’s kicking up a storm.
Even now the headlines keep the doubt going.
An inquiry into who leaked the memo.. as if not keeping a secret is the problem –
and not the fact that the memo was a total lie in the first place.
The Foreign Office claim to have no knowledge that the memo exists. So far there are only two sources that the memo actually exists… The Telegraph and James Cook.
The newspapers can print what ever rubbish they want ( this side of the law ) but James Cook – or rather James Cook when he’s on the BBC – has a duty to confirm his facts.
So James, what proof do you have for stating “this memo does exist”? Have you seen it?
Who told you it exists? Where is it? Were you lying?
“This memo does exist”…. prove it
Sort of OT, but as we are focusing on the Telegraph today, I think Bruce Anderson may be rabid.
The Nat rumour machine also claims that there are large new oilfields to the west of Shetland. But there are three problems with that. First, oil companies have been prospecting in that area, without success. Second, if oil was found, it would be in rough seas. At anything like current oil prices, extraction would not be economic. Third, if Scotland were to secede, Shetland might try to opt out. Those are easy points to make. Scottish friends of mine have been doing so on the doorstep – and getting nowhere.
http://tinyurl.com/la2fo8u
@ Bruce Anderson
Might it be you are delusional, or at least attempting to delude your readers? Do you think the character of Thatcher’s opportunism was morally ethical, or that encouraging the ‘streamlining’ of Scotland’s society by global capital interests, was inevitable in the form that it followed? Do ends justify the means? Does society exist?
Your opinion reeks of ‘old school’ universalism, which is rather quaint, but wholly inappropriate given globalisation is a product of new transport and communications technologies developed during WW2, roughly about the time that modernist thinking was being discarded as ‘last century’s model’. Have you heard of Postmodernism and Relativism?
Get hip to the beat man. Dig it daddy-o, this is an age when t’interwebb gives us all a voice. Apparently unlike yourself, Adam Smith saw that economic deciions have moral implications.
The hegemony of your ilk’s gate-keeping is over.
Smith rejected his teacher’s reliance on this special sense (a dedicated “sixth sense” to explain morality). Starting in about 1741, Smith set on the task of using Hume’s experimental method (appealing to human experience) to replace the specific moral sense with a pluralistic approach to morality based on a multitude of psychological motives. The Theory of Moral Sentiments begins with the following assertion:
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrows of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous or the humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments
What cold, reptilian eyes the fowks on yon photo have!
And I have the perfect caption for the photo…
…. RED TORIES!
I feel sorry for Ed.
No, wait, hear me out readers.
For such a supposedly principled man, a man of social conscience, a man who would be King of a new social democracy within his own party, a man whose Father may actually have been proud.
Taking direction from the back-room boys and girls and fronting with such an appalling lack of scrutiny on camera, you must feel so unclean tonight Ed.
I hope Justine has the soap on a rope ready for your shower before bed.
We all recognise that SLAB have shit on their own doorstep and the stench is reekin rich, but to come along, Ed, as you have today on the telly, and pish all over the electorate’s intelligence is an afront to your own principles, let alone your own potential to make some sort of difference.
Remember that on May 8th, when you face the nation and declare your intentions for a cleaner, more morally centred and collaborative approach to inclusive politics.
I believe you are the only “major” leader who can act in the interest of the common weal, but whether you’ll actually have the cahones to be bold enough towards that end remains to be seen.
I remarked recently to Maclean (my close Ayrshire school friend now calling Paisley home) that we (Killie Academy, aka The Academy) played chess against Greenwood (also Academy) back in the 80s when Nicola was getting ready to choose her O Grade subjects. What a small World, but one with immense possibilities. She is a testament to the spirit of da nation – one in arrested development, perhaps, but one that I’m sure will realise its true potential in the decades to come.
For as I’ve mentioned before, the tide is turning, and the dream shall never die.
I’m minded to mention one more Ayrshire anecdote: the time that J. McClure was the victim of an attempted stabbing outside the Magnum Leisure Centre (Irvine), circa ’85. By all accounts a fuck up of a night, esp. for the rest of us caught up in the shambles and subsequently ferried around in a jam sandwich (polis motor) till well after midnight looking for the suspects.
I had managed to save our own skins by answering, “Irvine” to the questioning marauders facing off against us on the infamous concrete bridge asking, “Where ye fae pal?”. “GIRVIN?” the shocked gang leader said while I indexed my brain for the only local street name I knew. “NAW! Harbour Street, juist ower the way.” [finger pointing for authenticity].
I’m talking pish now, of course, but maybe all I’m tryin tae say is I’m priud of my homeland and our nation and its propensity for survival in the face of adversity.
Scotland will flourish, of that I am sure. I don’t believe Nicola Sturgeon will ever betray her roots, how on earth could she, she’s one of us. The spirit of Burns lingers on, in the spirit of a nation also I hope. We can lift everyone up to feel the dignity and self worth that we all deserve. And Ms Sturgeon has the capacity to affect to ordinary people, not only in Scotland, but throughout “these islands”.
