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Wings Over Scotland


Archive for October, 2014


Filed in Receptacle 13 199

Posted on October 26, 2014 by

We haven’t bothered sending a submission to the Smith Commission.

wastepaper2

Here’s why.

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Sources in conflict 106

Posted on October 26, 2014 by

Here’s a quote from a piece in today’s Scotland on Sunday:

“A source close to Lamont said: ‘A call came through from one of Ed’s people to one of Johann’s people. He passed on the news about Ian Price and Johann’s guy said, “I assume this means you want Johann to resign?”.

‘The guy from Ed’s office said, “No, of course not,” but he just didn’t get it. He didn’t get the fact that Johann had been completely undermined.'”

So that’s clear – Ed Miliband DIDN’T want Johann Lamont to go. Right?

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A big boy did it and ran away 210

Posted on October 26, 2014 by

sadhenry

The Scottish Labour Goodbye 182

Posted on October 25, 2014 by

Iain Gray, leader of Scottish Labour, at First Minister’s Questions in March 2011:

After 92 times at this, you would think the First Minister would have realised by now that I get to choose what the questions are about. But his turn is coming soon enough!”

A few weeks later, Gray had resigned after just barely holding onto his own seat by around 150 votes as Alex Salmond led the SNP to a historic landslide victory.

Luckily, Gray’s successor learned from his embarrassing hubris, for if there’s one thing Scottish Labour ensure us they’re really good at, it’s learning lessons.

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The parting shot 97

Posted on October 25, 2014 by

Our undercover agent inside Labour (whose identity we can’t reveal, other than their codename “Nasa Warsar”) just leaked us this internal security-camera footage from both the Scottish and UK party HQs at the time of Johann Lamont’s resignation.

We’re sure readers can work out who’s who.

From Hell’s heart I stab at thee 166

Posted on October 25, 2014 by

We have many faults, but we try our hardest to ensure that hypocrisy isn’t one of them, so we’re not about to turn round and pay tribute to Johann Lamont just because she’s quit her job. We’re sure she’s a nice person in real life, but for three years the Scottish Labour “leader” has lived a lie, railing bitterly against London control while doing everything she could to impose that very fate on the people of Scotland.

(And ultimately succeeding, in so far as one could say that the mainly-absent Lamont could claim to have played any meaningful part in the referendum campaign.)

She leaves her party in the same abject state she found it, its position in the polls if anything slightly worse than it was after the SNP’s historic landslide victory in 2011. Her only achievement was to give Scottish Labour’s bitter, spiteful, tribal hatred of the Nats an accurate-looking corporeal manifestation, her face invariably contorted at First Minister’s Questions into a snarl of naked loathing for an opponent who’d done nothing other than successfully co-opt what used to be considered traditional “Labour values” after Labour abandoned them in pursuit of Middle England votes.

wkhan

But we will say one thing for her – she went out with a bang.

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You just can’t make this stuff up 297

Posted on October 24, 2014 by

The Daily Record last month:

byebyejola

But that’s not even the funny bit.

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From our community reporter 112

Posted on October 24, 2014 by

It’s been a very slow news day today and it’s chucking it down outside, so we found ourselves stuck for entertainment. Earlier this afternoon alert readers will have noticed us tweeting about breaking through 35,000 Twitter followers, and while we were comparing that to various other entities for our own amusement (eg it’s over 10,000 more followers than Scottish Labour, the Scottish Conservatives and the Scottish Lib Dems put together), we stumbled across this feature from 16 months ago.

socnet

And because – as readers of our Panelbase polling features will know – there’s nothing we like more than the occasional wallow in some stats, we got to work.

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Driven demented 130

Posted on October 24, 2014 by

It’s the beaten side who are supposed to lose their minds. But we couldn’t resist sharing with you two articles by Labour activists today whose authors have studied the last decade of Scottish politics and arrived at the conclusion that the salvation of Scottish Labour lies in… ramping up the arrogance and hating the SNP more.

network1

Oh, you’re going to love these.

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Trouble with numbers and words 106

Posted on October 24, 2014 by

From the Twitter account of the Aberdeen Conservative and Unionist Association last night, during the First Minister’s appearance on Question Time from Liverpool:

abtories

Just a couple of things.

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An incredible achievement 215

Posted on October 23, 2014 by

From today’s Media Guardian:

“Despite the huge interest and debate around the Scottish independence referendum, BBC Radio Scotland saw its figures fall for the third quarter of this year.

The station had a weekly reach of 870,000 listeners between 23 June and 14 September (the period accounted for by these audience figures) ahead of the independence vote on 18 September.

BBC Radio Scotland was down 2% on the year and 8.9% on the previous three months.

The BBC faced intense criticism of bias in its coverage of the referendum from pro-independence supporters, with a demonstration outside the corporation’s Glasgow headquarters and participants unfurling a banner calling for political editor Nick Robinson to be sacked.”

It’s worth taking just a few lines to examine those stats more closely.

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Lord Smith And The Seven Magic Beans 212

Posted on October 23, 2014 by

Today’s Herald carries a report from the initial meeting of the Smith Commission on “enhanced devolution” for the Scottish Parliament. The paper quotes from what seems to be a press release issued by the Commission, in which it explains that it thinks the people of Scotland are idiotic, drooling simpletons who’ll swallow anything.

smithcomm

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    • James Cheyne on The cost of failure: “Stu, good journalism, Catch up in morning, am tired and away to bed.Dec 5, 22:29
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