The truth dodgers
As our veteran readers will know, Duncan Hothersall is a prominent Scottish Labour activist, occasional BBC and STV pundit, prospective Labour parliamentary candidate and editor of LabourHame, the party’s favoured blog in Scotland.
Earlier today we got an email from someone who wanted us to ask him a question.
Here’s how the conversation went.
@WingsScotland My apologies. I’ll delete that entirely inaccurate statement forthwith.
— Duncan Hothersall (@dhothersall) April 7, 2015
.@dhothersall In which sense is it “inaccurate”? — Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) April 7, 2015
@WingsScotland The traditional sense. Not sure you’re in much of a position to debate the accuracy of comments, dear.
— Duncan Hothersall (@dhothersall) April 7, 2015
.@dhothersall The “traditional sense” would be an incorrect fact. Which fact is inaccurate? — Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) April 7, 2015
.@dhothersall It’s correct, is it not, to say that there were no fees for university education when Labour came to power in 1997?
— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) April 7, 2015
.@dhothersall And it’s also correct that three years later, there was a “graduate endowment” – a retrospective fee – of £2000, yes? — Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) April 7, 2015
@WingsScotland A graduate endowment is not a fee. To suggest it is is entirely inaccurate.
— Duncan Hothersall (@dhothersall) April 7, 2015
.@dhothersall The comment doesn’t seem to mention the word “fee”, it says “cost”. Having to pay something is a cost, right? — Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) April 7, 2015
@dhothersall @Roy1Batty @WingsScotland I remember when I had to pay it or I couldn’t graduate, thinking “I’m glad this isn’t a fee”
— Leo Mik?asz (@leomiklasz) April 7, 2015
.@dhothersall @AnonymousDota Also, wouldn’t a person of any integrity publish the comment and “correct” it anyway, rather than censor it? — Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) April 7, 2015
@WingsScotland @AnonymousDota Too much crap, too little time.
— Duncan Hothersall (@dhothersall) April 7, 2015
.@dhothersall @AnonymousDota By “crap” you presumably mean “entirely accurate statement you don’t like”. — Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) April 7, 2015
@WingsScotland @fitbafan @AnonymousDota Moderation is not censorship.
— Duncan Hothersall (@dhothersall) April 7, 2015
.@dhothersall @fitbafan @AnonymousDota Sure. Which of your moderation policies has it broken? — Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) April 7, 2015
@WingsScotland@fitbafan@AnonymousDota The secret one.
— Duncan Hothersall (@dhothersall) April 7, 2015
And that was the last he would say on the matter – there’s nothing like a bit of honest debate, Scottish Labour-style, readers. And goodness knows we enjoy tormenting poor hapless Duncan for fun, but there’s a more serious point behind prodding at his lack of intellectual courage or mental agility for cheap laughs.
The above exchange demonstrates in the starkest sense Scottish Labour’s attitude to uncomfortable truths (also seen in its dogged determination to stick to the “biggest party forms the government” lie, most recently punted by Pamela Nash on today’s Good Morning Scotland, from 2h 11m).
(Good Morning Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, 7 April 2015)
.
When presented with empirical, indisputable facts – that Labour came into power in 1997 when a university education in Scotland cost nothing, and three years later had increased that cost to £2000, yet insists on painting itself as the party that “abolished tuition fees” – it simply tries first to obliterate them, and then when someone notices, tries to bury the fact in disingenuous semantic deflection and sneering dismissal.
We have no way of telling whether such attitudes are a contributory factor to Labour’s spectacular demise in Scotland. But we reckon we could probably hazard a guess.
Perhaps the hapless Duncan duped himself(again).
Are “barrack room lawyers” role models now? I wasn’t aware…
So Duncan has a “secret” moderation policy?
Think he might just have a little bit of humour left in him.
“Think he might just have a little bit of humour left in him.”
It’s plainly a limp attempt to run away from an unwinnable argument behind the screen of a “joke”, yes.
…make the tatties grow. I think of that every time I read anything of poor Duncan.
When someone lies to you and you never find out then things can carry on as usual. But when they lie to you and you realize they’re lying to you, you can never quite trust them again.
That’s where Labour is now and the approach the Rev mentions above just confirms that they default position is to lie and I for one will never trust them again on anything. Ever.
Ye Gods, the twists and turns.
They turn black into white every time.
LOL.
Another round to the Bath Bruiser as he floors the Drunken Horse.
classy stuff as ever from Duncan. Great to see him squirm though.