You should feel lucky Ed, to have someone so valuable and valued to help you in your own aimz to achieve more positive socially progressive change than your immediate predecessors.
More claret required now.
Slainte.
If you look at the photo closely, this bunch of no-hopers resemble the muppets!
Was there a muppet convention in nearby Edinburgh and some of the muppets escaped and pretended to be labour activists to avoid capture.
Or am I being harsh and insulting to muppets, as no self respecting muppet would be seen dead imitating a labour activist?
OK folks James Kelly has updated the full set of Panelbase results.
SNP 45% (+4)
Labour 29% (-2)
Conservatives 14% (n/c)
UKIP 4% (-3)
Liberal Democrats 4% (+1)
Greens 2% (+1)
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/snp-lead-almost-doubles-in-panelbase.html
Using the Electoral Calculus site this gives:
Labour 15 seat
SNP 44 seats
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=&LAB=&LIB=&UKIP=&Green=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVUKIP=&TVGreen=&SCOTCON=14&SCOTLAB=29&SCOTLIB=4&SCOTUKIP=4&SCOTGreen=&SCOTNAT=45&display=AllChanged®orseat=%28none%29&boundary=2010
Using the Scotland votes site we get:
Labour 12 seats
Lib Dems 1 seat
SNP 46 seats
http://www.scotlandvotes.com/
Dave McEwan Hill says:
4 April, 2015 at 11:19 pm
Tweet from Nicola Sturgeon
“For the record and IMO @BBCJamesCook is one of the best journalists in Scotland. Tough but scrupulously fair and a consummate professional”
I agree entirely.
For the record, I disagree entirely! This man is a highly-paid supposedly professional journalist who was happy to give as much credence as possible to an obvious smear story, even going so far as to provide his own little twist at the end when he talked about (unnamed) senior sources in the SNP favouring a TORY government. When interviewing the First Minister and having received her forceful and credible denial he carried on in the same vein. If that’s an example of one of the best journalists in Scotland then God help us all!
This is the person that first reported the “Nicolagate” nonsense. His record since joining the DailyTelegraph: 5650 articles published.
SNP exposes etc. 3410
Labour exposes etc 1062
Tory support etc 784
Lib/Dem Nothing
Not much of a journalist, clearly supportive of Tory, (to be expected) but the Lib/Dem’s ?
http://journalisted.com/search?a=snp&by=simon-johnson
Time to get those socks worked off mes amis xx.
@Eckle Fechan (1.03) –
Sue Perb.
🙂
I can’t understand why no-one is paying attention to the Telegraph. If they print it then it must be true…? Stands to reason doesn’t it?
Naw it disnae.
Pish is pish.
But if the Telegraph can publish the memo and name their source, in the public interest of course, then I’ll be the first one to to acknowledge them as a truthful source of information and condemn Nicola Sturgeon as the laying witch they want me to beleieve that she is. That’s fair is is no?
Can we believe anything the paper print any more? I think I’ve given up now ????
James Cook is hardly fair. I can see that and I think most people can too. I think NS was being more than kind to him. After all, she has to speak to somebody.
He banged on regardless being negative in an accusatory tone. His whole demeanour is one of a person who has already passed judgment and no matter what NS said during her interview in George Sq, James Cook kept returning to the lie. He was a unionist reporter during the Referendum campaign, he is a unionist reporter during this GE campaign.
The Scottish Daily Express ran the same front pager lie and the loyalists on the Hootsmon online were only too glad to believe it, despite Nichola and the Ambassador’s denials.
No mention of Lib-Lab-Con Alliance in Gordon and elsewhere on tactical voting?
Bruce Anderson
What is the truth?
Philosophers are interested in a constellation of issues involving the concept of truth. A preliminary issue, although somewhat subsidiary, is to decide what sorts of things can be true. Is truth a property of sentences (which are linguistic entities in some language or other), or is truth a property of propositions (non-linguistic, abstract and timeless entities)? The principal issue is: What is truth? It is the problem of being clear about what you are saying when you say some claim or other is true. The most important theories of truth are the Correspondence Theory, the Semantic Theory, the Deflationary Theory, the Coherence Theory, and the Pragmatic Theory. They are explained and compared here. Whichever theory of truth is advanced to settle the principal issue, there are a number of additional issues to be addressed:
– Can claims about the future be true now?
– Can there be some algorithm for finding truth – some recipe or procedure for deciding, for any claim in the system of, say, arithmetic, whether the claim is true?
– Can the predicate “is true” be completely defined in other terms so that it can be eliminated, without loss of meaning, from any context in which it occurs?
– To what extent do theories of truth avoid paradox?
– Is the goal of scientific research to achieve truth?
http://www.iep.utm.edu/truth/#SH5a
What is Relativism?
