Wings Over Scotland

Perhaps the most notorious injustice ever committed by the UK government against Scotland (with the possible exception of the infamous “40% rule” in the 1979 devolution referendum in which the dead were counted as No votes) was the suppression for 30 years of the McCrone Report, which revealed how wealthy an independent Scotland would have been after the discovery of oil in the North Sea.

Successive Labour and Conservative governments at Westminster frantically fought to deceive Scots over the value of the bounty for decades. And now, on the eve of another referendum, it looks like they’re about to try it again.

Read the rest of this entry →

It’s a fact – and we imply only correlation, not causation – that most of Scotland’s least pleasant people are to be found on the No side of the independence debate. The BNP, the SDL, Britannica, Holocaust denier Alistair McConnachie, the Orange Order and all manner of other Loyalist nasties cling to the Union Jack and a distaste for “foreigners” that they share with the most senior levels of Scottish Labour.

So far, however, it must be noted that “Better Together” has been pretty diligent about disassociating itself, at least publicly, from such groups. But as the referendum draws closer and pressure increases, it’s getting tougher and tougher to keep a lid on the nasty underbelly of the Unionist movement.

Read the rest of this entry →

Here’s Alistair Darling on Radio Clyde this morning, reported by STV:

“I’ve always said Scotland could go it alone, however you’d have to cut your cloth according to your means.

I think it would be less successful and we’d be less prosperous if we left the UK, if you look at countries like Denmark you pay a lot more in tax, the amount of money that people have got to spend is less.”

You know we’re not going to let that one slide without a fact-check, don’t you?

Read the rest of this entry →

The media coverage of the first TV debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling was a classic, but transparent, stitch-up. A poll which had a majority Unionist sample before the debate began duly reported a “victory” for Darling, even though among the sample’s small number of undecideds most thought Salmond had won.

But that crooked measurement was enough to justify a week-long frenzy of front pages portraying the debate as a fatal disaster for the First Minister and an epic, decisive triumph for the angry former Chancellor. Inconveniently, two new polls this weekend both showing a swing to Yes and a single-figure No lead somewhat undermine that narrative, but the No campaign is nevertheless desperate to quit while it’s ahead.

Read the rest of this entry →

An alert reader notes an interesting choice of cutoff point on Reporting Scotland:

(From Friday 15 August, 11m 53s.)

This is Conservative MSP John Scott openly lying to an audience in Ayr yesterday on BBC Radio Scotland’s “Big Debate”, on the subject of whether Scottish people would continue to have access to English hospitals (and specifically Great Ormond Street children’s hospital) in the event of independence.

The female voice correcting him is Jeane Freeman. The truth is below.

Read the rest of this entry →

Read the rest of this entry →

This is a “Better Together” graphic about pensions.

We’d like you to note what it says carefully. There’ll be a quiz in a minute.

Read the rest of this entry →

From a leaflet sent out this week by Scotland’s only Tory MP, David Mundell:

“Do Keith and Michelle have a surname?”, nosy readers might be wondering.

Read the rest of this entry →

The Scottish and UK press has been more and more careless about disguising its bias as the referendum nears. Almost every paper, for example, reported without question the recent “Better Together” press release about being “inundated” with small donations after the first TV debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling.

Normally headlines would put the statement – which was completely unsubstantiated by the slightest scrap of evidence – inside quote marks or accompanied by qualifiers like “No camp claims”, but instead it was almost universally presented as fact.

“Better Together inundated with cash after debate” (The Guardian)

“Flood of donations sees Better Together hit campaign limit” (Daily Express)

“The official pro-UK campaign has publicly called for Scots to stop giving it money after a flurry of donations following Alex Salmond’s TV debate defeat.” (The Telegraph, slipping a sneaky wee bit of editorialising in too)

Calling for people to stop sending money was nothing more than a moderately clever PR stunt – the official No campaign already has more cash from millionaire Tory donors than it’s actually allowed to spend by September 18th, so there’s little point in continuing to accumulate it – but the papers obediently played along anyway.

The donations story, though, was essentially a piece of trivia. A much more serious matter was the Bank of England’s inflation report yesterday, and the embellishment and exaggeration applied to it by certain outlets revealed a great deal about publications which still officially claim to be neutral.

Read the rest of this entry →

We’ve been absolutely blown away by the response to The Wee Blue Book, readers. As we write this it’s about to pass an astonishing 200,000 downloads in just two days, and we’re besieged by enquiries about the print edition, which should be rolling off the presses any time now.

But it’s no use just sitting around patting ourselves on the back about how much Yes supporters seem to like it. The most exciting and encouraging responses have come from No and undecided voters, and we need to get the book into as many people’s hands as possible in the next five weeks. Let’s get to work.

Read the rest of this entry →