This is how STV News reported the UK Govt’s secret document proving they used the pandemic to promote the Union. They gave it fourteen seconds. This is fourteen seconds more than Reporting Scotland gave the revelation. BBC Scotland’s flagship evening news employed a blackout.

22 comments

1. It’s a conspiracy!

2. Wibble Wibble Wibble

3. How expensive is tin foil these days?

4. You must be having some day.

5. Ignore all the wee greeting replies you’ve had OP.

   These are the same folk who screech whenever the Scottish Government do anything on the constitution as they were elected to do.

   The same kind of folk who would be cheering on any UK government decision that punishes Scotland or undermines our democratic institutions.

6. Endless conspiracy theories, why the nat movement died.

7. Scotland : STV news with ” Hi, I’m John Mackay ” and then the Simpsons at half six.

   Up north BBC : ” HELLO ?….Hello ?…is anybody there ?…we’ve got a frowny face bad Nat report and something about King Charles and women’s curling…Hello ?”

8. Why exactly is the problem with his quote? Promoting the union isn’t a crime

9. Good for you for posting about this, it really is disgraceful the media coverage.

   Before the rest of you yell ‘freeeeeeedom hur hur’, think: why does around half the ~~population~~ electorate support the constitutional position of independence, and yet all but one newspaper and much of the broadcast media, including the political journalism sphere, is actively hostile to that position?

   I get needing to hold power to account. But fuck me if they go like rabid dogs against anything to do with independence, whilst the other constitutional position – remaining in the Union – is very rarely critically analysed.

   Sure, it could be explained away by a bias towards the status quo, independence is the change option etc etc – but clearly remaining in the UK has several unknowns too which are hardly examined or explored.

   It’s simply not good enough.

   Edit: Changed population to electorate, as pointed out by a keen-eye Redditor of the highest order. Hecking great stuff, have an updoot.

10. Er, yeah, SOP for BBC Scotland. Same shit, different day.

11. So secret it was widely reported on back in [2020](https://www.ft.com/content/2420501f-0304-4017-bfc5-46e56d325547)…

12. The Scottish Nationalist Movement is in danger of heading towards the English Nationalist Movement.

    English independence parties like the English Democrats constantly churn out the same pish about how there’s a grand conspiracy by the mainstream media against them. About how the BBC is state propaganda, keeping things hush hush and all that jazz. That’s one reason why they’re so unpopular in England while nationalist parties do much better in the rest of the UK.

    If nationalists up here continue to push this conspiratorial narrative then they risk alienating moderate independence supporters.

13. who’d have thoght those honest guys in London town would act like that, scumbags.

14. Does this actually mean anything? In what way was the pandemic “used” to promote the union? And this is the Tory party’s well known stated position it’s not exactly a surprise he would text his colleagues something that toes exactly that line is it – as if most Scots even listen to tories anyway.

15. You mean in the same way the SNP used covid to help their cause?

    Almost like politicians are always thinking about how to capitalise on any given situation to help their political goals… whoda thunk it?

    Take the hat off and go outside, your hallucinating conspiracy all over the house.

16. Erm the Covid inquiry also showed that Nicola was deviating from the rest of the UK for the sake of it so that she could try to point score and show that Scotland (which of course far less densely populated than other parts of the UK) could handle the pandemic better.

17. First of all the linked broadcast doesn’t say they used the pandemic to promote the Union – it says Gove warned the government that they mustn’t allow the pandemic to threaten the Union. The headline is simply wrong.

    Secondly, maybe they just decided “UK governent supports the UK” was not a new story? After all, how often do they run “Scottish government supports Scotland” scare stories with reference to leaked documents?

18. Is it news the uk government promotes the uk government?

19. It was a secret though was it? It was a report

20. At this point anyone watching the news is nuts

21. Would it have been good government to try and undermine the union during a national pandemic 🥴.

    These are the sort of politically driven, absolute bollocks type posts people were complaining about on another thread the other day, yourself being one of the word offenders for posting tripe.

22. The pandemic was used by the UK Government to line the pockets of their party donors and friends, like say a pub owner now expert PPE distributor. Everything else came further down the priority list, including our health and wellbeing.