@ Calgacus
That is being too kind to Labour and Duncan Hothersall. For as long as I can recall, subterfuge and duplicity have been standard practice in that party.
If the polls are correct then Pamela Nash will be in no position to work with the SNP as an MP. It’s a fairly cruel question to ask someone in her position.
double plus ungood, as Winston Smith might have been forced to express it
“it simply tries to obliterate them, and then when someone notices, tries to bury the fact in disingenuous semantic deflection and sneering dismissal.”
PPI for students.
Look a squirrel.
Anyone know when whether & where the Dunky one is standing? Still waiting for the bbc to get on with filling out their GE2015 pages e.g.
link to bbc.com
Guess it may be done sometime after 9th….
To be one of those annoying devil’s advocate buggers, do we have any evidence that he is a ‘prospective Labour parliamentary candidate’? I mainly ask because people’s assumptions are in the news a lot at the moment (all the ‘SNP want Tories to win’ boomflash comes to mind)
Meanwhile over on fb Lab activist huffing how free tuition is (SNP)bad thing as it helps the middle class disproportionally. just at the same time as the Slab leaflet through the door tries to take credit for and commits to retaining free tuition.
And in related news I’ve just had a phone call from a well known insurance company about the road accident I’ve had in the last two 1/2 years which got me thinking about “le Memo” . Was the telegraph just fishing based on what they thought might possibly have happened at the back of somebody’s mind in the hope of some kind of surprise reaction that could be spun as an “admission”?
(I haven’t had any bump in the last 2 1/2 years)
Rev,
Poor Dunc doesn’t understand that the goalposts have moved.We don’t trust the labour party or the media any more.Refusing to answer decent honest questions on this internet thingy has changed the old equation.Enjoy the GE Dunc…
ha ha I do think he was quite funny there although he is a bozo, his last comment was quite entertaining.
Prospective Labour candidate? Shame on anybody that would vote for this moron.
Persistence pays off eh Stu? Saw several tweets on this when Slab were claiming they’d abolished tuition fees a couple of weeks ago.All were being ignored-relying on people giving up & moving on I guess.
What I love the most is when he says, ‘You’re allowed your own opinion but you’re not allowed your own facts’ as he tries to ram fiction down peoples throats. We would be allowed facts if idiots like him stopped spouting absolute nonsense and blatant lies on a daily basis and instead tried telling the truth for a change. Labour would do much better in Scotland if they tried telling the truth once in a while and if their parliamentary candidates were just a little bit smarter. This joker, Jim Murphy, Kezia Dugdale, who the hell in their right mind would follow such a pack of simpletons.
“You’re allowed your own opinion but you’re not allowed your own facts.”
Perish the thought! Because with facts, you could prove anything that’s even *remotely* true (or, indeed, false…)
liar
noun
noun: liar; plural noun: liars
a person who tells lies.
“the man was a notorious liar”
synonyms: prospective Labour parliamentary candidate, deceiver, fibber, falsifier, teller of lies, teller of untruths, perjurer, false witness, fabricator, equivocator, prevaricator, spinner of yarns; romancer, fabulist;
Why oh why does SLAB continue to lie like this? I just don’t get it. What do they think it will achieve in the information age when they can be debunked to the masses in seconds?
Their incessant lying is why they are losing.
You can’t let the facts get in the way, how are Labour supposed to bluff their way using facts?
Labour are a spent force in Scotland, fact.
Pamela Nash telling lies. AGAIN? This is becoming a habit.
At least Hothersall apologised for his comments on Frenchgate when he realised it was a Carmichael smear, unlike Rennie, Milliband, Deputy Dug, Murphy and wee Dougie Alexander.
That said, showing more integrity than that lot listed, hardly makes him Mahatma Gandhi!
I’m astonished how few Labourites will take responsibility for their record in office last time. This Hothersall conversation is just another hilarious example.
A campaigner for Ian Murray ( Edinburgh South ) told me yesterday that “Labour would make Scotland fairer”. I asked why the distribution of wealth became less fair in every one of the thirteen years Labour were in power last time?
“It didn’t” he replied.
“Hold on a minute and I’ll get you the statistics to show you that your denial of this is a lie”
“Well maybe it did statistically but not for everyone on the ground it was quite different and
you’re not factoring in the cost of the war we had to fight”
“Had to fight?”.. I asked
If it wasn’t for the courage of the Labour Party, you could have had IS running about right here”…. ( Marchmont in Edinburgh! )
I just laughed and asked him to go away..