Relativism is sometimes identified (usually by its critics) as the thesis that all points of view are equally valid. In ethics, this amounts to saying that all moralities are equally good; in epistemology it implies that all beliefs, or belief systems, are equally true. Critics of relativism typically dismiss such views as incoherent since they imply the validity even of the view that relativism is false. They also charge that such views are pernicious since they undermine the enterprise of trying to improve our ways of thinking.
Perhaps because relativism is associated with such views, few philosophers are willing to describe themselves as relativists. However, most of the leading thinkers who have been accused of relativism–for example, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Peter Winch, Thomas Kuhn, Richard Rorty, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida–do share a certain common ground which, while recognizably relativistic, provides a basis for more sophisticated, and perhaps more defensible, positions.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/relativi/
You could say Postmodernism is the unifying M-theory of human thought. Just the ticket for bamboozle merchant Unionists, such as yourself. Then again, perhaps not.
Postmodernism: The Most Recent Coherence Theory
In recent years, one particular Coherence Theory has attracted a lot of attention and some considerable heat and fury. Postmodernist philosophers ask us to carefully consider how the statements of the most persuasive or politically influential people become accepted as the “common truths”. Although everyone would agree that influential people – the movers and shakers – have profound effects upon the beliefs of other persons, the controversy revolves around whether the acceptance by others of their beliefs is wholly a matter of their personal or institutional prominence. The most radical postmodernists do not distinguish acceptance as true from being true; they claim that the social negotiations among influential people “construct” the truth. The truth, they argue, is not something lying outside of human collective decisions; it is not, in particular, a “reflection” of an objective reality. Or, to put it another way, to the extent that there is an objective reality it is nothing more nor less than what we say it is. We human beings are, then, the ultimate arbiters of what is true. Consensus is truth. The “subjective” and the “objective” are rolled into one inseparable compound…….
http://www.iep.utm.edu/truth/#SH5a
I’ve a tiny little problem as I suspect DC will be a better provocation to convince our country than the other bloke. He looks like an arse, he sounds like an arse, and there’s nothing worse than being trapped in a pile of merde which comes from an arse. As a result, perhaps the leak is … not merde.
As someone pointed out on Twitter, we owe a big thank you to the French. Normal practice in this situation would be for foreign representatives to say ‘It’s an internal matter/no comment.’ But the ambassador and consul general have gone out of their way to stress the truth of the matter (and they won’t have done that without clearance from Paris)
I’ve no doubt they have their own motives for throwing egg on various faces. But they may equally dislike seeing their old ally being bullied.
Ian Brotherhood @ 1:53 am.
Agreed. 😉
Sorry for going O/t here but just found an *ahem* interesting wee article over on Twitter.
Some folks may remember back in February that oor Jim, the Teetotal manic of Baranch manager fame, wanted to re-introduce alcohol into football grounds. Well check this out. It appears he has, probably not for the first time, been a wee bit *cough* naughty. 😛
https://archive.today/Tylao
Agree that Slab died a long time ago (is that a graveyard behind them ?),in the words of a well known comedian ‘they are now degrading the quality of their own obituary’.
Seems Slab leaders never told them,don,t be angry,celebrate your moment of enlightenment.
My message,everbody deserves a 2nd chance,it,s never too late,come aboard,this juggernaut has room for a few more passengers,many ex Slabbers already onboard (me).
Daily Mail,Telegraph,Express,Record all from a bygone era,they are unable to comprehend the metaphysical concept of shame……they can ram it.
@ Lesley-Anne 3:24am That’s a great wee link to Murphy. CHEERS.
Can anyone else see the Devil, with death all around, a burning sky and flames in the background?
The blind are now leading the blind.
P.S. Nae glue sniffers 🙂
The story debunked isn’t enough this time. The why, people can pretty much figure out for themselves. The who and the how will, I feel, become known though I suspect someone will be asked to take one for the team on this.
More pertinently to this topic are the actions of those parties in our democracy on the release of this shambles. What they have said, cannot be unsaid and what they have done, cannot be undone. That this story was so obviously a dangerously flawed smear tactic, even on cursory examination, was plain for all to see. Did any of the parties stand up to be counted on fair democracy, bad media practice or accountability?
They did not.
They thought of one thing only… themselves. They thought only to capitalise on what they fondly thought was an opportunity to do away with a strong opponent. They chose to treat their electorate with contempt. They chose poorly.
They seem bound and determined not to recognise why they have become so toxic in the public view. THIS! This whole style of politics is the reason. They way you treat your charge and duty of care. The way you treat your opponents, your people, THIS is why your names are becoming synonymous with self interest, corruption and misery.
We’re sick of it and now we are done with it.
May 7 – We have our second opportunity within a year to take our governance back from these people.
May 7 – Our turn
Macart
Are you on nightshift these days? 🙂
A bit late to this party, for some reason I didn’t get any email alerts about Wings’ articles yesterday…?
