The oil debate for busy people 47
We know you don’t have all day. Let’s see if we can clear this up in under 600 words.
We know you don’t have all day. Let’s see if we can clear this up in under 600 words.
One of the main reasons we started Wings Over Scotland 15 months ago was a recurring frustration at the Scottish media’s constant failure to represent our views. Time after time we’d sit watching the TV with our blood pressure rising, shouting “Why aren’t you asking this CLEARLY lying idiot the staggeringly bloody obvious question that anyone with a IQ higher than a badger’s bawbag would be asking?” at the screen until the neighbours started banging on the wall again.
We’ve come a long way in 15 months, and we can at least now draw a sizeable audience’s attention to such unasked questions. But the phenomenon hasn’t lessened any, and last night’s Newsnight Scotland provided a textbook example.
Your jaw just drops sometimes at the sheer cheek of it.
“I am pleased that this impartial body has [...] rejected the nationalist attempts to silence their opponents by setting spending limits that would have given them an unfair advantage.” – No campaign leader Alistair Darling, in a post on the “Better Together” site today.
Remember: the “nationalists” wanted to let the No campaign spend £250,000 more than the Yes campaign - a funny kind of “silencing” and a quite unusual definition of “advantage”, let alone “unfair”. Instead, the Electoral Commission has recommended that the Yes campaign be allowed to spend more than its opponents. We’re trying for all we’re worth to work out why Mr Darling considers that a victory.
The final aspect of the independence debate touched on by Alistair Darling’s interview on Newsnight Scotland last night brought some more much-needed clarity to the situation. In this segment of the programme the issue being pursued by Gordon Brewer was what the Unionist parties were going to offer the Scottish electorate in the way of greater devolution in the event of a No vote.
Uncharacteristically, Darling was a little evasive when Brewer first raised the issue, but thankfully some hard facts were soon forthcoming.
While we welcomed the definitive answer on the question of an independent Scotland’s relationship to the United Kingdom, we were a little disturbed by something Alistair Darling said about Europe in his Newsnight Scotland interview last night.
It happened at 13m 42s. See what you think. (Emphasis Darling’s own this time.)
For goodness’ sake. Despite believing we’d laid the issue to rest once and for all, we’re STILL getting comments and tweets from readers who haven’t grasped Alistair Darling’s simple, straightforward explanation of whether Scotland’s decision in the independence referendum would be irreversible and forever, or whether we would instead quickly and inevitably find ourselves back in the Union.
Since you clearly found our previous quotes from the “Better Together” chairman inexplicably ambiguous, we’ve gone back and found a couple more from the same interview that should DEFINITELY clear things up.
Readers might be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja vu on watching last night's Newsnight Scotland, which featured a rather animated interview with Alistair Darling. Because not for the first time, the No campaign chief seemed to be experiencing a considerable amount of difficulty in getting his story straight.
Let's examine a couple of intriguing snippets.