YOU know how in George Orwell's 1984, workers at the Ministry of Truth go through newspapers and books to remove mentions of things they don't like? Well it looks like LibDem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton's social media might be staffed by some of those employees.
Yesterday, the MSP tweeted to say he'd overheard young SNP campaigners in Lerwick say they couldn't "be bothered" to canvass and plan to "just mark them all as SNP and head back the office". The claim was widely criticised and it was pointed out that the young activists had been "north of Brae", not in Lerwick, on the day in question.
READ MORE: Rattled LibDems resort to 'smear' before Shetland by-election
The National's front page today features two things: Michael Fry on the GERS figures, and Cole-Hamilton's "awful smear" of SNP youth activists. But because Unionists can't resist giving their expert analysis on the GERS figures every time the topic is brought up, the Edinburgh Western MSP decided today was the day to post our front page and make fun of it.
The National: “GERS MAKES CASE FOR INDEPENDENCE”
— Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP🔶 (@agcolehamilton) August 27, 2019
Also the National (a week later): “GERS figures are pure mince”
That must be some robust case for independence 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/1qerusUaMp
Unfortunately posting a page featuring big letters reading "RATTLED LIBDEMS RESORT TO 'SMEAR' BEFORE SHETLAND BY-ELECTION", and a picture of Cole-Hamilton, would maybe pull focus from whatever point he had to make. So he did the obvious thing and cropped that bit out. And we were all none the wiser! JK.
Since newspapers don't tend to be square-shaped he drew a few comments on his photo-editing choices ...
READ MORE: Julia Stachurska: SNP activists are giving Shetland by-election their all
Plus, what was that point about GERS exactly? That we covered it in detail last week but are now featuring a columnist saying it's not important? Amazingly we have several columnists, all of whom have opinions which don't necessarily have to represent the views of the paper as a whole. We've had columnists say all kinds of things about GERS. Interesting how newspapers work, isn't it?
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