One of the main strengths of the No campaign in the independence referendum was that it had an efficient production line for “truthiness”. Best known as a concept from the US satirical TV show The Colbert Report, the term means things that SOUND as if they’re true, and which people will therefore be inclined to believe, even though they fall apart under any factual scrutiny.

One good example is shown above. The facts on the graphic are individually true, and convey – without ever actually saying so explicitly – the message that Scotland is subsidised by the UK to the tune of £7.6bn a year.

But that message, despite being implied through exclusively true facts, ISN’T true, because the extra “spending” on Scotland is actually borrowing, which Scotland has to pay back. The real truth is that the figures on the left are accurate, and that Scotland heavily subsidises the rest of the UK.

But to walk someone through even the basic explanation of that is quite complicated and involved, whereas the original message is punchy and SOUNDS true. The simpler something is the more people want to believe it, so the implicit lie on the graphic is difficult to dislodge from their minds once it’s in there.

(It works especially well if the media is overwhelmingly on the side of those creating the misleading impression, because they can count on the fact that the mainstream press won’t run any analysis pointing out the flaws in the argument, and the only people who’ll ever encounter the explanation are those who actively seek it out.)

Truthiness, then, is a very powerful tool.

Recently, some Scottish Labour types have seized on what they think is a strong line of “truthiness” to deploy against the tide of former Labour voters who appear to be turning to the SNP out of disgust at Labour’s alliance with the Conservatives in “Better Together”. We highlighted it a week ago when it appeared in a “Labour Hame” blog by party mouthpiece Duncan Hothersall, and it’s now been taken up by the press.

The STV website has a piece on it today by Aidan Kerr, a recent “defector” from the Nats. The argument seeks to suggest a discrepancy in the SNP’s attitude to the two Westminster parties, and it runs thus:

It’s simple, it’s punchy and it sounds like a good zinger – it’s “truthy”. But it only works if the SNP activist is an idiot, because this time the response is an easy one:

SNP activist: The fact is that someone has to be Prime Minister, and there are only two possible candidates. But if you vote SNP, we can ensure that they’re dependent on Scottish votes, and answerable to a Scottish party. And you don’t want to be working with the actual Tories, do you?

It answers the point directly and honestly, in a manner even the lowest-information voter can understand. They know that the UK has to have a Prime Minister, and they know it isn’t going to be Nicola Sturgeon or Nick Clegg.

Even the most disaffected Labour voter will quite probably concede that if pushed at gunpoint to choose one of the two main leaders, they’d still pick the one who wasn’t actually in the Conservative Party, even if he’s conceded all its core ideologies, and that Red Tories are still less bad than Blue Tories, like filter-tipped cigarettes aren’t quite as bad for you as unfiltered ones, even though smoking any cigarettes at all is terrible.

And if they’re so cheesed off with Labour that they don’t see very much difference between Cameron and Miliband – as many former Labour voters don’t – they know that in a hung Parliament a large block of SNP MPs could hold a Tory government to ransom in Scotland’s interests just as effectively as it could do a Labour one, so it doesn’t ultimately matter all that much who’s in 10 Downing Street.

The “binary choice between us and the Tories” line that Labour are making the heart of their campaign in Scotland is a “truthy” one. It sounds right (much like the flat-out lie about the biggest party forming the government), until you remind voters that there IS a third option – give NEITHER party a majority, and make them rely on Scottish MPs who’ll suddenly be punching above their weight in terms of influence.

And the only way to achieve that is to vote neither Tory nor Labour.

So at the end of the day, Hothersall and Kerr’s point is a pretty weak one. But in fairness, we do empathise with Aidan Kerr somewhat – the election is still very much in its “phoney war” phase, and we’re struggling to fill column inches too. But we’ll keep trying to find you slightly more solid stuff to chew on than that.