Monday 4 January 2016

First Footing 2016, With The Best of 2015



First of all can I wish you a Happy New Year?

I posted 37 blogs this year, and as you will see May’s Westminster election utterly dominated the blogging.  So without further ado, here’s the top ten best read posts out of those 37.  All brought to you by Thin Lizzy's 'Yellow Pearl', the song that was appropriated as the Top Of The Pops theme tune 35 years ago.

At 10 is a post about the bumbling oaf that somehow survived the cull of pro-Union MP’s.  Carmichael Must Stay pointed out that his lies were not the biggest whoppers told in British politics this century and that there’s just a little hypocrisy in the pursuit of someone clearly out of his depth. 

There are two posts at joint 8th place.  The first one being the General Election 2015: Tale Of The Tape post.  The other post at number 8  - The Other Victors - looks at where the SNP go from their biggest ever Westminster Election result.  At 7 is the post looking at the campaign as we were Entering The Final Lap.  That post also noted the new Scottish political landscape in microcosm being played out here in Paisley with New Labour loyalist ‘Wee’ Douglas Alexander poised to fall to ‘Yes’ campaigner Mhari Black.  Just outside the top five is a post from the other end of the campaign – The General Election Starts Here.  The one where I point out that Cameron would still be in Number 10 and that Ed Balls was in danger of losing his seat.  Take that Iain Dale!

Into the top five now, and the fifth best read blogpost of the year is the post about those so called allegations surrounding the then newly chosen SNP candidate for Paisley & Renfrewshire South – In Defence of Mhari Black.  At four is a post written in the aftermath of Jim Murphy & “Scottish” Labour being slapped down by Chukka Umuna and the other London based Blairites.  Why, Thank You Chukka Umuna was also inspired by the utter cluelessness of Renfrewshire councillor Terry “You’re a bigot” Kelly.  Nice to see him get the exposure for his utter cluelessness.

Top three time now.  The third best read post of 2015 looks at the possible policy options available to the SNP for this years Holyrood Elections while arguing against what was at the time The Referendum Shaped Elephant In The Room.  The First Minister has managed to successfully kick the issue of a second Independence referendum into the grass.  Whether that grass is long enough remains to be seen.  At number two is the post that at that point outlined exactly how many election leaflets I had received -  Labour 9, SSP3, Conservative 1, Lib Dem 1, SNP 0.

To no-one’s surprise, given how much it was tweeted at the time, the most read post of 2015 was my response to Chris Deerin’s own piece “Scotland Has Gone Mad”, which was titled “Yip, Scotland Has Gone Mad. But...”.  Unlike Iain McWhirter (and several other Cybernats), I wasn’t offended but surprisingly found things I agreed with.

So that’s that for 2015 then.  Apparently we’re all returning in 2016.  In the mean time, see you soon.

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