Anyway, a surreal experience this morning to find a pic from the town (Dunbar) I’ve just left staring me in the face in my new temporary base 6,000 miles away…
These Dunbar/East Lothian Brit-nat Labourites deserve all the scornful attention they get (and the electoral boot up the arse that appears to be on its way). I will never forget witnessing them exchanging contact details with Tory activists at the IndyRef Count at Haddington, i.e. AFTER any ‘Better Together’-esque collaboration was supposed/needed to happen…tick tock….
Given this recent diplomatic catastrophe by some Unionists.
A wee question to supporters of FFA.
Do you still want to leave foreign affairs in the hands of London.
Think on, my friends, think on!
😉
“The peoples flag is deepest pink,”
“It’s not as red as you might think;”
“The militants wings are cold and stiff,”
“‘Cos we pushed them off the nearest cliff;”
“So, raise that Royal Standard true,”
“That good old Red and White and Blue;”
“The Militants wings are cold and stiff,”
“‘Cos we pushed them off the nearest cliff.”
Labour’s new anthem.
Stephen.
The clasped hands; the smile; the whole absurdity is completely lost on this bloke.
J’Accuse Carmichael, this sleekit lard-arse could have killed this story stone dead as he was at the scene wolfing canape’s at the time. He has his own agenda and is keeping schtum. Gone fishin?
Perhaps a bit academic, but these might provide some insight into why the modern world is largely the nasty place it is. Also why there is an anti-humanist ‘right-wing’.
Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750
http://tinyurl.com/oekhnln
The Dilemma of Modernity: Philosophy, Culture, and Anti-Culture
http://tinyurl.com/oekhnln
Enemies of the Enlightenment : The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity
http://tinyurl.com/lbjwr5r
I have been a sports writer (maybe not a “real” journalist then) for over 40-years. I have never been ashamed of my profession before the Referendum campaign. Some of the things the MSM pulled then shocked me.
But this, this is far worse. I am appalled that the Telegraph, which is perhaps THE paper of record when it comes to sports coverage in the UK, should sink so low.
I am also appalled at the line the Herald is taking, in particular, the way a certain Officer of the most-excellent Order of the British Empire is allowed to post utter shite on the subject on their website.
To this end, I posted the following piece to the Herald this morning:
“Herald moderators – How much more pish and shite is this arse-hole from Woking going to be allowed to post unchallenged, before you ban him.
You moderate and censor anyone who challenges him, but allow him to post as he wishes – you are a disgrace to journalism.”
This will never see the light of day, but, I feel better for posting it.
One further point. I think James Cook has handled his part of the whole affair well. Nicola Sturgeon has no beef with how he has gone about his business, so please, we may not agree with what we perceive to be his personal politics, but, in covering this story, I feel he is doing it well.
Do not shoot the messenger, because you don’t like his delivery.
Onwards 5 April, 2015 at 12:57 am
You’re right, the “lost in translation” stuff is highly suspect.
It also seems that the entire media are joining in by talking about an investigation in to the leak and glossing over the fact that the memo itself is b*******.
@ Clootie.
No, but my bladder is. 🙁
Lesley-Anne says:
5 April, 2015 at 3:24 am
https://archive.today/Tylao
Murphy’s links to the drinks industry. Oh the irny.
Labour spokesman said: “This is utter nonsense. Good, investigate newspapers like the Sunday Herald must wonder why the SNP are peddling crazy conspiracy theories. Mwahahahaha
So let’s play the “good investigative” journalist game ala BBC/Daily Pish;
Mr Murphy is it true that your best (Heinekin) man who hasn’t spoken to you for 3 years moved to Amsterdam to get away from you?
Mr Murphy is it true that you are attracted to Irn Bru because the tin is orange, nudge nudge wink wink.
Mr Murphy is it true that you tried to sell £850 of Manchester City tickets to an undercover reporter from Al Jeezera who was dressed as a Scotchman?
Mr Murphy, Professor David Miller of spinwatch said you need to be more transparent about your links to the drinks industry. Is it not true that you couldn’t be any more transparent if you tried?
Mr Murphy, is it true that you learned to talk in that very soft voice, in toilet cubicles, while working behind the irn curtain?
Mr Murphy, you spent 9 years at university and came out with nothing, do you think your political career in Scotland will follow a similar path?
Two, or more, can play at that game 🙂
This comes as no surprise, remember Dame Anne Begg cosying up with a member of the National Front? So happily displaying a rag that attempts to destroy the reputation of the late father of their Party leader is ok because of course it hates the SNP too.
As regards the readers comments on the Fail, good on ye Gilly from Glasgow!
The “lost in translation” stuff is highly suspect.
Particularly when they met and talked in English.
BBC’s Cook – amazing how dear old establishment BBC is always in the frame – was balls high because he claims he had seen the memo, not a memo, but the memo.
