… unless May does. Is what he said, I believe.
Interesting story hereabout how May’s Home Office funnelled money into a mismanaged (and possibly corrupt) charity despite any number of warning signs, to the point of giving them a grant not knowing they were shutting down. The Home Office failed to monitor how their money was being spent and didn’t blink when staff salaries were 4x higher than expected and staff expenses were 13x higher.
May wasn’t looking at those forms herself, but she ran that department for 6 years and that shambles was the result of her strong, stable leadership.
I complain about media bias occasionally, but it’s often difficult to remember a good example, so I thought I’d share one while it’s happening.
Forfar town centre was shut down the other day, due to a package with white powder, and a note claiming it was anthrax, being sent to the council offices. There have since been two other packages sent. So, here’s the BBC UK front page. Can you spot the story?
https://s24.postimg.org/520k8fb6d/bbc_uk_news.png
Hah! Fooled you, it’s not there of course. Here’s the BBC Scotland news page. Can you spot it now? (it’s really there this time):
https://s24.postimg.org/ei1fedk2d/bbc_scotland_news.png
Ok, that was a lot easier. It’s obviously the “Warning as suspect mail linked to election” story. You can read it here. And follow the Council link to get the original story. It’s pretty short.
Done?
Now read the actual story from the local paper The Courier:
What was missing from the BBC account: no mention that all these packages were aimed at the SNP. No mention of the “SNP Out - Tories In” note.
Can you imagine if this had been Independence supporters sending anthrax threats to Conservative headquarters, MPs and Councils? I’m sure you can…
ps. Now try and find the story on the Guardian
From the BBC link:
Looks like it’s been updated.
Heh, the only time the Guardian devotes anything but the most cursory coverage of events in Scotland is during the Ediburgh Festival.
Nope, look how it states “an MP” and then “a Scottish MP” in the headline and the lede. It buries the SNP part later in the story even though this is the story.
Secondly, it never mentions that Angus Council is an SNP council.
Thirdly, it never mentions the “SNP Out - Tories In” note.
EDIT: Ah, I see you only quoted the part where I say there’s no mention of them all being aimed at the SNP. The other two did specify SNP at some point, but the council one does not.
When Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered, the BBCheadline was: “Jo Cox MP dead after shooting attack”
No, the story is that an MP has been threatened. When terrorists/nutbars attack democratically elected MPs, the fact that **an **MP is under attack is much, much more important than which flavour of MP it is - even if they are being attacked for their party’s positions. There aren’t any differing degrees of how OK it is to use violence against elected representatives depending on which party they’re a member of. If the terrorist/nutbar’s message had been “Tories out SNP in”, the important part of the story would still have been “MP attacked”. Not repeating and amplifying the perpetrator’s message is not a journalistic lapse - it’s good practice because we really don’t want to encourage these idiots to believe they can buy air time by hurting or terrifying MPs.
From the Jo Cox story you linked:
Seems it’s ok for this story though.
The “SNP Out - Tories In” message came from the threatened attack on the SNP Council. But I forgive you being confused, because even if you’d read the BBC stories in their entirety you still wouldn’t know that.
If I read the Jo Cox story, what actual facts would I be missing?
Actually, never mind, this is pulling the thread way off topic. It was meant as a single example, so if you don’t find it convincing, I’m not sure there’s much point in dragging it out. We can wait till the next BBC report that’s negative towards Independence supporters and see how balanced the treatment is, how does that sound?
Actually, BBC Scotland seems to be ridiculously biased in favour of independence, but what do I know? Their offices are only up the road. For example, there was next to no coverage of the Quisling event here, no follow-up, no asking the SNP to condemn racism.
Fair call.
In other news, the UK economy grew only 0.3% last quarter, vs 0.7% the previous quarter, due to a slowdown in consumer spending.
Non-coincidentally, it’s been all but impossible to find a Tory Minister or spokesperson on the news. Labour have put out a few statements about it but they don’t seem to have made much traction.
To be honest, the Tories are sitting so pretty on the economy right now that even if people are worried, they’d want the Tories in charge rather than Labour.
But it still grew.
Sure beats the alternative.
That is pretty much the dictionary definition of “selection bias”
I’m just back from shaking hands with Theresa May at Crathes. I need a while to collect my thoughts but some first impressions:
The event was very poorly organised.
Standing room only.
Ruth Davidson (Scottish leader) was present but hid herself away for about an hour until May arrived. She then gave a brief introduction.
May made a good but anodyne speech. She’s not William Hague, but she was a decent enough orator. The localised parts - especially about fishing - were very well received.
