Wings Over Scotland

And that’s something we can’t say every day.

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That was always a pretty silly lyric. But anyway.

We had to switch the telly off after about 10 minutes of the news this morning. The piety was too much to take. So intead we’re just going to quote two things from the avalanche of comment that’s appeared this morning on the death of Nelson Mandela.

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We all know there’s something strange about Britain. Germany and China have their factories, France and Japan their nuclear power plants. America has Google and Apple and the world’s largest navy. But how is it that Britain, a country that closed its mines and shuttered almost its entire manufacturing industry, is still a major world economy?

The answer is Britain’s best-kept economic secret. It links Grangemouth, the obscene cost of housing in London, the Royal Mail sell-off, Channel Island tax havens and George Osborne’s disregard for the poor, and explains why an incomprehensible financial crisis triggered by bad American mortgages led to the closure of municipal libraries and swimming pools across the UK and a programme of permanent austerity.

And more to the point, it explains why only London, not Scotland or Wales or Yorkshire or Wearside, matters to the British political class today.

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The Herald, 5 December 2013:

“A group of academics whose views on green energy underpinned a central plank of the Better Together campaign has published a shock U-turn report arguing that independence now offers the best way to meet Scotland’s renewables targets.

Last night’s edition of Scotland Tonight saw a clearly nervous, rambling and seemingly well-refreshed ex-Labour spin doctor Simon Pia called upon to defend “Better Together” chairman Alistair Darling (“as good a frontman as I can imagine to save Britain”, said the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson in that extraordinary accent of his) from a series of attacks by his own side over his stewardship of the No campaign.

Pia played the usual cards that Labour types do when called upon to defend a man who is now distrusted by a majority of Labour voters. Darling was “substance not style”, a serious man with “cross-party appeal” (if you exclude Labour, the SNP and now seemingly a lot of Tories) who had “filleted” the White Paper (without reading it or understanding the one page he did look at) and saved the nation in 2008 “when we looked into the void”.

But not everyone shares Pia’s view of Darling’s integrity and competence.

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Well done to the alert reader who spotted this 2006 Q&A with Jack Straw MP, former Foreign Secretary and then Leader of the House Of Commons, on the BBC website:

“Question from Stephen, London: As Leader of the Commons, how can having two Scottish MPs as the front runners for PM be democratic? Powers for most agencies including health, education etc have been devolved in Scotland, yet Mr Reid or Mr Brown would set the agenda for solely English matters when they represent Scottish constituencies.

Jack Straw: English MPs control all the money which Scotland receives – is that ‘fair’? England constitutes 85% of the UK’s population and 87% of its wealth. It was English MPs who agreed to devolve some powers to Scotland in a Westminster Act of Parliament; but year by year controls over public spending levels for all of the UK continue to be exercised by Westminster. And power devolved is power retained, not ceded.“

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When it comes to oil and gas, Scots are used to being treated like backwoods yokels by Westminster, deemed incapable of looking after this valuable resource and lied to about its value. Oil and gas is a priceless treasure to the UK, and Westminster is terrified of losing control of it.

That’s because not only are the billions of pounds in oil and gas tax receipts valuable in and of themselves, but they also halve the balance of payments deficit, thereby protecting the value of the pound.

But how exactly does Scotland turn oil and gas into money?

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About 1,000 more and LFI will be bigger than Scottish Labour’s actual membership.

Surely that must be Project Fear at the bottom of the barrel now?

The lead story in today’s Herald, folks. If “story” isn’t putting it much too strongly.

We had to give the BBC a nudge before it replied to the last of our three Freedom Of Information requests, but at least this time we didn’t just get the standard fob-off.

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Well done to everyone who correctly guessed that our Mystery Guest last night was indeed Ruth Davidson. If you’d like to listen to Ruth’s 2009 demo reel for voiceover work which accompanied the letter, click the image below.

From that to the leader of a major Scottish political party in just two years. Hats off.

An alert reader sends in this letter received by their company in 2009:

“Hello,

[identifying paragraph removed]

I’ve now taken the plunge to set myself up as a freelancer and am looking for voiceover work in commercials, documentaries and corporate films as well as scripting and media training.

I’m [redacted] years old with a warm, rich voice which has both light and shade. A long history of factual programming means I can convey information with authority, combined with an openness and accessibility which encourages interest; the unexpected world of live broadcasting means I’ve learned to be equally adept at putting across humour. My accent is a neutral blend of central Scotland tones.

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