Law Stud Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Wasn't much to be surprised about last night. If anything, Iain Gray did worse than I even dreamed he could. He was absolutely awful. It was pretty funny to see Ponsonby rip into him. "Isn't it true that Scottish taxpayers would be worse off if Labour had one the last election? Fact!" Gray: "Waffle". Ponsonby: "That's not what I asked you." You didn't ask him anything Bernard, you accused him. Whilst I'm with Bernard on this one, if Gray had any kind of wit, backbone or dignity, he would have he'd have said that to Ponsonby. It's a bit depressing how the usual suspects (in the media and P&B) are desperate to pretend this didn't happen or rush to criticise it. I get the feeling a public school, southern English accent would lend the whole thing a bit of gravitas, for some people. Come off it Gordon. The track record of the Scottish Parliament means that all we are voting for in May is to find out which party leader is going to let criminals loose this time round. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 I actually think that The Sun will offer a fair analysis of the 'political battles' for this election. Of course they will have a slight anti-Labour stance but they won't go out of their way to make their inevitable SNP bias obvious. lol wut You didn't see their front page last election day, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renton Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Gerry Hassan has quite a thoughtful piece on his site, that touches on some of the recent issues and the leader's debate here I'm quite a big fan of his thinking to be honest, particularly when he touches on the individuality of the Scottish political scene and the lack of sure touch exhibited by the wider British political classes in understanding this. His themes of the basic conservatism (as in protecting the status quo of the traditional civic elites, not the political ideology) of Scottish politics as operated by all parties is quite illuminating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archie guevara Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 The Record report on an election in a monumentally (by any fair measure) biased way. Makes me wonder what they might be capable of when it comes to stuff that is trivial, like fitba. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Why does Iain Gray permanently look as though he's just had dental injections? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renton Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Why does Iain Gray permanently look as though he's just had dental injections? A lifetime of grinding his jaws in frustrated impotence have given him over developed jaw muscles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archie guevara Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Gerry Hassan has quite a thoughtful piece on his site, that touches on some of the recent issues and the leader's debate here I'm quite a big fan of his thinking to be honest, particularly when he touches on the individuality of the Scottish political scene and the lack of sure touch exhibited by the wider British political classes in understanding this. His themes of the basic conservatism (as in protecting the status quo of the traditional civic elites, not the political ideology) of Scottish politics as operated by all parties is quite illuminating. Agreed. That piece is a very neat summary of the lack of understanding at all sorts of levels of British and Scottish politics. The only point that I take issue with is the suggestion that Labour and SNP policies are vaguely aligned, which is fine, up to the point that you encounter the elephant in the room. Independence is a pretty large issue to disagree on. It's not so much an issue as a zeitgeist, at least for me, which rather neatly returns us to where we started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reynard Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Incidentally, the BBC seem to have also decided that last night wasn't significant enough to report on. They might have if it had been on their channel. They are correct all the same. It wasn't very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Why does Iain Gray permanently look as though he's just had dental injections? He looked rather grey himself last night, a few people were questioning whether he was actually alive. I don't understand how on earth they managed to pick Wendy Alexander and now him.. he's worse. Scary stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon EF Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 To be honest, the layout and format of the debates were god awful, nothing to do with accents. From Ponsoby's hectoring to the barrage of questions from the audience, it was not conducive to any kind of decent debate. Maybe my memory is eroding but I didn't find the UK debates to be too great. Better production values etc, obviously but I found them quite sterile. I enjoy the more casual, conversational, audience driven, badgering moderator style from this one. I think it let's you get a better idea of what the candidates are like, rather than what their back-room team has drilled them into saying the previous few days. Not perfect by any means and I agree the layout, format etc was a lot less professional and polished than the Westminster ones but I think that's got as much to do with the attitude to Scottish politics and the Scottish government that the unionist media and public seem determined to have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon EF Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Come off it Gordon. The track record of the Scottish Parliament means that all we are voting for in May is to find out which party leader is going to let criminals loose this time round. I know you're trolling but it brings up a decent point. Why are the people who want the SP to have the