Lots of first time older voters there.
The BBC were actively hostile. There were three questions on Scottish independence. There was a softball questions from the Telegraph and Scottish Daily Mail.
I was in the receiving line by pure chance.
Give me some questions to prompt me!
I don’t understand this; hostile vs. softball?
Why would she come to Crathes, in particular?
What was security like?
Why did it seem poorly-organized?
How much did the PM talk about Brexit?
Any other MPs there?
The Guardian have an article about the event here. I’m fairly sure the reporter was not actually there, because she missed some doozies.
Did she mention the words “strong” and “stable” at all?
It’s funny you should mention that…
When Quartz shook the Prime Minister’s hand.
On Friday night I got a call from my mother. She needed me to take her to meet a VIP. She couldn’t say who it was because she didn’t know. So, of course, I said I would. She later learned that it was to be the Prime Minister. The event would be at Crathes Village Hall. She I picked her up and we stopped for lunch at the Mains of Drum garden centre where we both had an excellent fish and chips - the fish was likely locally caught and was very likely off the boat that morning. We had to be at Crathes for 13:30 and arrived about 13:00. I took a wrong turn and asked for directions: the couple to whom I spoke thought that it was a wedding reception! I dropped her off and was told that the car park was for badge-holders only. Being a pleb, I was relegated to the car park at the crematorium nearby. People were being held there by the security staff because they didn’t want people crowding the hall. This would not have been a problem except people were gathering at lunchtime and thus eating before going to the hall. Unfortunately, nobody had remembered to open the crematorium so there were no loos available and people were complaining to the security staff - no loo for them either! I talked my way past the security staff and rejoined my mother in the Hall car park. I paused to tell the security staff at the hall about the loo issue at the crematorium.
About 13:30 Ruth Davidson (the leader of the Scottish Conservatives and Unionists) arrived and zipped inside. We were not to see her again until she made her entrance with the Prime Minister, perhaps an hour later. We were eventually let inside. There were only a few chairs set up, in the corners; I made sure my mother got one. Given the demographic of the attendees skewing older, chairs should have been set out. The crowd was of all ages but there was a visibly significant presence of older people. And we waited. They handed out placards. And we waited. The room got very hot thanks to the press of people and the lights for the TV cameras. The Guardian said that there were 200 people there; I think it was many more but they may have just meant invited guests and excluded Press, security, etc. The place was far too small for the event. Ladies started fanning themselves with the placards. I almost got hit by a young lad waving one. And we waited. A number of complaints were made about lack of water. And still we waited. Nobody passed out but I think some people had to go outside. And on we waited.
While we waited, we chatted. I and my mother found that there were quite a number of people there who were first-time voters, all older people. Pretty much everyone REALLY hated Sturgeon and what she is doing.
By sheer chance I had managed to be on the receiving line when May and Davidson entered. They didn’t bother shaking hands, but May (I think) did stop to hug a kid. There was a brief warm-up speech by Davidson and then May started speaking. The speech wasn’t a barnstormer but largely anodyne. She started with a very basic mistake: up here it’s not the Conservative Party, it’s the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. She also completely forgot that we are having local elections next week. It was clearly a standard speech with localised segments. Her comments about the SNP and fishing and fisheries in particular were very well received with copious applause. Her message was ‘strong and stable’ leadership / government / etc helping her both at home and in the Brexit negotiations. I should have taken a clicker to count the number of times she said that line! She contrasted that with the chaos of a Corbyn administration. She didn’t attack Corbyn himself but said that the SNP and the Lib Dems were lining up to support him. She did some playing with the crowd, getting people to boo and hiss at varous points. Her diction was very clear. At the end, she got a huge round of applause. I can’t call it a standing ovation because almost everyone was already standing.
After the speech she took some questions from the press, starting with three questions about a second independence referendum. The BBC Scotland questioner seemed notably hostile. May’s handling of these questions seemed inept. For example, she didn’t once mention that we had already had a referendum. The Sky reporter initially misidentified himself as STV (i.e. Scottish TV, not Sky TV), then had to clarify. There were then some more questions which I forget, then she finished with two softball questions from the Telegraph and the Scottish Daily Mail (right-wing UK newspapers). One of those was about Spanish trawlers and her response to that - that thanks to Brexit control of the fisheries would be repatriated - was very well received indeed. She did not take questions from the public.
She then made an exit and this time she did pause to shake hands. And as I was still in the receiving line, I got to shake her hand.
The BBC have published an interesting article on the volunteering side of politics in Scotland.
They headline with a volunteer for the Labour party.