In other words, he arrived on the scene in one mind, and thought he had the scoop of his career. Unfortunately, no one else had seen the memo to authenticate it, hence his questioning of Nicola Sturgeon bordered on interrogation – and continued far too long, a completely inappropriate style in the middle of George Square. The issue demanded a calm, level-headed interview in a studio.
Above all, the other person, the most important person who should have been interviewed by Cook was the one who showed him the memo. Where was he?
Richard Nixon and Dubleya Bush would just love all this stuff.
Radio Scotland just now. Jeanne freeman just mentioned this photo. Now they’ve moved on to the ‘viscious’ attacks on James cook.
Best leave James alone. Overall he does a good job. And a better job than most. We are protective of our FM so I understand how folk got upset. But it doesnt help. Look how she handles herself?shes a tough, smart woman who can cope with this pathetic smear. She’s wanting us to move on and get back to the issues.
The sun is shining. It’s a good day to canvass and leaflet. Don’t let the unionists distract us from the stuff that makes a difference. It’s the disabled and the poor who need defending the most – not Nicola – and getting out there is the most productive way ahead.
9 am news. Radio Scotland. Not even mentioned it on the headlines. Job done though – it nicely deflected trident issue. But at what cost to the union?
If this is the level of collusion before the General Election, when the parties are supposed to be highlighting their unique credentials and policies ( ahahahaha {cough, cough}). Then it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that Labour do not want to form the next government ( for a number of reasons- Ed is a liability and caretaker leader, they do not have the guts to lead the austerity packages their paymasters desire), that their current tactics see them happy to lose Scotland as the Tories have been and finally that there will be a Grand Coalition to freeze out the alternative parties, to try and show the electorate that a vote for such parties still turns into a wasted vote.
The problem with that final idea is that it will be apparent there is little difference between Labour and the Tories – look what has happened to the Libdems- but also at subsequent GEs instead of returning to the bi-party system they are trying to manufacture more people will vote for the alternatives. The electorate of Scotland is now very politically aware and astute and to expect that this won’t happen in the rUK of GB and NI is foolish, we are not yet so dumb as the U.S. electorate they are wishing us to become. ( wee clue for them – you need to destroy more of the education system first).
I feel this a good time to remember the story of the Dad who took his teenage son under his wing.
It was posted by someone a few months back , don’t wish to steal the posters story but it is so appropriate.
The father took the young son who was often kicking off as quite narky , I was probably like that as a teen.
Any way lad is shown a box of nails and father says “every time you get angry about something , pop down here and hammer a nail into the fence”
Few months later “Nails all done”
Dad takes the young fellar down to the shed discusses his temper etc and explains that now when he feels angry he comes to the fence a remove the nails from the fence .
Few months later the nails are all removed and the two go down to the shed again.
The father explains to the son “Now remember every time you had these moments you said or did something which you actually regret afterwards so you hammer in a nail, now look at the fence the DAMAGE IS DONE (holes in fence) no amount of apology etc ever puts things back to the exact way it was pre the outburst ”
This story gives us a clue as to where ALL Anti SNP parties sit.
Thankfully we have WOS to keep us together and SANE.
Will Podmore
Here’s one you might be interested in. I’ve not read it myself. 😉
“Heidegger and Modernity is an intervention in the Heidegger debate in France which many may see as decisive. Its central claim is that the responses of left Heideggerians to continuing disclosures regarding Heidegger’s Nazi affiliations fail to come to terms with central ambiguities in his philosophical responses, both early and late, to modernity and technology. . . . Incisive and hard hitting, Luc Ferry and Alain Renault have condensed in a short and tightly organized book both a judicious and well-informed account of the Heidegger question and an implicit defence of humanism which has a strong political resonance.” — Liam O’Sullivan, Political Studies
http://philpapers.org/rec/FERHAM
@ Socrates MacSporran
Re your comments on the ‘OBE from Woking’ who regularly features in The Herald online snippets, I used to get incensed by him and also the unholy trinity of slavering Unionist letter-writers from Largs, Jordanhill and most especially Anniesland.
But then I got to realise that it was actually better to have their increasingly desperate rants given the full oxygen of publicity. These people are complete and utter zealots and as such they are incapable of taking a nuanced and balanced view of the political landscape.
Such is the morbid fear of those who anticipate the crumbling of the old order.
Macart says it well at 04.17, I’d add:
Forget waiting for an apology unless a person, political or civil servant is identified – tout suite.
Gain for nationalists in this is to highlight the wrong, but also ensure that the electorate know the judgement of those like milliband, spud, kevina stop digging a hole and rennie is suspect at least and at worst complicit. Basically, unionists undemining the democratic process.
Also the bbc’s impartiality and judgement must be called into question. Yesterday, renton was repeating the same subjective nonsense that some in the SNP hoped for a tory win, no evidence supplied, but take away for viewers is the that “if the SNP didn’t do this, they are thinking of this”. At end of day, most know renton is out of her depth and should be reporting on cats up trees in Troon.
