The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Back to business

Posted on December 01, 2011 by

Okay, so after yesterday's fit of grand polemic for St Andrew's Day we've got some normal news to catch up on again. We left off mentioning this before because the Newsnet Scotland server had a bizarre extended outage and because the feature itself is horribly written, but the statistical fact that the mainstream Scottish media is 11,319 times more likely to run a story based on the SNP being accused of some terrible wrong than they are to do the same thing to the Tories, and that "accused" stories directed against the SNP make up 88% of all such articles, is definitely worth examining if you haven't already.

Meanwhile, the BBC and Herald run a pair of bone-chilling pieces about the economic future of the UK (the latter one also echoed in the Scotsman). In the coming years before the independence referendum, it's increasingly clear that it's going to get harder and harder for the Unionist parties to credibly push the "stronger together, weaker apart" line, because it's hard to imagine how an independent Scotland bursting with natural resources could possibly be in a bigger mess than successive Labour and Tory governments have left Britain in, even if we elected The Krankies to run it for a laugh.

The Scotsman also runs with an interesting piece linking the gay marriage consultation with the independence referendum, highlighting comments by former SNP leader Gordon Wilson suggesting that the SNP can ill afford to alienate a single voter in the run-up to the vote with such controversial policies. It's a fair enough point, except that with Labour and the Lib Dems on the same side as the SNP on the issue, and the Tories actually led by a lesbian, we're not sure there's much scope there for the opposition to exploit it politically. (Curiously, while the Scotsman piece makes great play of Wilson's SNP connection, it neglects to mention anywhere that Bashir Maan, one of the other opponents of gay marriage extensively quoted in the piece along with Cardinal Keith O'Brien, is a prominent former Labour figure.)

And as with the sectarianism bill and minimum pricing, the SNP is wisely front-loading its more contentious policies into the first half of the Parliament – presumably counting on any furore having long died down by the time of the referendum, as armies of angry Old-Firm-supporting gay couples enraged by the price of booze for their weddings fail to materialise on the streets.

Over in the blogosphere, Kate Higgins takes a surprise angle on the Chancellor's offer yesterday of £50m to upgrade/preserve the London-to-Scotland Sleeper train – contingent on the Scottish Government putting up the same amount of money – by advocating that the SNP should decline the offer. We see her point, to be honest – we suspect the main users of the service are MPs, and that normal folk won't miss it particularly much. (We're also not sure how urgently it needs £100m spent on it, or what that money would deliver.) The sleeper is so pricey that you might as well either get an earlier train and book a night in a hotel, or take a cheap flight to Edinburgh or Glasgow and make the rest of your train journey from there. Either option costs about the same as the sleeper premium, and doesn't involve shutting yourself in a tiny rattling shoebox with a complete stranger for the night. (As we were horrified to discover was the case the first time we ever used the service. We didn't get a lot of sleep.)

Malc Harvey has almost finished Thinking Unpopular Thoughts on the state of the Scottish parties, having rounded up the Scottish Tories, Lib Dems and Greens this week and promising his views on the SNP later today. His conclusions aren't encouraging for any of the first three, with the most intriguing suggestion being that the Lib Dems may have a future as a party of the centre-right, essentially occupying the ground the Tories declined to move onto under Murdo Fraser – if, that is, the Tories don't dump Ruth Davidson quickly and get there first. It's certainly true that there's a substantial minority of Scottish voters of centre-right inclination waiting for someone convincing to vote for, and neither the Lib Dems nor the Tories are going to get anywhere in Scotland for the forseeable future as they are. We'll be watching that space.

And with that, we're off to await First Minister's Questions, and see if Iain Gray has the sheer suicidal gall to challenge the SNP on walking through picket lines yesterday, exactly as Labour's leader and MPs did at Westminster

Comment - please read this page for comment rules. HTML tags like <i> and <b> are permitted. Use paragraph breaks in long comments. DO NOT SIGN YOUR COMMENTS, either with a name or a slogan. If your comment does not appear immediately, DO NOT REPOST IT. Ignore these rules and I WILL KILL YOU WITH HAMMERS.


  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.