The Labour party chose to go to war, the Labour party began the privatisation of the NHS, the Labour party made the rich richer, the Labour party introduced costs for further education…. Why are Hothersall and others not proud of those wonderful achievements?
Perhaps Hothersall could finally tell everyone where all those secret weapons of mass destruction are in Iraq now that Blair has stomped into the general election campaign to remind the scottish public just how much trust they should put in the red tories and Miliband. 🙂
LOL
When will they (Labour, Tories and the media) start telling the truth?
Everyday is lies and smears and deflection.
I know i can NEVER vote for anyone who carries on that way and THAT is why they are losing voters hand over fist.
Does anyone really pay any attention to Duncan, I think of him more like Cochrane, a wanna bee, who is never gonna bee
Eh dinna ken what eh’m mare pissed aff aboot. Kennin wa Duncan Hothersall is or bein a veteran reader.
Thanks again, Wings, for not allowing this clown a hiding place.
Bring on the clear out of these self-serving buffoons. The Labour Party have missed their chances to reform, they just can’t seem to accept that the electorate has moved on now.
Here’s to a positive and progressive Scotland with better political representation! Roll on the 7th May!
Did I just hear the sound of somebody getting it right up them?
Newspeak, straight out of George Orwell’s 1984.
It says a lot when Duncan Hothersall actually comes across as one of the few reasonably honest ones after the Telegraph smear – I think he was pretty much the only one who apologised.
Sorry to go a touch o/t, but this is a “first cuckoo of spring” moment.
I have just been into Lockerbie, and I saw David Mundell, Annabelle Goldie and about a dozen of their acolytes having a photo shoot in the middle of the town.
I waited to the side, to let them finish. Sadly, none of them spoke to me as I walked past – mind you, I was carrying a highly visible copy of the National …
[…] As our veteran readers will know, Duncan Hothersall is a prominent Scottish Labour activist, occasional BBC and STV pundit, prospective Labour parliamentary candidate and editor of LabourHame, the party’s favoured blog in Scotland. […]
And on the subject of tuition fees, Ed Miliband is making a speech in Bristol at the moment and telling the students, he doesn’t want them leaving University with huge debts. So he will lower the fees from £9000 a year to £6ooo a year.
The average student in England is leaving University with £44,000 of debt for a three year degree.
So if Ed can get that debt down to £35,000 for a three year degree, he will consider that a success?
Go Ed! ra ra ra!
And the weird thing about all this is, that Jim Murphy, if he is returned to Westminster, will vote to set fees in England at £6000.
Pure hypocrisy.
It’s a Secret One..
Is that what Labour Political Campaigning has come down too? It’s a secret.. It’s good to hear the Labour Party Branch in Scotland speak out on the serious issues being faced by people though I’ll give you that Duncan. Very concise and straight to the heart of the matter for you.
TV Debates are going to be fun from now on eh:
Interviewer: So Home Secretary, what’s your next move given the latest Immigration Figures?
Home Secretary: Oh that’s a Secret..
Interviewer: So, Chancellor, given the IMF’s recent comments on Govt Spending, what’s the Governments position of further Austerity Cuts?
Chancellor: Oh that’s a Secret
Wise up Duncan and the rest of you. This is turning into the Labour School Playgound.
I can just hear the choruses of “We know something that you don’t know na, na, nah, nah naaaaahhhhhh” (but we’ll tell the Daily Record and Telegraph to make you all look bad..)
How can anyone trust them when their entire campaign in Scotland is based on an ‘inaccuracy’ ? (Only the largest party..)
And they STILL haven’t responded to Nicola’s challenge about combining to lock the Tories out of office..
@Oscar Taime the deadline for nominations (candidates and agents) is 4pm Thursday 9th April.
Dunno if that was the 9th you mentioned in your post.
I am beginning to think Labour activists and representatives are all suffering from a disease…they have spun, twisted facts and promoted downright lies to people for so long now they seem incapable of telling truth from lie. I think they see it as being smart or clever or something. I don’t know, I genuinely don’t know what brings on this collective insanity.
O/T Sorry Rev
Common Space have debunked the story-he is still SNP member!
link to commonspace.scot
Frankly SLAB inventing the truth, is now so common. It is part of their official training. It’s the same training that professional footballers get from managers on how to dive.
Winning is everything and lying and cheating to win is just normal politics at Westminster.
