Wings Over Scotland

Here’s “Better Together” communications director Rob Shorthouse this morning:

And here’s the Telegraph this evening (our emphasis):

“Plans for the first proposed Scottish independence TV debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling have collapsed in acrimony following a row over the date.

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.”

We’re always willing to believe that “Better Together” are lying, because they usually are. We’re always willing to believe the Telegraph is lying, because it usually is. But on this occasion, ONE of them must be telling the truth. Frankly, readers, we have no idea what to think.

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There’s an interesting article on the Guardian today from the invariably-excellent former music journalist John Harris entitled “The crisis in the Labour party goes much deeper than Ed Miliband”, which looks at how a 280-page policy document published this month by the Labour-leaning IPPR thinktank was boiled down by the party for public and media consumption to “cutting benefits for young people”.

That got us to thinking about something, but luckily before we’d wasted too much time on thinking we discovered that Labour Uncut had helpfully already done the research we were about to embark on for us.

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And this time we’re not being sarcastic. We were bemused yesterday when a number of people on Twitter started swapping referendum-based jokes about Stanley Baxter, who for younger readers used to be some sort of pantomime star and vaudeville performer. The jokes were explained today when it was revealed, to our considerable surprise, that Mr Baxter was in fact still alive and urging a No vote in the referendum.

Baxter, who left Scotland 55 years ago and told the Times that he now returns only for “the odd funeral”, nevertheless felt able to assert from these occasional visits that support for a Yes vote was founded in hatred for the English from simple-witted Scots who “don’t know any better” caused by “Braveheart” and hey, stay awake at the back there because we’re coming to the important bit.

And that’s that the comedian, who made a career out of telling TV viewers that the people of Glasgow had hilarious incomprehensible accents in need of translating into proper English, also went on to (no doubt impeccably) articulate the real reason, never previously spoken aloud, that the No campaign wants Scotland to stay part of the UK.

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Earlier today we reported the Edinburgh Evening News’ coverage of a study by Sheffield Hallam University which found that households across Edinburgh would lose an average of £780 each thanks to the coalition’s welfare cuts, with the worst-affected area – Craigmillar – likely to take an annual hit of £1,240 per household.

Today’s edition of the Daily Record has a prominent feature on the same survey, but chooses to focus on Glasgow rather than Edinburgh, and finds that things are even worse. Households in the poorest part of Glasgow – Calton, infamous for its low male life expectancies – stand to see a shocking £1,760 a year ripped out of their budget.

The Record being the Record, of course, it characterises the cuts – quite correctly – as being the responsibility of the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition. But then, weirdly, it asks a Labour MSP to comment on them.

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The Edinburgh Evening News, today:

“Families across the Capital are facing a £780 cut to their annual income following a shake-up of the benefits system, new research has revealed.

Welfare reforms being brought in at Westminster are set to suck £130 million out of the city’s economy – equivalent to £390 for every working-age adult.

The study – produced by experts at Sheffield Hallam University – reveals parents collecting child benefit are most likely to see cuts in their payments while those on incapacity benefit will see the steepest yearly reductions of up to £145. And it has emerged that some of Edinburgh’s poorest areas will suffer the most.

The average family in Craigmillar – the worst-hit neighbourhood in Edinburgh – will lose out on £1240 per year once the full range of reforms are introduced.

But significant losses will be felt even in the city’s most affluent districts, with each family in the Meadows-Morningside ward set to shoulder an average annual hit of £440.”

Well, as long as the poor people are suffering three times as much as the rich people, and the disabled are being hit hardest of all, clearly coalition policy is working as intended. Of course, if Labour get in, it’ll be different – they plan even MORE welfare cuts than the Tories, and they’re proud of it. If you can’t work, you’re dead weight.

We didn’t quite grasp the meaning of the phrase “we’re all in this together” when David Cameron said it before, but we think we’ve got it now.

Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics, a man with absolutely no dog in the Scottish independence fight, has now published his detailed assessment of the set-up costs of an independent Scotland.

He puts the actual additional cost – that is, what Scotland would have to spend that it wouldn’t have to spend anyway if it stayed in the UK – at around £200m. That’s the total, not every year, and is somewhat below the UK government’s own “estimate” of £2.7bn, issued just three weeks ago to widespread derision.

For comparison purposes that’s very roughly what Scotland spends on the upkeep of Trident nuclear submarines every year (our share of the £2.24bn annual cost), but as the Unionist parties constantly complain that Scotland’s savings on Trident get spent several times over by Yes supporters, we thought we’d come up with an alternative.

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A round-up of recent UK stories you may have missed, from The Sealand Gazette.

1. New Government cuts could see a million state jobs go

“George Osborne orders ‘ambitious’ new efficiency drive, to be detailed in the Autumn Statement, for savings and job cuts deep into the next parliament.”

2. British people favour leaving the European Union, according to poll

“Nearly half would vote to leave while only 37% would vote to stay.”

3. The reason voters feel powerless: because it’s the truth

“Public services are so fragmented there are no clear lines of accountability. Parents who are worried by what is happening in a school will try to pull levers and discover that no one is at the other end. They are left to fume impotently.”

4. Trussell Trust told ‘the government might try to shut you down’

“The chair of [foodbank charity] the Trussell Trust has said that the charity made a decision to tone down its criticisms of the benefit system after someone in power warned them that they could get shut down.”

5. Britain’s first secret trial

“Two men, known only as AB and CD, have been charged with terrorism; journalists were forbidden from disclosing even this simple fact until newspapers overturned a gagging order. But for the first time in centuries – and in a direct challenge to the Magna Carta of 1215 – the entire trial will be held in secrecy.”

Vote No if this sounds like your sort of country, readers.

Reports seismic disturbance. (Again.)

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We are not making this up. This is not a spoof.

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This is from today’s Scottish Sun. (Click to enlarge.)

Murdo Fraser actually thinks that houses getting 25% more expensive while wages grow by just 0.7% is a GOOD thing. He really believes that “It’ll cost an extra £23,000 to buy a house if you vote No” is a plus point for staying in the UK.

That’s all we’ve got on that one, folks.

And welcome. If you’ve come to our humble little site to see the nasty man at the head of the “highly controversial cyber organisation” described in this hilarious article, there’s a couple of things you should probably know. Because – and we apologise if this comes as a shock to you – the Daily Mail doesn’t always tell the truth.

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If you’re not on Twitter, readers, you’ve been missing ALL the fun today.

Above are just the creepiest two of a series of tweets posted this morning by “social justice campaigner” Mike Dailly of the Govan Law Centre – previously known to those of this parish – to the effect that he’d really rather prefer if people stopped following my personal Twitter account, @RevStu, because I was so all-around awful.

It didn’t work out quite as well as he’d hoped.

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