It started within a year of a minority SNP administration being elected in 2007 when some in the SNP made the ludicrous claim that they had done more in the first eight weeks/months than the previous lot had managed in eight years. The response from the media, had they been doing their jobs, should have been simple: prove it. Instead the bombastic boasts of wee Salmond and his cohorts were allowed to go unchallenged.
And this has continued throughout wee Salmond's second term: his propaganda chief forged a letter from an academic for him to read out and when rumbled claimed it was 'an honest mistake', in a TV interview he was asked a direct question and answered 'we have, yes' then claimed that any fair person would take that to mean 'we haven't no' and just last week we had him claiming he was increasing college budgets when in fact he was cutting them.
If any of this had happened at Westminster then a resignation would have followed.
Why don't we in Scotland hold the Holyrood administration to account and expect the same honesty as that expected from our Westminster government?
Why is wee Salmond's buffoonish antics and egotistical boasting laughed off or ignored by our media?
The answer is a simple one: we don't take Holyrood as seriously as we take Westminster. We can see it in the respective turnouts when half our fellow Scots can't be bothered to vote in the Holyrood elections and we know fine well that the office of first minister doesn't bring with it the responsibilities of that of prime minister. The media seem to believe that as long as wee Salmond is good for a laugh his particular brand of bravado, egocentric bombast and mountebankism will be indulged and anyway what harm can he do?
However, as we approach the referendum it's time for our media to ignore the first minister's buffoonery and start taking him seriously - and that means looking behind that smug Salmond chuckle and start challenging his baseless assertions ...
Yes of course Graham. The sycophantic toadying hagiographies to Salmond that David Maddox, Simon Johnstone and Alan Cochrane write fair makes ye sick eh?
ReplyDeleteHi Conan,
ReplyDeleteI'll see your Maddox, Johnston and Cochrane and raise you a Mcsquirter, Dinwoodie and Bell.
In the meantime can you seriously imagine a British PM being able to explain trying to pass off a letter forged by his or her propaganda chief as an 'honest mistake'?
Two words.
ReplyDeleteTony Blair...
Conan
ReplyDeleteReally?
That's your defence of the casual dishonesty of the SNP?
No, it was a reponse to your second paragraph.
ReplyDeleteSo you think the SNP is casual in it's dishonesty?
Whereas the Labour Party is far more professional...
Conan,
DeleteWhat has Labour got to do with this?
The only defence you seem to have for the SNP's dishonesty is that other people are dishonest too.
In the meantime it was good to hear John Swinney being properly questioned on GMS yesterday morning.
He refused to answer Gary Robertson's perfectly reasonable question: 'If you knew that the figures the FM was using were wrong why did you nod along with him?'
I suspect he'll be getting asked that question again...
"What has Labour got to do with this?"
ReplyDeleteHow many SNP politicians heve been sent to jail in past few years?
How many Labour ones?
And you accuse the SNP of dishonesty...?
What do you think of the socialist Noble Lord fireraiser being re-admitted to the Labour Party?
Venetian blinds being fitted as I speak?
Conan
ReplyDeleteAgain, your only defence is to attack Labour?
I have no idea how many SNP politicians have been sent to jail in the past few years. I'm sure if I trawled the local press I'd find a few of your councillors banged up for various offences but since it's completely irrelevant to this I'll leave it for another day.
In the meantime I'm sure you'll be concerned at the acres of press columns and hours of broadcast time now being devoted to scrutinising SNP claims and statistics.
Just when you didn't want it...