Inverness Caley Thistle, Aberdeen and St Johnstone join Hearts, Hibs and Dundee United in announcing their intention to vote “No to newco”. Police launch criminal investigation into Craig Whyte’s purchase of the club. Steven Whittaker and Steven Naismith walk away, following Sone Aluko and Rhys McCabe. Reports from the well-informed Alex Thomson of Channel 4 that Charles Green’s consortium is in financial trouble and looking to sell off Sevco 5088 aka the newco Rangers, amid ongoing doubts and speculation about their banking provisions.
And that’s just in the last 24 hours. What’s coming tomorrow?
Attentive readers will know that here at Wings Over Scotland we’ve been exhaustively detailing the 32-year trailer campaign for the fabled “positive case for the Union“. Well, despite our cynicism it’s finally here – the “Better Together” website, launched today, has a whole page devoted to describing the positive case (or as they’d have it, the “+ve” case, which the page URL mischievously translates to “-ve”) in detail.
The piece, penned by Tom Gordon, is headlined accordingly – “Alexander claims: yes to independence could mean mortgage rise”. What’s interesting, though, is a little piece of text that seems to have been left in by accident at the bottom of the page.
It appears to be a discarded alternative headline for the same article, given that the fourth paragraph cites “the SNP Government” dismissing Alexander’s claims as scare stories. (We did check by Googling to see if the headline had appeared on a completely different Herald piece, but turned up nothing.)
It’s quite instructive to see the paper’s thought processes laid bare. “Scottish Government Slam Scare Tactics” is a positive message from the SNP’s point of view, as it would portray them standing up against Unionist fearmongering.
The headline used instead is the complete opposite – it actually IS Unionist fearmongering, designed to produce an instinctively frightened reaction in the reader, by planting in his/her mind the image of a crippling rise in the cost of living and associating it with a Yes vote (no matter what the feature then goes on to say).
The pendulum set to determine the presence or otherwise of Sevco Rangers in next season’s Scottish Premier League, which earlier in the week appeared to be conclusively stuck on the “No” side of the clock, seems to have swung back at least partially in favour of the Ibrox club in the last 48 hours.
First of all Aberdeen chairman Stewart Milne refuted an apparent suggestion that the club were certain to vote No to Charles Green’s application for the old club’s SPL share, and now Motherwell have released a document painting a dire picture of the Fir Park side’s prospects without Rangers in the top division, going so far as to threaten the possibility of insolvency, in advance of the Well Society’s decision about their vote.
The document, compiled by the Motherwell board, does contain some balancing views (noting, for example, the possibility of a boycott by both home and away fans in the event of voting Yes, which would damage revenues in that scenario too), but seems tilted in favour of persuading the Society to accept Sevco Rangers’ application. And that’s odd, because of all the “Other 10” SPL members outside the Old Firm, Motherwell are the ones best placed to gain massively from the absence of Rangers – a fact the document surprisingly fails to explore.
For weeks now, if not months, the independence community has been bombarded with claims from Unionists that it’s not independence if you have a shared currency, cooperate on defence, keep the monarchy, share embassies or empower others to act on your behalf. There’s been a continuing drone to the effect that if you don’t do everything personally then you’re not independent.
This view, as any student of English will tell you, is flawed – doing everything for yourself is not independence, but rather self-reliance.
Self-reliance – Not requiring help or support from others while acting autonomously. Self-reliance is relative freedom from needing to rely on others for help with instrumental or task-oriented activities and is distinguished from independence as the latter is a pre-requisite to self-reliance and not predicated on its existence.
In other words, you need independence to act autonomously and to choose to be self-reliant, if you so wish. Yet it would seem, having watched various Unionist politicians and commentators struggle with the concept of independence, that it is necessary to provide a definition that can be easily understood. So I’ll have a go.
Can you spot what’s strange about this statement, viewers?
“We believe that the process of setting a single question should be taken out of the hands of elected politicians and given to relevant experts the public can have faith in.”
It comes from the mouth of Scottish Labour “leader” Johann Lamont, and forms part of her latest demand – along with her two partners in the Unionist coalition – that the Scottish Government should allow the defeated opposition parties to dictate the terms and conditions of the implementation of the flagship policy behind which it was so resoundingly and unprecedentedly elected a little over a year ago.
(Note in particular the sneaky way the overt demand also slips in a covert demand.)
We’re pretty sure that a general election is already, pretty much by definition, the primary means by which the public expresses who it does and doesn’t “have faith in”. We have, on the other hand, absolutely no way of knowing how much faith that same public does or doesn’t have in the ironically-unelected Electoral Commission, which is appointed by – who’d have guessed it? – the UK Parliament. And just by the by, below are a couple of other relevant snippets from the Commission’s Wikipedia entry:
“The Electoral Commission has a number of responsibilities in relation to referendums. These include:
commenting on the wording of the referendum question (the government is responsible for proposing the wording)
The Commission has no legal position in the legislation concerning referendums proposed by the devolved Scottish and Welsh administrations.”
Our emphasis, there. So, and we admit this is just a crazy madcap idea we’re putting out there, maybe the business of government should properly be conducted by the people the electorate have democratically chosen to do the job, no?
…is seeing Scotland taking its place in peace alongside the other independent nations of the world (at 2m 42s), courtesy of the heartwarming and ever-splendid Dancing Matt:
(Where The Hell Is Matt? 2008 is still our favourite, though.)
