Wings Over Scotland

In some little-noticed news slipped out last Friday, it was revealed that Kezia Dugdale is to take up a position on the governing body of the Scottish Parliament.

Our favourite thing was her quote on the nomination:

“I’m very pleased to be Labour’s nominee for the SPCB. Having argued for gender balance, I’m glad that at least two of the five positions will now be held be women.”

…which suggested that she was unhappy exact gender balance hadn’t been achieved by placing two-and-a-half women on the board. (Unless she was getting at some sort of alternative solution, we suppose.)

But since the Herald raised the subject, it seemed a good time to take a look at voters’ opinions as to whether she might be a fit and proper person for such a role.

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So this one was interesting.

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I was as pleased as a big fat walrus with a free bucket of haddock today to be able to contribute to the week-long one-off revival celebrating the 25th anniversary of the start of the majestic Digitiser. 

Especially when I got a lovely new Panel 4 picture from Mr Biffo (instead of money). But I got a bit distracted in the column, and forgot to talk about the thing I meant to talk about, so I'm going to talk about it now.

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This is the well-known hardcore Corbynite commentator John McTernan on the radio yesterday, detailing how outrageous it would be for politicians to attempt to block a second referendum on a divisive but important issue.

(Talkback, BBC Radio Ulster, 4 January 2018)
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No, not THAT kind of second referendum, silly!

As if we hadn’t had enough controversy this week, it’s time to tackle the big issues.

The Scottish Sun’s been running stories for the last couple of days about the heresy that’s shortly going to be committed against Scotland’s most legendary iconic brand.

Penny-pinching Cumbernauld drinks giant AG Barr – which carefully avoided getting involved in the independence referendum so as not to upset anyone – is about to slash most of the sugar out of Irn-Bru despite there already being two low-sugar versions of it available, and the paper has called in a few consumers to decry the move.

But how does the wider public feel? Well, as it happens we’ve got poll data on that too.

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On a number of previous occasions we’ve highlighted the weird discrepancy between the undivided loathing of the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act in the Scottish media and the Act’s overwhelming popularity with the Scottish public.

You will struggle to ever hear a voice anywhere in the media in favour of it, yet there has never been a law in the history of the Holyrood parliament that is as universally backed by the electorate as the OBFA. Support for it crosses party lines, unites men and women, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, Yes voters and No voters, Celtic fans and “Rangers” fans, football lovers and football haters, and pretty much any other groups you can think of.

Despite their own voters wanting to retain it, however, the combined opposition parties may well succeed in having the Act repealed this year, for reasons of their own that we can’t begin to rationally explain.

Meanwhile, every party at Holyrood – this time including the SNP – looks as though they may be preparing to come together and implement the LEAST-wanted legislation (in terms of public opinion) that the Parliament will have ever seen.

But which legislation are we talking about?

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Below is a letter that we sent this week to the Electoral Commission.

We thought you might be interested in it.

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More data from our latest poll:

Almost 30% of No voters still believe the decision on whether Scotland should vote on independence again should be a matter for the Scottish Government (which already, as we know, has a Parliamentary mandate for it), not the UK government in London.

Very nearly half of 2017 Labour voters (excluding DKs), and almost 40% of Lib Dems, also think their own parties should butt out and leave it to the government Scotland chose, not the one England chose.

And among demographic groups, men divided a pretty close but still clear 54/46 in favour of the Scottish Government, with women a much stronger 61/39. Young people were an overwhelming 75/25 for Holyrood, with middle-aged and over-55s cancelling each other out by splitting 56/44 and 44/56 respectively on the issue. The wealthier ABC1 demographic were 50/50 and less well-off C2DEs a thumping 65/35.

The argument has been won, just like the vote in the Scottish Parliament. All that remains to be seen is whether the UK government continues to play by Madrid Rules.

In the Guardian today:

If only we had some data on that oh wait of course we do.

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The latest Wings Over Scotland annual readership stats are in:

2017 average monthly unique visitors: 303,719
2016 monthly average: 286,162
2015 monthly average: 290,522

(pre-2015 stats from different provider not comparable on a like-for-like basis)

That’s a 6% increase year-on-year, which is pretty respectable going for the dullest 12 months in Scottish politics since this site started (and particularly given the challenging circumstances we had to operate in for the whole of the autumn).

We also found out we were by some distance the most popular website of the Scottish Government, which was nice:

Thank you for all your support, your financial backing, your tip-offs and your company. 2018 is shaping up to be somewhat more interesting, so we hope you’ll stay with us.