@Natasha says:4 April, 2015 at 10:31 pm:
“I’m waiting for the guy on the right to say, “I don’t believe it!”
By the look on his face, Natasha, I’d guess he was saying something along the lines of, “Tak that ye nationalist bastirts”.
Ferncake @ 9.30.
I can see the sense in your argument. I accept your view about the pro-Union zealots on the Herald site.
My beef, however, is with the journalists (actually, I believe the guys who moderate the web-site are internet specialists rather than real journalists) who moderate the site and appear to have one rule for OBE Wank-nobe and his cohorts and another for those of us of Independent mind.
Heard a wee rumour that Labour activists this week in West Stirlingshire asking Tories to vote tactically. Must be really worried.
Latest opinion polls won’t make it any easier.
Just beginning to wonder if James Cook is the patsy in all of this. Think about it, Alex praises him, he has shown some balls recently in some of his interviews. “Someone” needs to sort the “little pipsqueak” out and drive a wedge between a blossoming love affair with the SNP. Enter a whale in a long trenchcoat offering a brown envelope with the “actual memo” to James. The young reporter has the scoop of a lifetime. It reminds him of All the Presidents men. In a high state of excitement he shoots his wad. My advice James, next time deepthroat asks for a meeting ask yourself why the scoop isn’t being offered to Wark, Smith, Brewer or any of the other Schils at the BBC. As Capt Mainwaring would say “silly boy”.
@joe. says: 4 April, 2015 at 10:55 pm:
“Please let this be an accurate picture. If it is it must be the death knell for Labour.”
That shadowy silhouette in the background, Joe, is, “Nosferatu, The Vampyre”, From a German made film : –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcyzubFvBsA
The only ways to kill vampires are all a wee bit messy.
almannysbunnet Just beginning to wonder if James Cook is the patsy in all of this.
The messenger as patsy.
He gave a clear indication to me by his demeanour that he believed what he read in the memo. I am sure he will argue he questioedn its content at the time. Nevertheless, he still ran with it.
This is an example of the clandestine briefing by an unnamed ‘spokesperson’, usually described as a patriot, who steps out from the shadows momentarily to offer an envelope unsolicited.
So yes, the ambitious journalist is the patsy because he drops his guard and his principles. He does the dirty work.
It’s very convenient for the Bad Guys that this has broken over the Easter Weekend with no Sunday Politics today and no Daily Politics tomorrow.
If said programs had been on it would have been v. interesting to see how this would have been handled in particular just who would have bben interviewed.
Our old pal Brillo Pad would have been in a awkward position given his longstanding and current relationship with the loathesome Barclay brothers.
As for James Cook along with several others commenting today I have always thought that he was relatively fair in his coverage compared with the rest of the Labour Fan Club at PQ.
I reckon that after his having been complimented by Eck in his book he has been hauled over the coals by The PQ Politburo and told to mend his ways which may explain his performance yesterday.
It’s very convenient for the Bad Guys that this has broken over the Easter Weekend with no Sunday Politics today and no Daily Politics tomorrow.
If said programs had been on it would have been v. interesting to see how this would have been handled in particular just who would have bben interviewed.
Our old pal Brillo Pad would have been in an awkward position given his longstanding and current relationship with the loathesome Barclay brothers.
As for James Cook along with several others commenting today I have always thought that he was relatively fair in his coverage compared with the rest of the Labour Fan Club at PQ.
I reckon that after his having been complimented by Eck in his book he has been hauled over the coals by The PQ Politburo and told to mend his ways which may explain his performance yesterday.
Red Tories asking Blue Tories to vote for them in Perthshire…I can’t see the grouse and deer stalker set making that jump to be honest 😉
On Cook, he is correct to say the memo exists. The Hitler Diaries exist. The Hitler Diaries were of course fakes and there was a paper chase to find out how and who they came from. The same goes for this memo. It exists but now I want to see who wrote it and who gave it to the Torygraph. Alistair Carmichael might have a questions to answer. Is he a sacrificial Easter lamb for the Tory cause?
PS
The picture of the Labour people standing behind the Mail supporting an obvious smear attempt is incredibly sad.
The next smear will be about Ed and no one will have a shred of sympathy for you, you daft tossers.
Socrates Macsporran
I agree with you about OBE , why is he allowed to post his nonsense but for James Cook ( I’ve no personal beef ) but wonder why did he not check with NS and verify anything before reporting the story on the BBC ?
I agree with you about OBE, why is he allowed to post his nonsense
It is called ‘goading’ posters. It’s obvious to a moderator, but they know the troll attracts more posts … and more posts mean more advertisers.
Molly @ 11.24am
Anent James Cook – sometimes, as a journalist, you get such a good story, your brain goes AWOL and you do daft things.
