In a piece about Trumpian politics and the lying it is based on, McQuillan invokes Boris but forgets about Douglas Ross, before letting one of the Lib Dems pretend they’re the nice honest ones.
She doesn’t quote Alistair Carmichael on his fib about the First Minister or Willie Rennie on his silence about David Steele’s complicity with paedophilia.
However, Ross is the main omission here. If anyone is going to contaminate the public sphere in the run-up to Holyrood 2021, it’s him. Remember these?
On Question Time, a few weeks back, Douglas Ross revealed himself stupid, duplicitous (again) or both, as he claimed that the UK Government had allocated £700 million for business support, thus dwarfing the Scottish Government’s £40 million.
The Finance Secretary corrected him, pointing out that the £700 million was also for health, transport and other things.
Playground style, Ross insisted it wasn’t. Forbes laughed and told him ‘The facts are there.’
The following day at 18.40, BBC Reporting Scotland allowed Ross to repeat his inaccurate claim:
The Finance Secretary was not invited to comment in line with the BBC’s supposed commitment to balance.
Ross, also made a well-worn but wholly inaccurate claim, on QT, that care home deaths had been higher in Scotland. The Truth is here:
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/10/16/care-home-deathsthe-lies-that-will-not-die/
This Tory fondness for just lying is well-known:
The 2019 election was won on the back of lies – and Facebook helped
Investigation finds ‘88% of Tory ads misleading compared to 0% for Labour’
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
Rory Stewart, in a review of the Tom Bowyer Boris bio, nails Boris for his duplicity, lies and fabrications.
“The most accomplished liar in public life”.
Yup, that about sums Boris up–stick on an addendum for DRossie..
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Its in the Times Literary Supplement, but I read it in the Indy.
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I’m too late to this it seems – but for what’s it’s worth!
…..
The PM in whose power over the fate of ‘Plan A’ for IndyRef2 is vested! Feeling confident?
“… the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve” in his present role.
“He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true.”
Well someone is not holding back!
The words are those of Rory Stewart, the former Tory MP in his review of a new biography of Boris Johnson (‘The Gambler’ by Tom Bower) appearing in the Times Literary Supplement.
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/boris-johnson-tom-bower-book-review-rory-stewart/
Even with that, Mr Stewart wasn’t done. He adds that: ‘the prime minister had reached the pinnacle of political life by flaunting, rather than hiding, his “lack of moral conviction”, acting as a “carnival lord of misrule” in order to capitalise on the public’s distrust of elites.’
Now all this could be attributed to Mr Stewart’s loss at the hands of Johnson in the last Tory leadership contest and/or his face no longer fitting in with Johnson’s version of Toryism. However, this is damning even for someone holding a career grudge! But is it not quite ‘delicious’ to behold one deeply situated Tory member of the British establishment turn on the darling leader of the Tory Party and their Unionist/Loyalist faithful?
And Mr Stewart is most certainly ‘deeply situated’ within the British establishment – as Wikipedia reveals:
– father was a colonial official and diplomat who, in the 1970s, was a candidate to become the Chief of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service or MI6
– educated at Eton College and Oxford
– a private tutor for a time to Prince William and Prince Harry
– successful career in the Foreign Office
– awarded an OBE for his services in the post-war government of Iraq
as an MP, Chairman of the Defence Select Committee
– various ministerial jobs in Tory governments.
So now someone with serious British establishment credentials and a Tory background eviscerates the character of the present Tory Prime Minister.
And remember, this is the same individual, the same PM that Alister Jack MP and Douglas Ross MP are happy to serve loyally. But more, they endorse this ‘admirable’ individual’s flagrant rejection of democratic principles regarding the people of Scotland’s right to determine their future – in this Union or not.
And for as long as we remain within this Union, we simply have to accept a ‘Johnson’, if and whenever England’s electoral majority decides such a individual is what it wishes to be given power – including power over Scotland.
So recall: this is the PM in whom power over ‘Plan A’ a (Section 30) for IndyRef2 is vested!
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Shame we don’t have equiiovalent of CNN in Scotland, we aren’t even allowed to broadcast being that telecommunications etc is actually reserved to the English government. Now if that’s not a failure in democracy I don’t know what is. A country with it’s OWN government cannot have their own TV station, all of that is British nationalist controlled you could hardly make it up could you!
Just watching CNN re the US election, great discussions, calling for all in the country to enable and welcome a peaceful transition if required, that democracy has been seen to be done and that Trump and his followers cannot deny that no matter how they try. Hard to tear myself away! See you soon all.
Thanks John for great articles this week. 🙂
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Aye, and we pay to get propaganda from another country pumped into our homes. As was said in Dune, ” The Sleeper must awaken” . . . And it’s happening, thanks to “Events”
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Equiiovalent. Hmm, must do better.
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