least powers, the ones who shout the loudest in condemning it for having less powers or being a 'toy parliament', like that renowned political commentator, Davie Provan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renton Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Maybe my memory is eroding but I didn't find the UK debates to be too great. Better production values etc, obviously but I found them quite sterile. I enjoy the more casual, conversational, audience driven, badgering moderator style from this one. I think it let's you get a better idea of what the candidates are like, rather than what their back-room team has drilled them into saying the previous few days. Not perfect by any means and I agree the layout, format etc was a lot less professional and polished than the Westminster ones but I think that's got as much to do with the attitude to Scottish politics and the Scottish government that the unionist media and public seem determined to have. I think my main fault with it was the way in which audience views and quesitons were allowed to intermingle randomly, before going back to the panel, so that you kind of lost the thread a bit, some questions were lost in the general melee and I don't think that was particularly effective. I'd ahve preferred a higher stanard of question, even if it were prepared. Personally, I prefer the moderator to be as hands off as possible, I disliked Adam Boulton's turn as moderator on the sky debate immensly in that respect. He was definitely carrying his own political views into the debate and I don't think that's appropriate. Ponsoby wasn't as bad obviously, but he still kinda fell into the role of being the centre of the debate, rather than the guy who keeps the wheels turning. Agree with you on your last paragraph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theentomologist Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Watch it Reynard.....the forum police might think you were being racist there.... except he was actually referring to a monkey, and not making a racist allusion to one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embra Shire Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 There's another debate being hosted by the Scotsman online tomorrow tea-time. Should be interesting to see: (a) if the format is as bad as the STV debate. (b) How much of a doing Gray gets in this one, and © just what "SNP ACCUSED,,," headline they can come up with on friday morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoda Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 lol wut You didn't see their front page last election day, no? I did, but The Sun will not side with Labour in this election. They'll subtly have SNP bias, because they won't back the same party as the Record does again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 I did, but The Sun will not side with Labour in this election. They'll subtly have SNP bias, because they won't back the same party as the Record does again. Nonsense, The Sun are currently Unionist with the capital U. They will do whatever is needed to try and keep nationalism out, like they did in 2007. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Nonsense, The Sun are currently Unionist with the capital U. They will do whatever is needed to try and keep nationalism out, like they did in 2007. True but they are also pro-tory / anti-labour currently and will probably have reasonably balanced coverage for this election. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 True but they are also pro-tory / anti-labour currently and will probably have reasonably balanced coverage for this election. Not in Scotland. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xbl Posted March 30, 2011 Author Share Posted March 30, 2011 True but they are also pro-tory / anti-labour currently and will probably have reasonably balanced coverage for this election. Lets not forget what the Sun ran with on election day 2007... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/may/03/theheatofthescottishsun It's been a beautiful day in Scotland and polling has been brisk in what everyone is calling the most important election in 50 years. The only dark cloud has been this morning's press, which launched a savage attack on the SNP. There's been nothing like it since the Murdoch press took on Labour in the 1980s.The Scottish Sun front page featured a hangman's noose in the shape of an SNP logo. "Vote SNP today and you put Scotland's head in the noose," it cried. The Daily Mail was equally direct: "This man wants to destroy Great Britain," it screamed over a picture of Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, looking shifty. The Daily Record, the second largest-selling tabloid in Scotland, ran a front page editorial attacking the nationalists. "Do not sleepwalk into independence. Do not let a protest vote break up Britain". The fact that the result of tonight's election will certainly not break up Britain was hardly mentioned. Highly questionable assertions from Labour election leaflets were presented as if they were hard fact. Scottish taxpayers would pay £5,000 per head, said the Sun; income tax would go up 3p; thousands of jobs would be lost. None of these are credible claims. The alleged hike in income tax refers to the SNP policy of replacing council tax with a local income tax, which actually involves a £400 million tax reduction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reynard Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Lets not forget what the Sun ran with on election day 2007... http://www.guardian....fthescottishsun Thankfully the Sun were wrong. The SNP have proved to be completely harmless constitutionally. And in fact allowed the one tax power available to them to f**k off. I'm all for another dose of them as long as they stay dull and boring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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