Wings Over Scotland

In a slightly surprising development reported late this afternoon by the Guardian, the Ministry of Defence appeared to suddenly and officially confirm what most supporters of independence have asserted for some time: that if Scotland becomes independent the rUK will lose its nuclear deterrent, as it has nowhere else to put it.

In a surprisingly direct response to a question from CND, the Ministry revealed that “the safety arrangements for Devonport [naval base near Plymouth, widely regarded as the only possible alternative berth for the submarines] do not permit the presence of submarines carrying Trident nuclear warheads”, and that “The MoD’s safety experts are not considering changing that“.

It was already known that even if the submarines themselves could be docked in Devonport, there was no possibility of replicating the Coulport weapons base without years of work costing billions of pounds, but the MoD’s unexpected revelation, as well as being an apparent reversal of the Ministry’s position of a year ago, is a dramatic intervention with radical and complex implications for the independence debate.

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There’s an absolutely despicable article on Labour Uncut today that we’re reluctant to link to. There’s a Google Cache version here, and in case it dies we’ve reprinted the whole thing below (sue us, Labour Uncut) so you don’t need to give the site traffic.

For the most part it’s a tedious rehash of the tired old “votes for 80 million expat and diaspora Scots” routine, but it’s enlivened with some ugly, base abuse of the First Minister, or “the fat, failed economist from Hollyrood” [sic] as author and Labour member Ian Stewart refers to him. The worst part, though, comes just before the end.

“At a time when the French voters of London have their own seat in the National Assembly, when serious moves are being made to press for a similar accommodation in the Irish Republic, not to mention Sinn Feinn’s mooting of some kind of a say for the wider diaspora, what do we get? Oh yes, the chance to maybe need a passport to visit granny.

Perhaps Mr Salmond made his attitude clear to these millions when he organised the great “Homecoming 2009” a while back – when it was clear to all that if your accent was in English rather than American, you had best not bother.”

This, we feel wholly confident in asserting, is a defamatory and libellous statement. The notion that Alex Salmond ever suggested, let alone made it “clear to all”, that English people weren’t welcome at Homecoming 2009 is one utterly unsupported in fact, and a normally-respectable site like Labour Uncut should be ashamed to have printed an open and direct accusation that the First Minister is a racist.

The battle over independence will get ugly in the next 18 months. We hope the Yes side doesn’t descend to the depths of Mr Stewart, and that the aggressive provocation of the Unionists doesn’t lead to the spilling of blood in Scotland as it continues to do in Northern Ireland. If it does, forgiveness will be a long time coming.

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Yesterday we reported the excellent news that US media giant CNN’s travel arm had named Scotland their No.1 travel destination of 2013, a move likely to generate many millions of pounds in increased tourism business for the Scottish economy. And to their credit, both the Scotsman and Herald also covered the story.

(Though neither of them apparently recalled the extensive coverage they’d given to the Holyrood opposition parties savagely attacking the Scottish Government for spending money on two trips to America to promote Scotland there in 2012.)

The Herald’s piece was so tiny and buried it attracted no reader comments (or none were approved), but the Scotsman’s more prominent article did. Why not take a moment and glance below to revel in the warmth, joy and positivity with which the publication’s Unionist readers welcomed this unequivocally happy development?

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Journalists and broadcasters tend to be very prickly about allegations that they do their job in a biased way, and it’s a difficult claim to prove. Much of the time it centres around the belief that “If this story was about Party Y rather than Party X you’d be covering it in a different way”, and that’s a hard assertion to back up because it’s based on an assumption rather than an empirical, demonstrable reality – it’s rare that two parties or two politicians ever find themselves in completely comparable situations.

So we’re very grateful to the good people of the Herald this week for kindly providing us with an eye-opening illustration of what happens when they do.

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The travel division of American TV channel CNN this week named Scotland its No.1 tourism destination for 2013. In its announcement CNN Travel cited “international buzz, major events, savvy marketing and economics” among the reasons for its decision.

It would seem reasonable to include in that “savvy marketing” the efforts expended by the Scottish Government on a pair of major visits to the USA in 2012, when it sent delegations to the premiere of “Brave” and the Ryder Cup (which is of course coming to Scotland next year and is expected to generate over £100m).

At the same time, it might be instructive to remember the attitude of the four Holyrood opposition parties and the media to the work of those delegations.

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The only downside to the success of Wings Over Scotland’s first year was that the site took up so much time it had a damaging effect on our finances. (So extra-special thanks to those who contributed a few quid via the Donate page to help keep us in webhosting and 35p pasta.) Luckily, it looks as though we’ll be able to give up and get back to some proper paid writing work shortly, as there’s someone who’s decided to do our job for us far more effectively than we could ever hope to. (Link added.)

“No campaigners must publicise the fact that this is as good as it gets […] With a No win little is going to change. Right here, right now you can see the kind of country we are going to be living in. No use kidding on that there is going to be some great dramatic change.”

Thanks for that, Michael Kelly of the Scotsman. We couldn’t have put it better.

The Scottish Tories have issued a rather pompous press release today, seemingly based on the curiously mistaken assumption that their 15 Holyrood MSPs out of 130 are in a position to give orders to the Scottish Government

“The Scottish Conservatives demanded in early October that Finance Secretary John Swinney outlines exactly how policies such as free prescriptions and free buses passes for over 60s could continue in the face of an ageing population and tightening budgets. But the Scottish Government has failed to provide any information, with that deadline passing on Monday.

Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Gavin Brown MSP said:

“It should have been straightforward for John Swinney to present a 10-year plan, especially with him having most of the information to hand. Scotland is facing a demographic timebomb, yet the SNP seems determined to provide free prescriptions and travel to those who can well afford it.

Unfortunately, it is completely unwilling to show how this would be paid for, which can only lead us to the conclusion that it will be funded through vastly increased taxes and borrowing.”

As others have noted, it’s interesting that the Tories appear to assume the SNP will be in power at Holyrood for at least the next decade. But while we can’t speak for the Finance Secretary, perhaps the reason he didn’t waste any of his valuable ministerial time answering the Conservatives’ demand was that he knew Wings Over Scotland had already done it for him two-and-a-half months ago – and in fact for 20 years of “demographic timebomb”, not just 10. If there’s anything else the Tories would like to know that we’ve already comprehensively established, feel free to point them our way.

Once again: we’re more than happy to accept the Unionist parties’ assertions that Scotland couldn’t afford to pay for universal services if it stayed in the UK. But there’s an alternative to staying in the UK, under which we CAN afford them. We are, as always, grateful to the anti-independence campaign for pointing the fact out.

We were going to get 2013 up and running with a piece on how we’d like to see the independence debate approached in the coming year, but Ewan Crawford has rather kindly done the job for us in The Scotsman, in a snappy 113 words:

“Labour has decided to mount a campaign based primarily on a combination of all-out personal attack against the First Minister and an assault on what they characterise as Scotland’s “something for nothing culture” typified by free personal care for the elderly and the abolition of university tuition fees.

In 2013 they should feel free to get on with this to see if this is indeed the platform that people in Scotland have been crying out for from a potential party of government.

The overwhelming focus of the independence campaign should instead be about a sense of possibility and a conversation with people concerned about jobs and the economic prospects for themselves and their families.”

In an ideal world, the last paragraph on its own would probably have sufficed. But it’s vitally important to understand the opposition’s position not just on the superficial political level, but also what it tells us about the consequences of a No vote.

If there’s one truth the independence movement really needs to get across to the people of Scotland in the next 12 months if it’s to build towards victory, it’s that there will be no additional powers for Holyrood within the UK should Scots reject the opportunity to run their own affairs. Indeed, the opposite is likely to be the case.

Helpfully, the message compresses down neatly to just four words – words the Yes movement must, for all its positivity, drum into the minds of the Scottish people if it wants them to fully understand the choice they face in 2014: Vote No, Get Nothing.

Someone recently directed us towards a recording of an episode of BBC Radio 4’s “PM” news and current-affairs show broadcast early in June of this year. It featured a discussion between presenter Eddie Mair and Dr Alex Woolf, a listener to the show who’d contacted it after an interview with Alex Salmond.

You can listen to the whole discussion on YouTube, but we always prefer to see this sort of thing written down for ease of reflection and reference, so we gritted our teeth for another transcription session. (Though this one was made less painful by the superb Chrome plugin Transcribe, which we recommend unreservedly).

The result can be found below. It seems an appropriate way to start the year in which the Scottish Government’s white paper on independence will be published.

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As we predicted a month ago, we’re a little down on page views for December (by just under 9%) on account of the festive break. Instead, then, we thought we might take a couple of lines before 2012 slides into oblivion to briefly look at Wings Over Scotland’s stats for the entire year, minus these last few hours.

150,384 unique visitors
602,805 visits
2,738,618 page views

Seems not too shoddy from a standing start, if we say it ourselves. We’ve got some big plans lined up for 2013, so don’t go anywhere, folks. Thanks so much to all of you for reading, commenting and contributing this year – we’ll see you on the other side of some 10-year-old Macallan. Slainte!

We must admit, we thought Ian Davidson would be a shoo-in for this particular award after his unforgettable implosion on Newsnight Scotland in August. But then we read something twice as mad and half as comprehensible. It was a piece from STV News in October, based on some comments by unfortunately-named Scottish Labour “deputy” leader and hereditary MP Anas Sarwar. We’ve read it eight or nine times now, and we still have genuinely not the slightest clue what he’s wittering on about.

We’re going to step through it line-by-line and see if we can get it to make any sense. Feel free to join in if you’ve got any ideas, because we’re stumped.

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On Friday, the Guardian reported Ed Miliband’s New Year message to the people of Britain. The key passage was one in which he promised this would be the year his party actually came up with some policies:

“One nation Labour is about reaching out to every part of Britain, it’s about a party that is as much the party of the private sector as the public sector, a party of south as well as north, a party determined to fight for the future of the United Kingdom, and a party rooted in every community of our land.

I’ve set out a vision of what this county [sic] can be, one nation, and in 2013 we will be setting out concrete steps on making that vision a reality from business to education to welfare.”

There’s a pretty big hint there to Scottish voters about the consequences of a No vote in the independence referendum. But in case anyone needs it spelling out: you don’t create “one nation” by letting the different parts of it have powers to create their own individual approaches to business, education and welfare, which is why this year Johann Lamont started the job of softening the Scottish people up and getting them used to the idea of Holyrood obediently following London policies.

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