Even whenever you’re retired, some issues are too journalistically offensive to let cross, reminiscent of this piece of absolute rubbish we simply noticed from The Nationwide at present.
The paper’s nameless reporter set off all our purple warning lights without delay.
Right here’s an alertness check for you, readers: see in case you can see what’s lacking from this “debunk” of Dowey’s declare.
Did you (fail to) spot them? Strikingly absent from the piece are any numbers to again up “The Jouker” and Ross Greer’s declare that Dowey was mistaken. And that solely makes one sound, of us: BULLSHIT KLAXON! BULLSHIT KLAXON! ALL HANDS ON DECK!
So let’s fill within the gaps, we could?
So far as we are able to decide, six pro-independence events stood within the election within the constituency poll, the listing poll or each: the SNP, the Scottish Greens, Alba, Scotia Future, the Libertarian Get together, and Restore Scotland, with the final three of these additionally being pro-Brexit events.
(Each different occasion was both explicitly anti-independence – Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, All For Unity, Unbiased Inexperienced Voice, Abolish The Scottish Parliament, Reform UK, UKIP, Communist, Reclaim, SDP – or within the case of a few tiny fringe events had no said view and due to this fact supported the established order by default. The Scottish Household Get together, for instance, who obtained 18,819 votes, the biggest of the microparties, stated they have been impartial on independence itself however opposed to a different referendum on this Parliament, which is de facto Unionist.)
These are their votes:
CONSTITUENCY
SNP 1,291,204
Inexperienced 34,990
Libertarian 1,913
Restore Scotland 1,192
Scotia Future 1,032
(Complete: 1,330,331 out of 2,706,761 constituency votes, or 49.2%.)
LIST
SNP 1,094,374
Inexperienced 220,324
Alba 44,913
Libertarian 4,987
Restore Scotland 1,149
Scotia Future 451
(Complete: 1,366,198 out of 2,712,783 listing votes, or 50.4%.)
So “The Jouker” is kind of right of their assertion that Unionists received the constituency vote however pro-indy events received the listing. All we have to do now, then, is whole them as much as see who received total.
The figures above present that the six pro-indy events obtained a complete of 2,696,529 votes out of a complete of 5,419,544 legitimate votes solid within the election. Inconveniently for “The Jouker”, that’s 49.8%. Dowey is right. The Unionists received.
Professional-indy events would have wanted 2,709,773 votes in whole to get 50%+1. That’s 13,244 brief. Even when we attributed each vote for unbiased candidates to the pro-indy aspect (and we’ve no grounds for doing so), that solely provides 11,795 – not sufficient.
Alternatively, in case you bend over backwards to attempt to assist “The Jouker” out by eradicating the Scottish Household Get together’s 18,819 votes from the full as a result of they have been “impartial” (though they weren’t actually), pro-indy events get 2,696,529 out of 5,400,725, or 49.9%. Nearer – now we’re simply 3,835 brief – however nonetheless no cigar.
The article is just a lie. No matter your opinion on independence, it’s piss-poor journalism and even The Nationwide needs to be ashamed of it.
One of many classes we’ve tried to drum into Wings readers for the final decade is to at all times, at all times, search for what you’re not being informed. And an article about numbers that doesn’t have any numbers in it’s about as straightforward as that job will get.