And so the phoney war rumbles on and gathers pace. The ‘No’ campaign – or whatever it decides to refer to itself as – will be unveiled shortly and we’ve heard (with a certain sense of deja vu) that the SNP has been debating the relative merits of the words “independenT” and “independenCE”. We have independence and Unionist groups galore appearing on Facebook and the web, we’ve got Cybernats and Britnats, republicans and monarchists, hawks and pacifists and goodness knows what else.
In the meantime, I still have the bills to pay, the washing to dry in the incessant rain, the mundane monotony of the “what’s for dinner?” conversations. Today a friend’s daughter is having a baby, while another lady I know has lost her best friend. The neverending cycle of joy and tears, grief and laughter rolls on.
Politicians would do well to stop and think about this – that away from Parliaments ordinary people are still living their everyday lives, and when we occasionally get to lift our noses from the grindstone we might appreciate a little passion from our politicians, a little honesty, some better research, and an end to the sniping and spin that threatens to suffocate the independence debate.
The current issue of Private Eye (which also features a fascinating full-page piece on Craig Whyte) relates news of another Labour dividend for the people of Glasgow – the decades-long neglect and imminent destruction of a much-loved green space. We’ve attached the story below for your convenience.
On the upside, though, we’re pretty sure we know where another large green space, which already comes with goalposts, is about to become available.
Captain Caveman on Mad caps: “Well, quite, and I daresay that’s the problem: how many of today’s utterly useless, woke-captured, counter-reality Political Class has never…” Apr 6, 09:29
Anthem on Mad caps: “He’s also part German. Think on.” Apr 6, 09:24
Dunx on Mad caps: “@Sarah I’ve looked at the blog. The writer refers to Article 25 of the ICCPR which states : Every citizen…” Apr 6, 08:46
Hatey McHateface on Mad caps: “I had a wee look at the text of the International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights online. It consists…” Apr 6, 08:37
Aidan on Mad caps: “@Dunx – it doesn’t say that anywhere and the ICCPR does not provide voters to call for referendums in the…” Apr 6, 07:13
yoon scum on Mad caps: “I see little evidence to suggest the young Ross isn’t exactly the kind of politician that would be embraced in…” Apr 6, 07:04
yoon scum on Mad caps: “You still haven’t told me how long I have to move to england” Apr 6, 07:02
yoon scum on Mad caps: “Trump :- A nationlist arse who promises to make his country again because the OTHERS are oppressing us That is…” Apr 6, 07:00
Ian Brotherhood on Mad caps: “Thanks Robert. It was a total pleasure to meet you in person and I’m just sorry there wasn’t enough time,…” Apr 5, 23:36
Robert Hughes on Mad caps: “Ian B . I had just come on here to say thank you for organising last night’s event and seen…” Apr 5, 22:37
sarah on Mad caps: “The ICCPR gives voters the power to call a popular referendum. The petition was submitted on behalf of Respect Scottish…” Apr 5, 21:28
Dunx on Mad caps: ““ It won’t matter who is in government, we the voters can get direct democracy to stop any executive action…” Apr 5, 20:17
Andrew scott on Mad caps: “Brilliant remark in the Herald When discussing replacement for the green gnome “Ross greer this the only person in scotland…” Apr 5, 20:14
Ian Brotherhood on Mad caps: “Big thanks to all the Wingers who made it to the Eagle Inn last night. Great to chat in real…” Apr 5, 20:05
Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Ye ye ye. Just sign it.” Apr 5, 19:30
Hatey McHateface on Mad caps: “I’m disappointed in you, sarah. In my grown up world, legislation affecting us all should stand or fall on its…” Apr 5, 19:06
Hatey McHateface on Mad caps: “It’s arguably true that President Trump is half-Scottish. It’s arguably true that he will be the most infamous POTUS of…” Apr 5, 18:50
James Cheyne on The Gender Of Mountains: “As far as I recall in my education, The treaty of union does not mention a devolved parliament for the…” Apr 5, 17:44
sarah on Mad caps: “@ Mark – if you click on the blue link in my comment, the petition comes up for you to…” Apr 5, 16:14
sarah on Mad caps: “Petition is: PE2135 Implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR] in Scottish legislation.” Apr 5, 16:02
Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Where do I sign.” Apr 5, 15:56
sarah on Mad caps: “We CAN get control over any of these politicians. All we have to do is get the UN International Covenant…” Apr 5, 15:42
Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Wouldn’t it be nice if Greer was parachuted into a mountainous desert where the locals armed to the teeth didn’t…” Apr 5, 15:13
Young Lochinvar on Mad caps: “They are ALL dangerous nut-cases. They don’t even consider or care about Scotlands inalienable right to self determination, ALL they…” Apr 5, 15:09
Sven on Mad caps: “Yoon Scum. Wow, that seems to have pushed your buttons in a fairly immoderate manner. I’ve no idea why you’d…” Apr 5, 14:55
Skip_NC on Mad caps: “YS, the policies each party currently pursues are, in the main, a creature of the devolution settlement. When we attain…” Apr 5, 14:45
Mia on Mad caps: “Oh, is it a handbag? And that was me thinking it was the cap of some handmaid…” Apr 5, 14:38