@Betty Boop,
Aye you are right, they are all liars. We’ve seen that over and over again. This nonsense about the Tories is all to disguise their duplicty with them.
Speaking of liars, it would appear that “Dirty tricks” Carmichael’s incompetent smears have already backfired quite spectacularly on him.
The indiegogo request for funding the SNP’s Danus Skene’s campaign – to boot out the untrustworthy muppet Carmichael – has rocketed to £2400 in only a few days! 😀
Well done to all the very kind Wings readers and other generous people who are helping to free scotland from revolting yellow tory liars like Carmichael.
Electoral calculus puts the seat in play so this is an actual close battle where every vote and indeed every penny will count.
also, The university year for certain Uni’s in Scotland is 8 to 10 weeks shorter than the early 90’s when I was a student.
e.g. Today, a mechanical engineering degree and Masters (an extra year) at Glasgow is the same coverage as the standard hons course in 1989.
many students will be ending their term in 3 weeks and not back until late September/Early October. i.e. there is no summer term anymore.
We are *so* lucky to have free university education in Scotland but I’d hate to think that Uni’s are shortchanging students by shrinking the courses to fit a shorter duration.
If Murphy had fees when he spent 9 years at Uni. Doing a longer degree than a vet. He would owe £30k plus student loans and no degree at the end of it.
The fact that he spent nearly a decade at Uni and left with no qualifications. Speaks volumes for the mans intelect. He must have left with egg on his face..not the first time!
Craig MacInnes
I do it’s a salary of £67,000 per annum plus up to £200,000 in expenses-nuff said?
Hothersall is a real asset to the people of Scotland wanting to re-shape their country into an independent state of the Scandinavian model.
He shows exactly the path we do not wish to take.
Hothersall is quite thick but you probably have to be, to even begin making that mental leap from being an normal human being, to a complete and utter bullshit artist.
He even calls himself a “devolutionist” on his twitter account but he couldn’t be a harder anti-devolutionist.
So just take one of his endless sad snide red tory anti devo you silly old sweaties bitch slaps, as he chortles along with racist thugs like Steve Bell of red tory Guardian, completely misses the vote SLab rancid Grain point, again.
link to archive.today
“More outrageous anti-Scottishness from Steve Bell. The monster.”
Dunc, you and your ilk are a boil on the arse of humanity.
Proud Cybernat says:
7 April, 2015 at 12:26 pm
Why oh why does SLAB continue to lie like this? I just don’t get it. What do they think it will achieve in the information age when they can be debunked to the masses in seconds?
Their incessant lying is why they are losing.
It’s all about hanging on to the ‘low information’ voters… Eg pensioners who only get their news from the Daily Record or the BBC.
Dougie Alexander blames Labours woes on Facebook .. which they can’t control.
The ‘only the largest party’ strategy in Scotland. I suspect a part of that is Jim Murphy trying to sabotage Ed Miliband’s chances of becoming PM.
Maybe as revenge for his demotion, or because he wants his job.
I’m thinking of pitching a financial recovery plan for the Scottish Branch Office.
Forget the £1.00, £5.00, … Labour membership fee promotions. They sucked. How about:
Labour pledge to have £0.00 (zero) membership fees.*
It’s a winner!
*£2,000.00 endowment charge applies
Hilarious Rev.
I keep telling any LIEbour die hards ” we don’t believe you or anything your party says” and they usually go away.
Liars . Never again will they fool the majority of Scots and they are being found out down south too.
Her we go – here we go – here we go 🙂 🙂 🙂
And the last thread about the ” defecting defector” was he a plant ????? poor show lIEbour.
Tick tock
And another first for the Labour Party was that they were the first Party in the UK to introduce the Bedroom Tax.
Red Tories, what a fitting name. (and they hate being called Red Tories).
Tony Blair (Thatcher’s secret love child)
Maybe Mr.Hothersall should be “fingered” by you know who.
It may prevent any more shit coming out – hopefully.
blair
not wearing wedding ring?
Have just had some election crap from Viscount John Thurso asking me, as an assumed Labour party member(which I’m not) to lend him my vote in the GE. He says it is a straight fight between the Lib Dems and the SNP.
As an SNP member, I will have obviously have to give this at least 2 seconds of my consideration.
I hope the 1st Minister does well in the debate tonight, and that STV is aware of the intense scrutiny which will be given as to how it is conducted.
