The Herald, like Nazi Germany, is not a monolithic organisation, where everything is geared to attacking the SNP. It is mostly, and its Goering, Himmler and Goebbels-like figures, Monteith, Gordon and Wilson (I’m joking! A bit), dominate the narrative.
Just as Hitler let them all fight it out to impress him, the Herald’s editor (who?) wants readers before anything else, so will allow dissenting voices at times.
Ian McConnell is one, almost the only one admittedly, who regularly tells it like it is even if that might support the SNP.
Today, he has SNP worse on business and economy than Tories? Really? where he offers evidence to calmly dismantle the conventional wisdom pushed by Reform Scotland (more below) that the new FM had to ‘reset’ Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘poor relationship’ with business.
He suggsts:
So it’s another big media myth.
Who are these Reform Scotland folk?
Reform Scotland, like most right-wing, unionist, so-called think tanks is keen to project itself as somehow independent or non-partisan. Any social science student will tell you there’s no such thing but Reform Scotland is an easier target than that.
It’s director is Chris Deerin, a New Statesman writer, Blairite and regular critic of anything the SNP does. Just Google his name and SNP and you’ll see just how non-partisan he isn’t.
Its research director is Alison Payne. That name ring a bell? It should.
In recent years, popping up as just a ‘mum’, unattributed, on Reporting Scotland, GMS and Kay Adams to moan about SNP school policies, Payne began her career within the Scottish Conservative MSPs’ Research Unit, going on to spend four years as Head of Research. She later went on to become Political Adviser to Annabel Goldie MSP, Leader of the Scottish Conservative Group of MSPs. This role included acting as adviser to the Scottish Conservative Policy Advisory Group. She also spent 10 years as a Girl Guide leader, prior to the birth of her second child in 2010.
And, how did she become a Research Director with no evidence of research training – PhD, MRes, even an honours degree with a dissertation? Girl Guide connections?
Talking-up Scotland 
Well said sir , what a bunch of sneaky idiots they are , don’t they know you’ve got them sussed.
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I remember, some years ago, a telephone conversation with a Herald sports sub-editor, now sadly no longer with us, and I asked him how things were at the paper.
He replied: “Well, there are still – just – more of us here who care about the paper than chancers taking a wage.”
Sadly, in the intervening period, that situation has worsened. However, Ian McConnell is one of the gey-few left at the greatly diminished Herald, who still cares. Now, I fear, he’s in a minority.
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I am honestly surprised that Her Ladyship Michelle Mone of Mayfair is not included amongst the luminary that make up Reform Scotland.
She would fit right in there with her insight and business background.
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