Wings Over Scotland

NOTICE: It has come to our attention that an article on Wings Over Scotland last week contained a factual error. In the post “One man and his props”, we alleged that in addition to a fake government paper brandished by the deputy leader of the Labour Party in Scotland during a televised debate, a “real” one had also been produced.

We have subsequently discovered that in fact, both papers were entirely fake. We apologise unreservedly to Anas Sarwar for the implication that he was telling the truth. We ought to have known better.

Okay, it’s going to be FAR too much work to plough through well over 500 comments in the previous thread to work this out, so let’s do it the easy way. If you’re planning to attend the march and rally on Calton Hill later this month, please post ONCE in the comments below. (Put anything you like in that one comment, though – jokes, pictures of cute kittens, links to comical tweets by Duncan Bannatyne, whatever.)

Please DON’T post if you’re NOT going or aren’t sure, and please DON’T conduct discussions in this thread – use the old one for that. One post per attendee. Any post breaching these rules will be deleted mercilessly and with extreme prejudice. Cheers!

Calton Hill is probably our favourite place in all of Edinburgh. You can see everything from its slopes – Princes Street, Arthur’s Seat, the Forth Bridges, Leith, the Castle, the whole city. It’s also, now we come to look at it, just about the worst conceivable place in the entire capital to hold a rally, but it’s too late to worry about that now.

Wings Over Scotland will be there. Come and join us. We’ve a flag and everything.

Well, it’s been quite a week, readers. Over the course of the last seven days, Wings Over Scotland – and in particular myself, as its editor – has been subjected to an unprecedented series of smear attacks from several groups of alarmingly angry people, from “Better Together” activists (sometimes in unholy alliance with a small handful of confused, naive young SNP student sorts) to senior Scottish journalists, failed Tory election candidates, psychopathic stalkers and Rangers supporters.

I’ve personally been called – in the space of just that single week – homophobic, transphobic, misogynist, racist, disablist, ageist, fascist, sectarian, a rape apologist, anti-English, anti-Welsh and a hate-preaching bigot. All are entirely untrue, of course.

(Just about the only people I’m apparently NOT prejudiced against are left-handed unicycling vegan budgie-owners from Fermanagh. Which is doubly ironic, because I really loathe those smug, cack-fisted carrot-munchers.)

If you want to know why, look below.

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Okay, with the fundraiser now closed (at a fabulous £5,797) we’re about to send our second poll off to Mystery Professor X for some serious expert scrutiny, but there are still a couple of available slots for good questions.

Now would be a good time to fire suggestions at us in the comments.

About the poll, that is.

Okay, the verdict of the readers was pretty unequivocal, with an almost four-to-one majority in favour of going ahead with another opinion poll right away. So let’s get fundraising again. Click the pic to go to the Indiegogo page. (As before, if you can’t use IG for any reason, there are other donating options.)

We’re only running this one for a week, so if you weren’t part of the fun last time, don’t miss out on this second exciting opportunity to be relieved of your cash. All the cool kids are doing it! You want to be cool, don’t you?

General consensus among the Wings Over Scotland readership seems to be that our Panelbase poll was a resounding success. Despite an almost-total media blackout, traffic to the site has seen a large spike since we undertook the project, and the survey’s findings have bled into the narrative of the debate even when the press didn’t want to acknowledge their source.

We’ve also had some helpful advice on how to do an even better job next time, and to be honest with you, readers, we’re itching to have another go.

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So it’s very nearly time to start on the poll results. We’ve made you wait long enough. But before the big reveals, we’d better get some quick background out of the way.

We got quotes from all the grown-up polling companies, most of which were in pretty much the same ballpark (with one dramatically expensive exception), but we chose Panelbase because they’ve got an excellent record for accuracy, they were the best at responding to our numerous stupid questions in a friendly and patient way, and if they’re good enough for the Sunday Times they’re good enough for us.

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As alert readers will be aware, we’re having an inexplicably hard time getting hold of “Better Together” campaign chief Blair McDougall at the moment. Although the No camp constantly claims to want “debate” and we’ve already got the Yes side’s agreement, for some reason Mr McDougall still hasn’t accepted our invitation to have BT’s official spokesman, Alistair Darling, go up against his Yes counterpart Dennis Canavan in a public head-to-head at a mutually convenient time and location.

Despite our trying to get in touch with Mr McDougall every day for the last week, he always seems to be out or “in meetings”, even if we call 60 seconds after he’s just posted a tweet. And when we leave messages with BT staff, he never gets back to us.

Obviously we’re pretty busy and can’t just sit here redialling every two minutes, so if any of you get a spare moment to call the BT office today, can you ask them – very politely, please – if he’s in, and if so whether he’s got an answer for us yet? Ta.

That number again: 0141 225 6288.

We’re now in the sixth day of our attempt to arrange a public debate between the respective chairmen of the Yes and No campaigns, Dennis Canavan and Alistair Darling. Yes Scotland director Blair Jenkins accepted on behalf of Mr Canavan some days ago, but despite his “Better Together” counterpart Blair McDougall initially agreeing (on the misunderstanding that we were inviting him rather than Mr Darling), he’s yet to respond to several further enquiries.

We rang the BT offices in Glasgow just after two o’clock this afternoon, but Mr McDougall was “in meetings” (though he was posting tweets two minutes beforehand) and the person we spoke to couldn’t tell us when we might be able to get hold of him. We left a message asking him to get in touch when he had a minute. We’ll let you know when we hear anything.

The latest development in our prospective debate:

Bit snippy, but we’ll take it.

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Okay, we’re cracking on with this poll thing. Now we need your opinion.

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