I can recall, on one occasion, leaving a work experience school kid sitting in a side room at a football ground, after the manager gave me an exclusive story which was the most-explosive to come out of that club – ever.
Not as serious maybe as not pausing, and getting a quote from NS or her office, before going on-air, although, at that time of night, speed is of the essence.
Also, in Planet BBC London and Manchester are the only places to be, Pacific Quay is, in comparison, a power station in the Urals.
Every ambitious journo wants to be working in either Broadcasting House or Media City. Cook is still young-enough and presumably ambitious-enough to make that leap, breaking stories like this will not harm his case for elevation (I shudder to call it promotion).
A wee plug here for Lena the Hyena. Fighting a lonely battle up in Ayebrrrrdeeen
http://www.lenathehyena.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/the-most-dangerous-woman-in-britain-and-the-forgers-pen-nicola-sturgeon-and-the-zinoviev-letter/
@Grouse Beater says:
5 April, 2015 at 10:43 am
almannysbunnet Just beginning to wonder if James Cook is the patsy in all of this.
The messenger as patsy.
Mmm should have looked up the meaning of patsy first. Perhaps sucker would have been better. My writing days may be numbered. Maybe I should stick to fixing downhole tools 🙂
Heard Radio Scotland this morning – Jeane Freeman making it clear without pointing fingers that the Telegraph’s French Ambassador story is somone’s invention, followed by two unionists saying ‘of course we know the SNP want the Tories to win’, and an extended piece on how nationalists are crazy twitter abusers of James Cook. ‘The abuse comes from both sides,’ said the reporter for balance.
But, I don’t *ever* recall a story in the BBC about online abuse by unionists? The narrative that is taken away by low-information voters is that it is one-way traffic.
Talking about low-information voters – at the in-laws last night watching BBC news and Frenchgate comes on – Nicola Sturgeon denying the Telegraph’s pish, all fine and well, but then a wee opinion piece on independence supporters thinking – believe it or not! – that the British Government was lying, accompanied by footage of the rally in George Square for the Trident march. The in-laws tut, the impression lodged in their brains that SNP supporters are raving conspiracy theorists who are so deluded they march in the streets and decent people like them need to be protected from nutjobs like that. Job done BBC.
@Hagbard Celine says: 4 April, 2015 at 11:26 pm:
On the other hand, back in Reality City:
dear Nicola is being exposed as a liar. She has form on this, just like her Boss.
Remember “we have legal advice”? Oh, it turned out to exist only “in terms of the debate”.
Well, Hagbard, no it didn’t. The actual transcript of the Andrew Neil/Alex Salmond TV interview exposes an astonishing fact that was so obvious most people missed it.
I didn’t and have attempted to get the truth out ever since.
Now for a wee bit of background – Here’s a recent Derek Bateman piece cut & pasted from today’s newsnet.scot
So now we look at part of the transcript of the BBC TV Neil/Salmond interview.
So far you got it right but missed the real truth. The question asked by Neil is, “Have you sought advice from your own law officers“,( on the matter of Scotland’s future in Europe).
This shows beyond doubt that those who claim Salmond lied just cannot read and understand plain English.
How can the answer to the question have you sought advice from your own law officers be construed as seeking advice from the EU? Yet that is exactly what the Scottish Branch Office of London Labour have claimed as have the rest of the Unionist parties and neither Neil, the obnoxious press or the BBC ever pointed out the truth.
Simple explained, Salmond was never asked if he had sought EU advice so could not have lied by answering Neil truthfully. Note that Neil, the BBC, The Telegraph and the other usual suspects, including the Labour Party branch office, seem quite unable to comprehend things they read.
…meaning of patsy…
Your use of it is fine in the context made.
In my experience of US parlance it’s somebody easily taken advantage of, and if like Cook you are ambitious, always looking for the big opportunity – you ARE ease prey. The secondary meaning is someone who gets the blame. Well, Cook has been blamed for not looking before leaping. 🙂
I’m not saying there aren’t nutjobs in the indy movement – I’ve met one or two – but I would be surprised if there *wasn’t* British state involvement protecting the conservative establishment against the SNP.
We have already seen after the referendum that Sir Nicholas MacPherson, and senior Treasury staff like Mario Pisani, were involved in political campaigns against independence. They are on record stating their involvement. It is no longer news except to low-information voters.
However the level of state involvement is not a destructive as it could be. We can be thankful that the SNP is a democratic and peaceful movement, and that the establishment is reduced to inventing pish in the media that can be rebutted quickly elsewhere. Their freedom of movement is restricted when compared to the damage they were able to do to the more radical miners and militant in the 1980s, and the murders conducted in Ireland in the 1970s with the British government’s blessing.
Provided we keep things civil, they will lose in the long run.