Here is some information about the debate tonight:
link to news.stv.tv
@heedtracker
Hothersall is quite thick but you probably have to be, to even begin making that mental leap from being an normal human being, to a complete and utter bullshit artist.
😀 😀
A rise by any other name would cut as deep…
Duncan is irrepressibly Labour isn’t he 🙂
However, at least there is a bit humour there which is more than can be said for some of them over on the Groaniard.
@ Lollysmum
Great find! Completely debunks the Record “story” within a few hours of it appearing. The internet is certainly working well today. Here’s the link again in case you missed it:
link to tinyurl.com
I have just read the common space interview with Mr.Shoaib who denies leaving the SNP for labour.
WTF is the daily record doing, just talking pish?
Is it not the case in these straitened times, that there should be a charge for tuition?
After all many FE college placements have been abolished by the short sighted policies of the Scottish Government in their ‘dash for Uni’ when patently there is a growing need for more skilled vocations.
By putting the pressures onto the universities and not funding them appropriately it makes sense to charge fees
Craig Macinnes says:
7 April, 2015 at 12:46 pm
I am beginning to think Labour activists and representatives are all suffering from a disease…they have spun, twisted facts and promoted downright lies to people for so long now they seem incapable of telling truth from lie. I think they see it as being smart or clever or something. I don’t know, I genuinely don’t know what brings on this collective insanity.
It is explained because there is a third way: bullshit
link to press.princeton.edu
He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.
Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner’s capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
Caught the end of a B.B.C Scotland piece this morning . Just in time to hear Ms Nash make the lie that will not die comment …..largest party forms the govt.
Should have said – Common Space are having technical problems with their website so the item linked to above may not appear – try again later it says. Maybe thousands of people accessing at once?
good skills from this man from bath as he dribbles round the defense,he shoots,he scores goaaaaaalllll.
The crowd goes wild cheering wings 🙂
[…] The truth dodgers […]
OT.Re French Ambassador/Nicola Sturgeon meeting.Andy Burnham was asked this morning by BBC interviewer if the Labour Party now owes Nicola Sturgeon an apology following Douglas Alexander’s Tweets and Ed Milliband’s comments.
He opens his response with,”Well,I don’t think so Sarah”.
Incredible arrogance from Labour.
BBC’Today’ programme.
BBC iPlayer starting at 01:14:20:
link to bbc.co.uk
So who did abolish tuition fees in Scotland then?
“So who did abolish tuition fees in Scotland then?”
Depends on how you define “fees”.
@Iain Gray’s Subway Lament 12:54pm
And the link to the Shetland SNP Indiegogo fundraiser is [drum roll]
link to indiegogo.com
[crash of cymbols noise]
I’m sure that Danus will appreciate every penny he can get to campaign against Carbuncle.
It’s a mistake, a grand one at that, to attribute to stupidity that which is clearly an act of malice. No one, in my humble opinion, in the Labour party is stupid, not even the bumbling Curran and Kelly types. They know exactly what they are doing, they know that they’re lying, and they know that the Scottish media will have their backs when they do tell a whopper.
The stomach curdling truth, is that the Labour party are shower of lying, cheating, greedy bastards who are only interested in their own careers and their trajectory towards the Lords. They care not a jot about anyone else.
The worst thing about all of this though isn’t what Labour get up to, we almost expect unionist politicians to be utter cockwombles, it’s the fact that the Scottish media cover for them every time, even to the extent of subverting the democratic process itself and doing a hatchet job on all who oppose Labour. It’s ironic that the unionists painted Salmond as a Kim Jong Il character during the referendum campaign, because from where I’m sitting Scotland looks like a North Korea-lite under the best pals pact that Labour have with the Scottish media. They literally make my skin crawl.
I often ask myself, foolishly, what the hell happened to my country? But nothing happened, it’s always been this way. And the cynic in me is telling me that this election, where the establishment faces it’s biggest challenge since the war, that they’ll pull out all the stops to put a lid on the SNP. It’s probably more important to have people at the postal count at this election than it was at the indy ref.
On the subject of students, I just found a link to this in my E-mail inbox.
Thought I’d post it here anyway. Maybe someone can confirm whether it’s for real or not?
“This week, we’ve already seen a lot of promises from politicians: for better health, better business, a better Britain. You name it, they say it’ll be better.
But as politicians try to woo us, there is a deep and uncomfortable truth that the student population is being conveniently barred from the ballot box.