    Stats: 6,785 Posts, 1,221,435 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Young Lochinvar on The Con Merchant: “Captain Caveman @ 6.48 Nope, wrong yet again r3tard.. Own your own crap, you have after all spouted it all…Jul 5, 20:54
    • Andy Ellis on Too Tight To Mention: “@aidan 7.16pm Yes, I’m aware. Not unexpected. I never had any expectations the UN would accept that those making the…Jul 5, 20:53
    • Anthem on Too Tight To Mention: “Sarah. This is the type of thing that should leafleted through every door in in Scotland! The SNP should be…Jul 5, 20:39
    • Dan on Too Tight To Mention: “Stuff going on in Scotland… With a familiar name popping up again… https://www.isp.scot/june-28th-july-4th-2025/Jul 5, 20:33
    • Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Andy – you might have missed that the Salvo petition has gone to the UN decolonisation committee, back in June.…Jul 5, 19:16
    • Anthem on Too Tight To Mention: ““Far from indicating duplicity an bias, it simply indicates that not all of us are easily led by charlatans and…Jul 5, 19:06
    • Captain Caveman on The Con Merchant: “Clingfilm…. Estrogen…. School toilets…. Sheesh. An awful lot of wishful thinking going on here… joining the dots etc. maybe Hatey’s…Jul 5, 18:48
    • Ste fella on Too Tight To Mention: “Published on scotgoespop 18:33 050725 “I’ll bet you £20 James that SNP get zero list seats. Your sooky return to…Jul 5, 18:33
    • Dan on Too Tight To Mention: “Andy Ellis says: at 4:57 pm “Surely the onus is on those who agree with something to make their case,…Jul 5, 18:32
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Con Merchant: “Further to my previous comment, I have often thought that nothing unites the establishments of North and South Ireland more…Jul 5, 18:22
    • agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “You must have missed Alf’s comment that in Scotland “half the population living in or close to poverty”. You expect…Jul 5, 18:09
    • TURABDIN on Too Tight To Mention: “ERSKINE CHILDERS, A GREAT irish Nationalist who died in the gun sights of an Irish firing squad.Jul 5, 18:04
    • sarah on Too Tight To Mention: “I thought that Wings readers will want to support this practical, explicit, way to leave the “Union”. If people don’t…Jul 5, 18:02
    • agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “Signatures 638 Goal 100,000 Any day now!Jul 5, 17:43
    • agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “It’s 50 pence too much for a 179 word “speech”!Jul 5, 17:36
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Con Merchant: “@ Andy Ellis 3.18 « The Irish government spent decades promoting the Irish language with only limited success » For…Jul 5, 17:30
    • Dan on Too Tight To Mention: “Hmm. As a practical person and an absolute demon on the hand tools that fixes and builds all manner of…Jul 5, 17:16
    • Andy Ellis on Too Tight To Mention: “Surely the onus is on those who agree with something to make their case, and those who disagree to make…Jul 5, 16:57
    • sarah on Too Tight To Mention: “O/T Since it’s the weekend and raining, here are some petitions to sign. www.manifestoforindependence.scot www.petition.parliament.uk/petitions/729478 Transparency and Review of the…Jul 5, 16:57
    • sarah on Too Tight To Mention: “O/T Flags for Liberate Scotland can be bought from Eva Comrie or message on the Liberate Scotland facebook page. £7…Jul 5, 16:50
    • Young Lochinvar on The Con Merchant: “Reply to Captain Caveman @ 2.08pm Aha! Knew it. I should do the pools, might win at this rate. Just…Jul 5, 16:36
    • DaveL on Too Tight To Mention: “It would also be a bonus if a range of the academic points concerning Scotlands colonisation were put in layman’s…Jul 5, 16:14
    • Young Lochinvar on The Con Merchant: “There ye go: Another Rejoinders R Us failed piece of Estrogen fuelled trash talk. Your WW2 forebears must be so…Jul 5, 15:49
    • Andy Ellis on Too Tight To Mention: “Powerful combo yon Benilyn and Buckie….or so I hear….Jul 5, 15:46
    • Aidan on The Con Merchant: “Yes – enough excitement, I’m going to enjoy a few wine bars on this sunny evening in Paris. Whereas for…Jul 5, 15:39
    • Andy Ellis on Too Tight To Mention: “@Northcode 11.40am Starship Troopers (1997) – unbelievable that 28 years have passed since I first saw that movie on the…Jul 5, 15:39
    • twathater on Too Tight To Mention: “At Dan’s 12.02pm comment in response to the grok question It is strange for someone who insists on being an…Jul 5, 15:38
    • Andy Ellis on The Con Merchant: “@Alf 11.10am There is evidence of a formative Scots language at the time of the Dalriada Scots takeover of Pictavia,…Jul 5, 15:18
    • Andy Ellis on The Con Merchant: “Chiefly between the ears it would seem.Jul 5, 14:52
    • Confused on The Con Merchant: “Apologies Klingfilm – you are obviously a high class gentlemen. “book knowing” is not for everyone. “everyone is clever, nowadays”…Jul 5, 14:39
  • A tall tale



↑ Top