Wings Over Scotland

As we launch our exciting 12-part beginner’s guide to debunking the No campaign’s scaremongering strategy with a piece on the currency issue, a document sent in this morning by an alert reader couldn’t have come at a more timely moment.

It’s a letter written five weeks ago by Bill Munro, the elderly owner of holiday firm Barrhead Travel, which calls itself “the UK’s Number 1 Online Travel Agent”.

As you can see, it outlines a quite extraordinary apocalyptic scenario in the event of a Yes vote (“we would not be able to trade outwith Scotland for at least 3 years”), as part of a thinly-veiled diatribe aimed at frightening the company’s almost 500 employees into a No vote on pain of losing their jobs.

And even leaving aside the fact that it’s barking mad, the letter illustrates one of the greatest obstacles in the way of the Yes campaign – for all that people clamour and plead for “more information” about independence, information is only any good if people actually listen to it.

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With less than six months to go until the referendum, Scots are turning more of their attention to the debate. Until now it’s largely been the province of politics nerds such as ourselves, but with the vote beginning to loom on the horizon normal people are starting to study the issues more closely.

So we thought it’d be useful to put up a handy reference guide to the core strategy of the No campaign, illuminatingly dubbed “Project Fear” by its own staff. Lacking any positive case for a No vote as Britain suffers through austerity with no end in sight, “Better Together” has by its own admission dedicated itself to terrorising the people of Scotland into sticking with the Union:

“We’re not complacent. But nothing would please the Nats more than us dumping negative campaigning, because they know it works.”

The relentless bombardment of scare stories is so frenetic it can seem overwhelming, but it’s a lot more manageable when you realise that almost everything the No camp says is a variation on one of just 12 basic themes.

So we’ve compiled a catalogue/manual of every fearbomb in their armoury, and alongside each one is the truth that defuses it. Don’t have nightmares.

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A pretty unequivocal view from Janan Ganesh of the Financial Times, a man who knows a thing or two about how George Osborne’s mind works:

(From yesterday’s Sunday Politics.)

The top five most-read stories on Wings Over Scotland in the last seven days.

1. Going (on the) underground
The tangled tale of our first advertising campaign.

2. The ad SPT don’t want you to see
The graphics of our first advertising campaign.

3. Ironic timing
A juxtaposition to our first advertising campaign.

4. The Devo Nano Policy Explosion
A post not related to our first advertising campaign!

5. The Tumbleweed Files
Crowdjournalisming.

This week’s theme: it definitely pays to advertise.

We appreciate that you’re busy people, readers, so through the miracles of modern technology we’ve actually managed to compress the entire five-minute interview between Andrew Neil and Alistair Carmichael, the Secretary of State for Portsmouth, on this morning’s Sunday Politics Scotland down to just 19 seconds without in any way compromising the accuracy or completeness of its content.

If you watch the whole thing we think you’ll agree we’ve captured the essence.

It’s Alex Salmond who’s supposed to be the betting man. With regard to his lifelong pursuit of independence he often recites an old verse penned by the Earl Of Montrose:

“He either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small,
Who dare not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.”

But as the bookies’ odds continue to tighten on the referendum, the surprise revelation of this week has been that it’s dour, staid, grey old Alistair Darling who’s gambled everything on a needless, reckless punt.

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We haven’t written anything about the Guardian’s explosive story on currency union this weekend, largely because we have nothing much to add to it.

The original piece seems to cover everything pretty well, and just about all we can think of to comment on is the way the BBC and many other newspapers have seemingly deliberately misinterpreted a line of the unnamed minister’s quote, to portray it as a suggestion that there would be a direct trade of a currency union for Scotland continuing to host Trident after independence.

But it’s not the only one of the pillars of the No camp that’s crumbling today.

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Some readers didn’t fully grasp the meaning of our post yesterday evening which shed light on the full tangled horror of Scottish Labour’s proposals for “extended” devolution if Scotland votes No this September. We don’t entirely blame them, because trying to make sense of both the proposals and the godawful leaden writing in which the party’s document explained them is no easy task.

So we’re going to see if we can simplify it all a bit.

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We suppose we ought to give this a final shove, with just two days to go.

We’ve spent a sizeable chunk of your money this week (you’ve only seen some of it so far…) and we’re just off into town to spend some more, so a last wee top-up couldn’t hurt just to make sure we keep the pressure on the failing No campaign up.

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We’ve had a second response from a Labour elected representative to a reader, regarding our six simple factual questions about the party’s “Devo Nano” proposals for the Scottish Parliament. This one’s from Richard Baker, regional MSP for North East Scotland and Labour’s former Shadow Finance Secretary.

We were extremely surprised by its contents. You can read the reply, stripped only of two paragraphs of introductory waffle about Keir Hardie, below.

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A new poll by Populus for the Daily Politics is out today, with some interesting rankings for the four UK party leaders. (Which in a UK context includes Nigel Farage, despite his representing a party without a single MP while there are seven other parties at Westminster who do have seats.)

As you can see, UK respondents were asked to identify the three main qualities they associated with each leader, from a list of positive and negative ones. It’s fair to say none comes out covered in glory – fewer than one in five people think the UK’s Prime Minister is “competent”, for example. But the balance is striking.

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Supporters of independence are enjoying an unusual feeling this morning – enjoying an issue of the Daily Mail. A screaming front-page headline warns of a “CRISIS” in the No campaign, and a double-page spread inside lays into “Better Together” chairman Alistair Darling, while Professor John Curtice lambasts the work of the ex-Chancellor and his team of “Abominable No Men” to date, noting that:

“To be effective, a campaign message needs three qualities. It needs to tell voters something new about a subject that matters to them, it has to be delivered by a credible source and it should not be widely disputed. The No side’s messages have fallen flat on all three grounds.

The No side often gives the impression constant criticism of independence will win the day. Maybe it is time for it to think again.”

And in fairness, the Unionist camp has reacted positively.

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