“Welcome to Question Time which tonight comes to you from Croy Miners Welfare Club in the rural county of North Lanarkshire. So, let’s get straight on with the questions. You sir, with the Orange top and the equine tattoo.”
“It’s about the SNP, Fiona, I don’t like them.” (Loud cheering from the audience.) “Why don’t you like them?”
“They’re bad for Scotland, Fiona.” (More loud cheers as the camera pans in for a close-up of the locals who look remarkably like the St Andrews University horsing club.) “That’s a very valid point, sir. Jackson Carlaw, why are the SNP bad for Scotland?”
“They’re nasty and divisive, Fiona, and want to raise taxes to 100% for anyone earning more than £50k-a-year.”
“Mike Russell, why does your party want to raise taxes to 100% for anyone earning more than £25k-a-year?”
“We don’t.” (Loud booing from the audience and shouts of “answer the question”.) “But it’s quite obvious that you do and if it wasn’t for that Barnett Equation thing you’d be going cap-in-hand to the UK Treasury.” “But, but …”
“Next question, the lady with the blue rinse in her hair: I believe you want to talk about problems with immigration …”
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THE General Election campaign is barely under way but supporters of Scottish independence will soon be getting a taste of what lies in store for them from our national broadcasters. Nicola Sturgeon has already been frozen out of the early leadership debates and it seems the BBC’s references to the SNP are on a strict need-to-know basis, on the evidence of yesterday’s lunchtime news.
Before it became an excruciatingly unwatchable exercise in Brexit paranoia, Question Time was the political highlight of the week. Now it makes the Jeremy Kyle show look like Panorama. Going by the last few Question Time audiences in Scotland, the Tories seem to have a working majority up here and their writ appears to run to all corners of the kingdom.
A few familiar tropes in the way that Scottish independence is covered in the media at large will emerge over the course of the next five weeks. Perhaps we could make it entertaining by having a bingo card and filling it in as each example of these familiar themes occurs.
NATS POPPY OUTRAGE
“POLITICIANS from all sides condemned Nicola Sturgeon last night when she was seen jogging in Pollok Park without her poppy JUST ONE WEEK after Remembrance Sunday.
Jackson Carlaw, interim leader of the Scottish Tories, said: “Nicola Sturgeon should be ashamed of herself. When the Tories win next year’s Scottish election we’ll be introducing a law to make it compulsory to wear the poppy in the hours of daylight between August and December.”
A spokesperson for Scotland in Union said: “Yet again the leader of Scotland has let the nation down. This shows what a nasty and divisive party the SNP has always been. The poppy has always been about saying no to a second referendum. Yet again Nicola Sturgeon isn’t listening.”
CROWD OF ORDER
THE SNP have been accused of jeopardising public health by ORGANISING RALLIES AND MARCHES. Politicians from all sides condemned the scale of these gatherings because there is just no need for them.
Professor Adam Tomkins said: “We are living in times of austerity in which people are once more learning how to make a little go a long way. The sight of so many people enjoying themselves when there are foodbanks just a mile up the road sends entirely the wrong message.”
Richard Leonard, leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, said: “Many of the people at these rallies are known to us.
“We have now contacted Labour’s Missing Persons Unit to track them down as we believe some of them have been forced to turn up against their will.”
GREEN MONSTERS
NICOLA Sturgeon was last night accused of sickening hypocrisy as she was observed SITTING ON A TRAIN. Shocked witnesses were appalled at the First Minister’s behaviour which was believed to have occurred on the 6.50am from Glasgow to London Euston.
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A spokesperson for the Scottish Tories said: “People will want to demand answers from Nicola Sturgeon. At a time when we are all trying to reduce our carbon footprints she’s obviously not practising what she preaches. If she’d started her journey early instead of trying to take Scotland out of the UK she could easily have cycled to London.”
WRONG DIVISION
THE SNP have been accused of trying to mislead the Scottish public. The party published its manifesto yesterday and startled voters were shocked to find that it wants to DRAG SCOTLAND OUT OF THE UK.
Perthshire farmer Angus McSubsidy told the BBC: “I’ve voted the SNP all my life but if I’d known that they were all about independence for Scotland I’d never have done so. I think they have been very fly in never explaining what the letters in their name stood for. Her indoors thought it meant the Scottish Nice Party.”
Jackson Carlaw said: “Finally the SNP’s mask has slipped and we can now see what they are all about. We’ve always said they were a bunch of communists but this is even worse.”
Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister said: “The SNP poses a grave threat to people’s pensions.”
POLLING DISTRESS
THE SNP have been accused of dirty tricks on General Election day. Teams of party supporters have been seen swamping quiet neighbourhoods and asking shocked residents TO GET OUT AND VOTE.
One elderly lady who declined to be named for fear of reprisals said: “I had intended to go to Braehead for some Christmas shopping when there was a loud knock at the door.
“Two suspicious-looking types were there asking me to go and vote for the SNP instead. When I told them I had prior plans they said they’d lay on transport for the whole day.”
Alister Jack, Secretary of State for Scotland, condemned the SNP’s bully boy tactics: “Many people would rather not vote, especially as it’s Christmas and it’s cold outside. How dare the SNP use this sort of bribery by offering to drive people to the polling station. There has to be a limit on numbers of canvassers and the SNP simply have too many.
“We’ll be handing over a dossier to the Electoral Commission with a detailed list of incidents.”
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