When presented with the evidence that Scotland has been a huge net contributor to UK finances ever since the discovery of North Sea oil, Unionists sometimes protest “Ah, but what about the 260 years before that, when Scotland was just a poor wee backwater with no industry that was bankrolled by England after the Darien disaster?”
(Because most of them don’t actually know the first thing about Darien.)
And after this morning’s story, we thought it might be worth checking a few more of the official UK government figures for Scottish revenues and expenditure, up to the point where the Treasury stopped compiling the figures lest they get too embarrassing.
So thanks to yet another alert reader, that’s what we did.
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Category
analysis, reference, scottish politics, stats
Bill Jamieson in the Scotsman today:
“Yes, there should be No poll abuse
The independence debate has been getting ever nastier and it’s time for all sides to take a breath.”
It must have been a short breath, because just six paragraphs later:
“Bill Munro, the head of Barrhead Travel, one of our most successful Scottish companies, was subjected to a volley of threats and abuse after he advised staff in a letter to vote No.
A line has been crossed here between fair rebuttal and menacing nastiness. More of this and we could be on the way towards a Caledonian Kristallnacht.”
Because a surefire way to calm debate is to liken one side to the Nazis, right?
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Tags: hypocrisysmears
Category
comment, media, scottish politics
Sent in by an alert reader from a 1971 book called “Scotland’s Scrap Of Paper”.
Same as it ever was, eh readers?
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Category
history, scottish politics
The mystery of the alleged vandalism attack by “Yes supporters” on the office of Labour MP Ian Murray in Edinburgh this week has turned into quite a labyrinth.
We rang Mr Murray’s office this morning, speaking to a nice chap called Stuart (or Stewart, we forgot to ask), who declined to elaborate on the nature of the alleged vandalism but told us that Mr Murray had seen our story and would get back to us.
Below are the questions we’ll be trying to clear up.
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Tags: smears
Category
investigation, scottish politics
We noticed a rather unusual story on Conservative Home on Monday. “One in five party members want Scotland to leave the United Kingdom” ran the headline above a piece about a survey the site had conducted.
In fact the title was an understatement – 22% of respondents who were Conservative Party members had answered Yes even to the somewhat loaded proposition “I want Scotland to become an independent country, and leave the United Kingdom”.
The numbers got even more dramatic when extended to the site’s readers as a whole (not just signed-up party members), with a whopping 30% agreeing with the statement.
And obviously, there’s something quite interesting about those numbers.
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Category
analysis, scottish politics
“Better Together” chairman Alistair Darling is in today’s Telegraph, yet again demanding that people should be prevented from expressing opinions on the internet, unless those opinions are supportive of the Union. In Mr Darling’s world, businessmen should be permitted to try to frighten their employees into voting No with mad, untrue rants and veiled threats that they’d be voting themselves onto the dole, but anyone responding to the threat with “Shut up, grandad” must be censored and silenced.
So far, so ho hum – if Unionist politicians are whining about “cybernats”, there must be a Y in the day, is the general rule. But as we can see above, the former Chancellor wasn’t the only Labour MP bleating about terrible Nat bully boys today.
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Tags: crybabiesmisinformationsmears
Category
investigation, scottish politics
This is the Guardian’s elaborate, deliberately-absurd April Fool story:
Ha ha! Good one!
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Category
comment, culture, media, scottish politics
Tags: fundraisers
Category
admin
Better Together Parklife!
The Quiz Broadcast will be on soon. Britons should REMAIN INDOORS.
Tags: and finally
Category
leaks, pictures, scottish politics
Building into a thrilling partwork!
(When we’ve done all 12 of these we’ll be compiling them into a single massive post for easy reference, but it might have been a bit much to handle in one sudden burst.)
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Tags: FEARBOMB 2project fear
Category
analysis, europe, scottish politics, uk politics
