Wings Over Scotland

In addition to the Survation poll that was in the field last week and which we’ve been reporting on, there was also a Panelbase one going round at the same time.

(It’s as yet unpublished, and having been sent a few of the… interesting questions in it by some people who took the poll we’re very excited to find out who commissioned it. Our money is on either George Galloway’s furious new list party – which incidentally just had its registration refused again by the Electoral Commission – or the collection of anonymous hyper-Unionist nutters ironically calling themselves “The Majority”.)

But as the opportunity was there we slipped a couple of questions of our own in too, and the findings from one of them were pretty dramatic.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tonight’s poll data from Survation is really quite remarkable.

We can’t wait to hear what “Pension Pete” Wishart makes of it.

Read the rest of this entry →

There’s a most revealing article by George Osborne in today’s Evening Standard. It’s well worth a read in full – it’s not very long – but this is the key passage:

The deathless defenders of Plan A will of course continue to shriek that “he’s a Tory so he must be lying”. And if any of them can ever actually manage to tell us what Scottish voters can possibly DO to Boris Johnson if he keeps refusing, we’ll be all ears.

But since they never seem to be able to do that, we’re going to thank Mr Osborne for that unusual outbreak of honesty, and for admitting that a simple point-blank refusal of democracy is the Tories’ best and only strategy to keep Scotland in the UK. Because for as long as the SNP don’t have a Plan B, it’s the only one they actually need.

Read the rest of this entry →

In 2014, it was women who stopped Scotland becoming independent.

But it was still a man’s fault, of course. Those of us who were around at the time, while many of the SNP’s earnest young activists of today were still squeezing their spots, will recall a multitude of media articles on how it was apparently the fairer sex’s personal antipathy to Alex Salmond that was responsible for the No camp’s victory.

And who knows, maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t. We have no idea. But what we do know is that you can’t have it both ways.

Read the rest of this entry →

After something of a quiet spell (we gather for personal reasons), we’re delighted to note that the excellent Gordon Dangerfield – a highly experienced Scottish solicitor advocate – is back blogging, in particular with regard to the Fabiani inquiry.

His piece today, of which the above is but a tiny snippet, is a must-read.

Read the rest of this entry →

There’s literally nothing about this that isn’t toe-curlingly embarrassing:

The only challenge is knowing where to start.

Read the rest of this entry →

Extraordinary events are now unfolding on a daily basis (or even more frequently than that) in the vexed matter of the two ongoing inquiries into serious misconduct by the Scottish Government regarding false allegations made against Alex Salmond.

Mr Salmond, who was found innocent of any wrongdoing, has been endeavouring – at a significant personal cost in both time and money – to assist both inquiries with their investigations, and has received remarkably little in the way of gratitude for his efforts. Indeed, he has instead been both publicly attacked and repeatedly threatened with prosecution for attempting to tell the truth.

This evening his lawyers sent the letter below to the Convener of the Holyrood inquiry. It’s a powerful microcosm of events to date, and we think you should see all of it.

Read the rest of this entry →

For poor old Richmond Leinster, who shuffled off the political stage today, we solemnly offer this tribute from Novara Media pundit Aaron Bastani:

It’s a tragic loss to the Scottish political scene. The tweet, we mean.

Read the rest of this entry →

This is such a strange story.

Because even although it’s part of a transparent attempt from the Record to deflect attention from the many shocking revelations of the last few days around the Salmond affair, it’s still unusual that a newspaper would make a front-page lead out of a claim it knows it can’t provide a single scrap of evidence for.

Read the rest of this entry →

We’re sure you all read this story last night.

Via another source we’d known it was coming for a few hours and were all set to follow it up, but in fact Daniel Sanderson of the Telegraph did a pretty thorough job on it in a comprehensive piece, even listing all the times the “prepared” civil servants had had to go back and “clarify” “errors” in their evidence even after dozens of hours of practice and £55,000 worth of “training” in how to not quite tell the truth under pressure.

It was hard not to wonder how abysmal their performances would have been if they’d only had – say – £30,000 worth of coaching at your expense.

Read the rest of this entry →

When we have a rare spare moment, readers, there’s nothing we enjoy more for a bit of fun and relaxation than to fire off a few Freedom Of Information requests.

And just for some variety, last month we sent a couple to the UK Parliament – mainly on behalf of our Number One fan, Pete Wishart MP.

The answers came in this week.

Read the rest of this entry →

On pain of a grisly death, we’re not allowed to tell our splendid cartoonist Chris Cairns what to draw cartoons about. Artists are funny that way. And it’s a shame, because if we were we’d have a great idea for this weekend’s toon.

Because what’s being demanded of Alex Salmond right now is extraordinary.

Read the rest of this entry →