Reports show that nearly 1 million people, mostly students, have been wiped off the electoral register, denying them a say in the future of our country — in some places, 90% of students have fallen off the list!”
secure.avaaz.org/en/uk_universities_4/?bHVTpdb&v=56482
(link to petition on Avaaz)
Seems to be a common theme with Scottish Labour, challenge their lies and they basically crumble.
Can you imagine voting for these people.
link to twitter.com This is another Hothersall clone but he’s also been planted in various BBC tv studio debates. You can easily spot him as he’s really sexy and clever and a spectacular vote NO, vote SLabour bullshit arteest.
He tweets away with Dunc but unlike Dunc he has been on a very weird BBC vote NO or else Question Time that monstered YES voting. Then he popped up on a Pacific Quay studio debate with teenagers, which is partly why he stood out.
Anyway, this dude piles into SNP Scots.gov on Facebook a lot with stuff like “you cut one hundred thousand college places for your middle class subsidy vile separatists” but as per, if you answer Dr Scott with questions like which college places have been cut, he just shrieks “liar!”
A not so future SLabour MP for Westminster Dr Scott.
Delightful characters.
‘The Lie Will Never Die’
There must be a copyright battle about to break out among future Labour ex-MPs for that title for their autobiography.
😉
Can’t stand the guy.
Just imagining if in a months time Labour are in a position to form a coalition with the SNP and do so, what will be the reaction to those Labourites who insisted that such a thing was impossible?
Normally when challenged on such anomalies politicians fall back on the claim that what is said during a campaign doesn’t count (A quite egregious idea when you think about it), and probably most people will forget about this quite quickly, all the same it will be interesting to see what residual impression is left by Labour’s brazen dishonesty over this.
Crash Gordon strikes again, Tesco Kirkaldy closed down, Crash no comment, Dunc no tweets etc
link to thecourier.co.uk
Its interesting only in that SLabour tweetsters like Dunc and Dr Scott boosted Crash like crazy with their latest Crash will save you silly sweaties intervention, yet are oddly mute in this latest Crash failure.
Why does Labour lie all the time?
For the same reason that anyone lies – to cover the truth
of their actions or intentions, and thereby avoid the consequent punishment or loss.
However, lying can also become a habit, and the more you lie,
the easier it becomes.
Eventually, lying will become a habit that cannot be broken.
In addition, when a lie as gone so far, the thought of going back gives way to ‘I’ve come this far, I’d be as well going on – eventually they will believe me’.
Then, there’s ‘living a lie’, whereby one’s whole life is based on a lie – a recent example might be Lance Armstrong or Jimmy Saville.
Cameron and Osborne are living a lie, in a slightly different way.
Eg. They promised to reduce the Deficit of £800 billion, but they lied and instead increased it to £1,400 billion.
Both Tories & Labour are living a lie.
Trouble is, most people refuse to see it.
Nicola offers the truth which the Unionists are desperate to keep hidden viz. Scotland subsidises rUK , while at the same time being ripped off and abused by Westminster. Scotland will be infinitely better off governing itself as an independent country.
Vote SNP. Join SNP.
Support Nicola.
I posted on LabourHame in response to Hothersall’s “What We Know” piece about how, despite it not being true, we all know Sturgeon really really loves that David Cameron. I said that it was disgusting to pretend to apologise for smearing her then insinuate that it’s all true anyway, just because.
My response never appeared.
So yesterday I submitted another attempt. I started by noting that my previous comment had been moderated out of existence and followed with the words: “YOU ARE DISGUSTING, HOTHERSALL.” I then spent another paragraph explaining why. Guess which line survived…
link to labourhame.com
How can you take anybody seriously called Hothersall? 🙂
Manandboy @2.48
Fraid you are confusing deficit with debt…. Debt is 1.4trilliom except it’s actually at least double if PCI, public pensions etc are included.
Duncan Hothersall, a man who is actually as glaikit as he looks. For once, there is balance between outward appearances and inner substance and harmony in the universe.
Who’d have thought LabourHame was also the home of wabi sabi-ness. Not.
This story by that hothershall person, who insists on calling everybody ‘dear’, for some bizarre reason, demonstrates part of the deception of Labour in Scotland.
They have two lies or deceptions which they like to tell students in Scotland – one of which was only just recently in the Glasgow based student advertiser newspaper (courtesy of Jim Murphy).
The first is to state loudly that ‘Labour oppose ANY upfront tuition fees’, knowing full well that the word UPFRONT gives them the ability to introduce tuition fees anyway. You see, no tuition fees for domestic students in Scotland, England or Wales, are upfront as they are ALL paid back later via a student loan.
