How the Scottish Parliament provided a silver lining to massive Cloudflare outage

Regular viewers of Scottish Parliament TV – and before you scoff at the idea, such people do exist – will have become used to what you might call the ‘rhetorical rhythms’ of the debate which go something like this:

SNP backbencher: “Will the minister agree with me that life will be brilliant when Scotland is independent?” Government minister: “Why yes, I most wholeheartedly agree. In fact, I go further. It will be both brilliant and amazing.”

Labour MSP: “Will the minister take responsibility for terrible situation Y and actually do something about it?” Government minister: “I’ve said it many, many times before and I will say it again, the only people to blame, ever, are the terrible government in Westminster, be it Labour, Tory or anyone else!”

READ MORE: Cloudflare down: Major internet outage hits websites including X, ChatGPT, Spotify and Scottish Parliament

Scottish Parliament TV has its own rhetorical rhythms (Picture: Jane Barlow) | PA

Tuning in yesterday, viewers were told that the UK Government not only had a “brass neck” over one particular issue (it really could have been anything) but had developed “an even brasser neck”.

So the Cloudflare outage that saw a number of websites go offline – including ChatGPT, X/Twitter, Spotify and the Scottish Parliament’s – was perhaps not entirely all bad.