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Wings Over Scotland


Archive for July, 2016


About time, frankly 324

Posted on July 31, 2016 by

In December 2013, the editor of this site – who knew nothing of the secret this article is about to reveal – tweeted “When we write the chronicles of independence, I hope there’ll be a whole chapter on @A_DarlingMP”.

ald1

Well, this is as close as we’re going to get.

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When time stood still again 246

Posted on July 30, 2016 by

Yes supporters are currently holding what seems to be a very well-attended march from Glasgow’s Botanical Gardens to a rally in George Square, with thousands more people seemingly turning up than even the organisers’ highest pre-event estimates.

We could verify that with footage from the Labour-controlled City Council’s webcam at the square, if it hadn’t mysteriously stopped working an hour and ten minutes ago, weirdly enough at the exact moment the march started to arrive.

whentime

Funny, that. We’re sure it’s just a coincidence.

Slow train coming 87

Posted on July 30, 2016 by

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An empty quiver 201

Posted on July 29, 2016 by

This week I published, through Common Weal, a discussion paper on the potential currency options for an independent Scotland in light of the material changes in circumstances caused by the Brexit vote.

This paper examines some of the options open to an independent Scotland and concludes that, on balance, the best option for Scotland would be a Scottish currency, initially pegged to Sterling but with the infrastructure and mechanisms in place to move, replace or remove that peg if and when it proves advantageous.

(As the UK did itself in the 1980’s when the pound was pegged first to the US dollar and then to the Deutschmark.)

One of the requirements of an independent currency is that Scotland would need its own foreign reserve fund which would act as a buffer against trade imbalances and would be used to counter movements in exchange rate (particularly if we were pegged our exchange rate to Sterling).

express10a

It was on this particular point that yesterday’s Scottish edition of the Daily Express chose to focus, in its characteristically measured, balanced and thoughtful manner.

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A great day for child abusers 329

Posted on July 28, 2016 by

Well done to everyone concerned. Paedophiles and the Daily Mail will be partying hard tonight. Although as it later transpired, only for a while. The Supreme Court ruled that while the Named Persons legislation needed a small tweak on data-protection grounds which will most likely delay it for a few months, condemning more children to needless suffering, its core aims in fact WERE lawful.

(It remains to be seen how much the restrictions on information-sharing will hamper the successful operation of the scheme.)

This won’t stop the campaign against it, however, so there’s still hope for those who want to batter toddlers to death without interference from the pesky nanny state.

We’d say more, but just read this again.

The darling of the comrades 281

Posted on July 26, 2016 by

A new YouGov poll of Scottish voters was released today. It had no voting-intention figures, and concerned itself mostly with people’s assessment of the main Scottish and UK party leaders. The Labour-voters column was interesting to say the least.

labmay

That’s rather a lot of love for a Tory PM from people who voted Labour at the last UK election just over a year ago – more of Scottish Labour’s remaining voters found Theresa May likeable than dislikeable. But then things got even weirder.

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Fluid times 148

Posted on July 26, 2016 by

A brief note on the current futility of political commentary.

mayborders

Remember that? Well, let’s see how it really works.

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The King Of Facts 268

Posted on July 24, 2016 by

Posted without comment.

kevmichael

Congratulations to President Trump 84

Posted on July 24, 2016 by

On his certain victory.

mcternanpredicts9

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Two men dealt amongst the chill 251

Posted on July 23, 2016 by

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The quantum of bias 727

Posted on July 20, 2016 by

“Bias” is a word we hate. Other than in the article you’re about to read, you’ll almost never find it used on this site, for a string of reasons. It’s one of those words that – regardless of context or literal justification – simply makes people switch off instantly and dismiss your arguments. (See also: “Zionist”, “Quisling”, “fascist”, “Liebore”.)

It’s also largely irrelevant, because there are very few people or organisations who have any duty NOT to be biased. When it comes to Scottish independence we’re as biased as all heck, and there’s no legitimate reason to expect the Daily Record or Scotsman or Daily Mail to be any more impartial than we are. They’re privately-owned businesses and entitled to take any position they like.

(The difference, of course, is that unlike them we’re committed to still telling the truth when we’re being biased, and to always providing linked original sources so you can judge our biased interpretation of facts and events for yourself.)

bbcscotinside

But there’s one exception to that rule.

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Packing Scotland’s trunk 385

Posted on July 19, 2016 by

You can’t throw a brick at the Scottish media at the moment – however much you’d like to – without hitting half a dozen articles all repeating the same mantra: that despite the post-Brexit surge in support for independence, a Yes vote would be more difficult to achieve because the economics are now harder than they were in 2014, due to the collapse in the oil price.

Weirdly, almost all of these articles simultaneously insist that any new White Paper for independence would have to abandon the Sterling currency union advocated by the Scottish Government the first time round (despite there being little to no concrete evidence that it was a significant factor in the No vote, other than the commentariat all loudly agreeing with each other that it was).

nellie

The problem is that those two claims – if for the sake of argument you take them both to be true – introduce a whacking great elephant to the room, which all the people making the arguments are pretending not to notice.

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