The second wheeze is that as this Hothershall person demonstrated clearly today, Labour do not regard the graduate endowment as a fee, therefore, no matter what they say or promise, the have full latitude to either (a) introduce tuition fees like in England (which are for most students not ‘upfront’, or re-introduce the graduate endowment, or a different named charge, as they did previously.
Just as a point of note, it is truly amazing, the number of students who have fallen for this bull from Labour, and have no idea that it was the LABOUR party who introduced tuition fees, not the Tories. The only party to completely abolish such charges was the SNP.
Labour are clearly just a bunch of dirty liars on this topic.
How about this for a slogan or book title, take yer pick:
Labour – The Lie That’s Due To Die.
or
Labour – The Party Destined To Die.
@Jim Thomson 12:45 Yup that’s the one. My understanding is that a fair few have been selected & adopted already but I just can’t find a decent source. Seems like everyone is waiting until after the deadline. Meanwhile as far as I can tell the list of those standing DOWN is as follows:
Frank Doran
Jim McGovern
Lindsay Roy
Eric Joyce
Gordon Brown
David Hamilton
Malcolm Bruce
Anne McGuire
Menzies Campbell
Alistair Darling
& since I blieve Dunc is in Edinburgh I wonder if he’s thinking he’ll get Alistair’s “Edinburgh South West” seat?
What was quite funny from Pamela Nash on the radio this morning was the ‘thousands that were turning back to Labour’.
Me and my colleague Pete just about upended ourselves in the van when we heard that little statement! To say that both of us flicking the vickies at the van’s radio in wild gestures would be an understatement.
Thousands …really! Can Pamela prove this little fact! I await with abated breath to see the statistics.
“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”
? Plato
Find Duncan compensates for his lack of quality with sheer quantity of tweets.
Still got no idea how he finds time to run a business. That said I have no idea what his business is.
Labour are geniuses. They have worked out that all you have to do now is change the name of something and then you can cure all of society’s ills.
They could change the name of the next generation of Trident to ‘Nuclear Protection Devices’, then they can say, with a clear conscience, “Labour abolished nuclear weapons.”
Or they can change the name of hospital waiting times to ‘treatment prediction calculations’ and then they can say “We’ve eliminated waiting times.”
Is this what Gordon Brown meant when he boasted about lying without actually lying? The strategy is brilliant, can’t work out why no-one wants to vote for Labour any more.
Actually YOU are wrong.
There were university fees in 1997 (and they have been there forever). What has changed is who has their fees paid for them.
In the case of the Open University, the majority if its students paid fees even in the good, old (pre-1997) days.
Note how DH used the Murphy line of “tradition” early on the exchange , it’s interesting that SLAB have changed the meaning of the word to mean a convenient or simple way to qualify a “fact” as beyond question . Weasel word alert for the future.
He is, of course, correct. Well, in the sense that he can censor anything he wishes at laugh about it knowing that the press won’t pick up on it. Too comfortable for too long…
What you didn’t include Rev, is what would that £2000 in 1997, be today, taking inflation into consideration?
Would it be near £6,000 Labours promised reduced fee?
Or nearer the £9,000 the present fee.
Is this just another Labour Lie, In much the same way as their minimum wage promise, that when you calculate inflation ends up being less than the Tories will pay, given their own planned increases.
So c’mon all you Wings Commando’s Accountant Brigade, Are Labour moving forward or backwards?
@ Donald Urquhart,
That’s conversation with the Labour drone would be hilarious, if it wasn’t so pathetically wrong.
Sadams Bathist party was made up primarily of Sunni tribes, and so after the war the American/UK govs decided to put a Shiite into power.
Isis came out of and still are, Sunni’s, who get a lot of support from Sunni citizens, who have been disenfranchised by these decisions.
They would find it far harder to function without this support and the large number of fighters they have recruited from the Sunni areas of Iraq.
I can see his wee red glossy election bumf now, “Vote for Hari Kari Hothersall”.
this is a perfect example of how Labour operate.
Lie in the hope that you are too dumb to remember the
truth behind the story, try to cover it up if your IQ is greater than 10, tell you are wrong 10 times while
crossing your fingers and spinning around 3 times in a Circle, and then suggest it was some else who made the mistake, it wisnae me!
Excuse my language but what a nasty lying, condescending Bastard!