After the referendum we saw Sir Nicholas MacPherson, and senior Treasury staff like Mario Pisani, were involved in political campaigns against independence
Worth an airing: http: //wp.me/p4fd9j-17C
Scottish Labour and the fucking Mail!?! With BFFs like that…
The Sunday Herald absolutely nailed it:
“PROJECT SMEAR”
(Wish I’d thought of that…)
Anyone taking bets on who was ultimately behind this? And more importantly, who’s going to take the fall/go to jail?
My money’s on some faceless SpAd at the SO, and ex-Secretary of State “for” Scotland (and, now, soon-to-be-ex-MP) Alistair Carmichael. Come on down…!
Jesus H. fucking Christ!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/11515597/Never-before-has-Scotland-been-quite-this-deluded.html
Signed,
Deluded and Proud.
From Sunday Herald page 13 ‘gag on civil servants’by Rob Edwards.
New law made by Frances Maude ,Conservative Cabinet Secretary,on 16/03/2015:
‘Francis Maude made a surprise change to the civil service code requiring half a million Government employees to “ensure you have ministerial authorisation for contact with the media”
Should be entertaining watching the WM cabal exercise this new law on themselves seeing as Carmichael’s Scottish Office is under their remit and that department are the compromised conspirators.
Pass the popcorn.
You couldn’t make it up.
The Daily Mail – The Labour Party’s friend? Somehow I don’t think so.
Did this smirking Labour oaf similarly brandish a copy of The Mail when it shamefully smeared Miliband’s dead father?
I wouldn’t wipe my arse with the Mail or the Telegraph. Mair shite wid come aff the page!
@Gavin says: 5 April, 2015 at 12:30 am:
O/T Remember the heckler on the leaders debate on Thursday ? Here she is explaining why she heckled David Cameron.
Spot on !
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6_6w1RSesdw
Nice young lady, Gavin, and a whole bunch of political figures of all colours from right across the political spectrum would do well to note what she says.
If those who agree with her are also ready to make their collective voices heard the political spectrum could see several colours filtered out of the spectrum forever.
@Robert Peffers
thank you for debunking that lie. It shows desperate the Unionists are as they still use that old one as they have nothing else.
They have absolutely nothing on Nicola.
We are lied to every day of every week by the MSM and the BBC.
But that is supposed to be fine – as it is supporting the Union.
@Hoss Mackintosh says: 5 April, 2015 at 12:37 am:
“Do you know any real numpties in the Scotland Office? I know one …”
See your one and raised you two –
One is – The Rt Hon Alistair Carmichael MP Secretary of State Constitutional affairs, general economic policy, defence.
The Second is – The Rt Hon David Mundell MP Parliamentary-Under Secretary of State Electoral law, general social policy, energy.
I’m not able to distinguish, though, which numptie is the most accomplished numptie as the numptie accomplishment scale is rather nebulous and somewhat arbitrary.
http://williamduguid.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/jaccuse.html
If any of you have not seen this, I think it is funny and pertinent
@Donald Urquhart says:5 April, 2015 at 12:57 am:
“The Foreign Office claim to have no knowledge that the memo exists.”
Of course the Foreign Office knows nothing – it is the Scottish Office running with the baton and the relay team comprises the superfit(UP) team of Carmichael and Mundell.
Anyone under the strange impression that team are NOT stupid enough to have instigated the most idiotic smear campaign in history needs their bumps read.
Getting highly pissed off with the “leave James Cook alone” brigade on here. His interview with the FM was ill mannered and disrespectful. He wouldn’t dare have used the tone of voice he did with the PM, Clegg or Milliband, without any proof he basically called the FM a liar.
No wonder the camera stayed on Nicola throughout the interview, his eyes were probably bulging out of his head and spittle flying out of his mouth.
I watched him through the referendum and although I wasn’t enamoured by him I gave him the benefit of the doubt because of what Alec and Nicola said about him. After that interview I have to say If he’s one of the best journalists in Scotland we’re buggered.
Watching James Cook’s interview with Nicola in Glasgow, it was so obvious he was trying to fit the (non-)story into the pre-existing headline cooked up by the Establishment.
He’s a BBC reporter — what do people expect?!?
Maybe he was good and impartial from his first day at work up until Saturday. But on 4 April he was a disgrace to his profession. And that cannot be changed.
I repeat: he was trying to fit the (non-)story into the pre-existing headline cooked up by the Establishment. And when Nicola clearly stated: “I’m not accusing anyone” he went ahead and wrote in his story later that day: Nicola makes ACCUSATIONS of dirty tricks… the VERY WORDS that he kept trying to put into her mouth.
Therefore, the story of “accusations” had probably also already been written by him, ready to be published AFTER he had interviewed Nicola, but written BEFORE.
There was a brilliant quote from a scottish labour MP in the financial times today.
“I’m now set to Defcon f***ed,” he says. “I’m expecting to leave and never come back. It doesn’t matter how good you are or how weak your [SNP] opponent is — it’s over.”