So, this again:
But it’s hard to avoid in the circumstances.
The picture above is of Cumbernauld solicitor Ian Smart appearing on last night’s Newsnight Scotland, representing the Labour viewpoint. And we’re using that phrase in both its narrower and broader senses.
Anyone seeking to make a compelling argument for the proposition that Scotland’s politicians and lawmakers are simply too farcically incompetent to ever be trusted with running an independent country had a gift-wrapped Godsend delivered to them last week by the idiot student children of Edinburgh.
But we can’t really put the blame on the colourfully-haired, keffiyeh-clad cretin kiddies of the capital for that, because it’s their elders and betters who opened the door.
Last night this happened.
The events marked simply and unquestionably the most shameful and contemptible moment in the history of the Scottish Parliament since 1707.
The 2010s end in a matter of hours, and everyone and their genderfluid dog is writing retrospectives of the 10 years just past. This site, which came into existence in the second year of the decade, has very little interest in following suit – we’ve always been about the future.
But a cursory glance over the shoulder does reveal one immediately striking fact that’s worthy of passing note.
In many ways the Glasgow equal-pay dispute feels like the impotent final fury of the dinosaurs after the dust cloud of a prehistoric asteroid impact blacked out the sun and condemned them all to death.
What we’re seeing now is a futile howl of rage against irrelevance by the shady cabal of Labour politicians and senior trade union officials who used to treat the city as their personal fiefdom, as they sink into inglorious extinction.
We highly recommend clicking that link to read the whole series of tweets from Labour member and solicitor Ian Smart, who readers won’t need reminding is no sort of friend of the SNP or inclined to their defence. Because the story goes much deeper than the common-or-garden hypocrisy we saw yesterday.
There’s been a running theme recently on Unionist social media.
It’s the claim that the No vote in 2014 was an anomaly – a rare victory of progressive, internationalist, inclusive politics over the anti-establishment, isolationist, separatist tone that won out in the EU referendum and now the election of Donald Trump.
This was the case back even before and just after the independence referendum, where the Yes movement was being compared to the far-right populist movements of England, France, and the Netherlands:
Of course, the alternative view is rather simpler – that perhaps the forces that won the EU referendum and 2016 presidency also won the independence referendum.
Brussels terror atrocity = SNP BAD.
Chris Deerin, Iain Martin, Alan Cochrane and Ian Smart will be hopping mad.
BBC1’s weekly Question Time political debate shows are heavily over-subscribed. Only a couple of hundred tickets are typically available for would-be members of the studio audience, and far more than that apply to attend, so your chances of getting through the initial vetting are fairly slim. You’re especially unlikely to be selected if you’re not from the city where the show is being held, for obvious reasons.
While the group of failed Scottish Labour parliamentary candidates is, let’s say, rather larger than it used to be, it’s still a pretty select club of a few dozen people.
And if you DO make it into the QT audience, the chances of you being picked out to speak are also rather poor – not more than 1 in 10 at best, probably nearer 1 in 20.
So what happened on tonight’s edition from Dundee was quite the long shot.
This week Scottish Labour have been attacking the SNP’s rather timid plans for the reform of Council Tax, which is an entirely fair and legitimate opposition pursuit.
But as is their wont, Kezia Dugdale’s branch office just can’t help overplaying their hand and doing it in a highly dishonest way.
We tweeted this proposition last night (the quote comes from a blog post yesterday by Scottish Labour madcase and all-round comedy relief Ian Smart):
We thought you might enjoy some of the responses as much as we did.
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.
It got a bit out of control, frankly.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