Thatcher introduced student loans but everyone got one. £3000.
Labour/Unionists means-tested student loans on household income.Students of households of average earning could not get a full loan. A sliding scale from £21K to £42K. That is why many working class students could not go to University, No support. Students with straight ‘A’s could not go to University. Labour/Unionists would rather people were unemployed (£60 a week?) than studying.
Students get loans in Scotland and still end up in debt. Mainly 4 year+ degrees. It is just less debt. £12k+ They can now get a loan up to £4K a year. In the rest of the UK they get loans to pay the fees. Westminster borrowed £6Billion to cover student loans. £3Billion they will not get back. Pointless. The Colleges have all been renovated £Millions have been spent on them.
Westminster wonders why young folk can’t afford a house.
I was a (mature) student in the 90s.
I became a student, just before they changed the rules on what you had to be earning before you had to be paying back your loan.
I think I got in when you had to be earning ? of the average wage, after you were earning. I spent around 4 years at college, then ended up in a low paid job.
I had to send in an earnings statement every year, until I was 60. The debt is now written off.
WAY-HEY!
That question mark appeared in the preview as the character for 2/3 but WordPress obviously doesn’t like it.
It was the UK/US who created ISIS. They funded fighters (ISIS) to fight in Syria for two years.
Al Queda was created and funded by the CIA, they recruited Bin Laden but he turned against them and became devout.
fell over laughing when I read this
hehehehehehehehe
Tuition fees were first introduced across the entire United Kingdom in September 1998 under the Labour Government as a means of funding tuition to undergraduate and postgraduate certificate students at universities, with students being required to pay up to £1,000 a year for tuition
That sound about right Effijy.
I didn’t have tuition fees to think of, only the loans.
(Became a student in January 1996, until Summer 2000.)
Hothersall…right up there with CreepyJim
Interesting that Jim used the exact phrase Duncan used earlier in the week and at the top of this thread… “You’re allowed your own opinion but you’re not allowed your own facts”. Watch for this replacing “the largest party” mantra in days to come
I’am so so fed up of all there lies, a quote my mother used to say
is quite fitting, You can take a thieve by the hand, but you can never hold a liars tongue….
Interesting
Today Stu tweeted that because I am old I must be an evil cunt. His tweet referred to all old people. I am 67 and not evil. Sorry Stu no more financial help from me, ever. It is my evil nature. Bye
Hothersall’s a seasoned shiter. When I asked him a while back to explain what it was about nationalism he disliked, he immediately replied “everything”, but when I then asked him to explain how a political union that stops at Dover isn’t also nationalism, he didn’t reply.
The thing is, I just don’t know why Labour mouthpieces always seem to need to lie about what Labour did previously.
I may be wrong, but NO Labour manifesto since the SNP got into power, has madea clear commitment to completely abolish tuition fees, or indeed prevent them being re-introduced in SCotland. At the last UK election, they merely said they would lower them slightly (and then after the election, went ahead and INCREASED them in Wales, where they run Education).
The simple fact is, they merely re-named the debt in Scotland as the graduate endowment tax. For almost all students, tuition fees (or the re-named ‘endowment tax’) are always paid retrospectively. So Labour effectively just renamed the fees as the endowment tax. Technically, you can say Labour ‘abolished’ tuition fees in Scotland, but in reality all they did was re-name them – so they still existed. To try to imply Labour really got rid of the fees, is just disingenuous.
It was the SNP who made higher education free.
But Labour, why do they keep on lying like this? Their is only one reason for somebody from Labour to do this, and that is to deceive people. They are currently doing it on brexit, with the effect that many folks ‘THINK’ that Labour have a different policy than the tories, but they don’t, it is hard brexit, all the way. Tory and Labour policy on brexit is the same – they even vote together on Brexit.
Maybe they think they can fool ALL the people ALL of the time. They don’t seem to realise that with the rise of the internet, lying like that gets found out pretty quickly.
My brother started University in 1998. When he graduated the Scottish Labour educational champions had cost him £3000 in fees and £2000 in this “non fee.” He did a 4 year honours degree.
When I started University in 2004 there was no annual fee for us, and by the time I graduated in 2009 the SNP had scrapped the “non fee” of £2000.
Thanks to Scottish Labour’s egalitarian efforts my brother from a working class background paid £5k the family really didn’t have spare for a physics degree and thanks to the SNP I got a free medical degree a few years later. No Duncan Internet Warrior will ever convince our family of their lies.