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We are four 236

Posted on November 07, 2015 by

So, it’s our birthday. It was exactly four years ago today, on the 7th of November 2011, that Wings Over Scotland published the first post of what was supposed to be a pretty insignificant spare-time blog picking out interesting politics stories in the day’s Scottish media and challenging any inaccuracies in them.

4yearstats

It got a bit out of control, frankly.

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We need to talk about Ian 221

Posted on September 25, 2015 by

Given that he’s the last Labour MP left in Scotland, it’s perhaps just as well that Ian Murray is a quite interesting figure, because there’s going to be a lot of attention on him in the next five years.

nashmurray

Unlike the over-promoted, under-skilled, Buggins’-turn knife-and-fork-operators who’ve disgraced what were previously weigh-the-vote Labour constituencies in Scotland for decades, the member for Edinburgh South has some genuinely admirable qualities. As we noted before the election, he’s earned a reputation as a hard-working local MP: holding surgeries, replying diligently to letters and speaking up in the Commons.

He’s got a sense of humour about his lonely role, he’s the only Unionist politician ever to talk to Wings on the record, and on account of running a large tent at the Bath Festival most years he’s well known to several of our good friends in the city, who all speak highly of his personal character and work ethic.

So in all seriousness, we’re not without respect for the man. Which makes it all the more painful every time he opens his mouth.

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The desperate hours 457

Posted on May 03, 2015 by

The general election 2015 has rounded the last bend and is heading down the final straight, with no clear winner in sight. Four days from now the UK electorate will go to the polls and deliver, if the numbers are to be believed, an unholy mess. Only one part of the country seems to know with clarity what it wants, and that’s “not Labour”.

sadbroon

The North British branch of the party has in truth been a political Easter egg for years – big and impressive-looking on the outside, but entirely hollow within – and this year it looks like the voters are finally going to shatter the shell and leave nothing but a small heap of fragments revealing just how little chocolate was ever there.

And the realisation has sent Labour completely out of its mind.

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Tilting at windmills 346

Posted on April 10, 2015 by

With the “biggest party forms the government” lie now sunk and rusting slowly on the seabed (weighed down even further by polls suggesting that Labour actually will be the largest party even if they lose all of Scotland to the SNP), and four weeks of campaigning left to fill, Scottish Labour have had to grab a hammer, smash the glass on the “EMERGENCY – IN CASE OF DESPERATION” box and clutch desperately at whatever they found inside.

worstfisc

The abject answer is “Project Fear 2 – This Time It’s Full Fiscal Autonomy”.

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The truth dodgers 116

Posted on April 07, 2015 by

As our veteran readers will know, Duncan Hothersall is a prominent Scottish Labour activist, occasional BBC and STV pundit, prospective Labour parliamentary candidate and editor of LabourHame, the party’s favoured blog in Scotland.

Earlier today we got an email from someone who wanted us to ask him a question.

jessied

Here’s how the conversation went.

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Struggling for words 117

Posted on February 19, 2015 by

It’s not often you get to see someone actually thinking out loud.

mcdougallwords

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Making it up as you go along 143

Posted on February 18, 2015 by

This week Scottish Labour quietly abandoned their “biggest party forms the government” election campaign after it was comprehensively debunked by this site and, belatedly, the mainstream media. An alert reader reminded us this evening of how the party wasn’t always so attached to the rules.

Because back in 2007, when Labour was neither the biggest party nor the incumbent administration, it had a damn good try at forming the government anyway.

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