Wings Over Scotland

One of the features of the independence debate as covered by the Scottish and UK media has been the casual lie. We’re not talking about screaming banner front-page headlines here, but the passing, offhand untruths slipped into articles that are primarily about something else, or tiny little corner-of-a-page pieces so trivial that readers absorb the falsehood in seconds and move on.

We covered a good example of the latter last week, and it’s repeated in this morning’s Times, in a piece which makes the flatly and diametrically untrue assertion that “experts” have “produced figures suggesting that the final cost [of setting up an independent Scotland] could be £1.5 billion”, when the reality is that the only expert who has produced figures has explicitly rubbished that number.

But it’s another article in the same paper that made us smile wryly.

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It seems somehow fitting that there was a political battle in Stirling yesterday. The city was host to two sets of military-themed festivities, with the UK government having decided to hold Armed Forces Day there in a move transparently aimed at wrecking the commemorations of the 700th anniversary of the Battle Of Bannockburn.

The anniversary was obviously on an immovable date and location, but the Labour-Tory coalition that runs Stirling Council, and which last year attempted to replace a Saltire which flies over the statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce with a Union Jack – a plan it abandoned after it was highlighted by this site – agreed to host the competing festival on the same weekend.

Armed Forces Day had free admission to undermine the relatively pricey Bannockburn event. Labour even went so far as to actively try to put people off attending the latter, with Glasgow MP Ian Davidson suggesting that the commemoration was nothing more than a glorification of “the murder of hundreds of thousands of English people”. (These particular “people” being an invading army, actual English casualties around 10,000.)

The press covered the subsequent downsizing of the historical recreation with glee, with numerous articles reporting low ticket sales and other problems right up to the eve of the show, which appeared about to be a major flop.

But then something odd happened.

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Julie Webster of the Maryhill Food Bank, quoted in the Evening Times, 28 June 14:

“I have worked in social work for 20 years, so I am pretty hardened but we had a family come in on a Tuesday at 3pm having not eaten since the ­previous Friday.

There had been a problem with benefits and because it was a Bank Holiday weekend the mum had no money for food for her or her two children.

I watched the mum pick up and put down can after can, wondering what she doing, before I realised she was looking for one with a ring pull.

She ripped the top off and starting eating the beans with her hands, she was so hungry. At that point I had to go to the toilets and have a cry.”

The best of both worlds. As good as it gets. UK OK. Better together. No thanks.

Our secret agent in the No camp’s taken a real risk to bring you this one, readers. Smuggled out under cover of dusk, we’ve managed to get hold of the early rushes of the first ever combined referendum TV and cinema broadcast on behalf of the Unionist parties and the main campaigning organisations.

As you can see, they’re turning up the fear. Don’t have nightmares.

An angry Dennis Canavan gets stuck into Ian Murray, the Labour MP who calls the police when someone puts a sticker on his window, on “Good Morning Scotland”.

For our money the most telling part is when Murray bleats about the SNP proposing a cut to Corporation Tax, and Canavan quite rightly points out the hypocrisy given that Labour reduced it twice when last in power and pledged to reduce it even further as soon as possible, Murray runs away from the issue without addressing it, but then has the brass neck to bring it up again at the end.

We think this is how Ed actually sees it.

Because remember, readers, nationalism is a virus.

So, this afternoon’s big story is that the son of Holocaust refugees (campaigning on the same side as Holocaust deniers), is threatening to put a whole race of people in a ghetto by building a barbed-wire fence and guard posts across their only land border?

Have we got that right?

You might be able to find fault with the Scottish tabloid media’s honesty, readers, but you can’t criticise its brevity. Take this page 2 piece from this morning’s Daily Record.

Just a few dozen words squeezed into five short sentences. Let’s see how many lies the Record’s unnamed reporter manages to get across in them.

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So, let’s just recap where we’ve got to.

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Sorry, readers, we’re getting addicted to these.

“Better Together” spokesman, 27 September 2013:

“David Cameron does not have a vote in this referendum. Alistair Darling does. He is ready to debate Alex Salmond any time and any place.”

Letter from Danny Alexander MP to Alex Salmond, 30 Jan 2014:

“Alistair Darling, leader of the Better Together campaign, has said he is willing to debate with you, as leader of the pro-independence campaign, anytime, anywhere.”

The Herald, 25 June 2014:

“Better Together, the pro-UK campaign led by Mr Darling, reacted angrily after STV indicated it was willing to change the date at the request of the First Minister. A senior Better Together source said Mr Darling would take part on July 16, as agreed, but not at a later time to suit Mr Salmond.”

(Our emphases in all cases.)

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“Better Together” spokesman, 27 September 2013:

“David Cameron does not have a vote in this referendum. Alistair Darling does. He is ready to debate Alex Salmond any time and any place.”

Letter from Danny Alexander MP to Alex Salmond, 30 Jan 2014:

“Alistair Darling, leader of the Better Together campaign, has said he is willing to debate with you, as leader of the pro-independence campaign, anytime, anywhere.”

The Telegraph, 23 June 2014:

“The pro-UK Better Together campaign withdrew from the contest, complaining that STV was allowing the First Minister to dictate when the show would be broadcast.”

So, just “anywhere”, then.