Wings Over Scotland

Alex Salmond’s appearance on Scotland Tonight this week raised an issue we’ve been meaning to address for a while, so let’s do it now before we forget again.

Of the numerous polls of the last few months, the most encouraging for supporters of independence was the one conducted by Panelbase for the Sunday Times in late October. It showed a pretty tight race at 37% Yes to 45% No, but the most interesting aspect was how the numbers changed when voters were asked for their opinion in the hypothetical scenario that they expected the Conservatives be returned as either a majority or coalition government at the 2015 Westminster general election.

In that scenario, independence leapt ahead with a massive 10% swing, to lead by 52% to 40%. But much less reported by the media was another finding of the poll.

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1. Scottish Labour says universal free bus travel for pensioners is unaffordable.

2. Scottish Government manages to reduce the cost of universal free bus travel.

3. “CUTS TO CONCESSIONARY TRAVEL WILL HIT HARD-WORKING SCOTS”

4. Repeat ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

There’s very little room for ambiguity in the Electoral Commission’s request that both sides in the independence debate provide voters with information in advance of the referendum about the likely consequences of either a Yes or No vote. Here’s how the Scotsman reported their comments, for example:

“In a surprise recommendation reflecting widespread public confusion over the choices on offer, the commission said that the UK and Scottish government should try to ‘clarify’ the situation by seeking agreement on ‘how any competing claims made about independence during the campaigns would be resolved’.

The same clarity should be offered on events after a No vote, it said. It proposed that ‘both governments should agree a joint position, if possible, so that voters have access to agreed information about what would follow the referendum’.”

In the case of (what we’re finally now able to officially call) the No campaign, that only means – indeed, only can mean – one thing. After all, their platform is the status quo. In every immediate respect, the consequences of a No vote will be that nothing changes, so nothing needs explaining. There is but a single exception.

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Scottish Government proposals for regulated referendum spending limits:

YES side: £1,250,000
NO side: £1,500,000
(advantage of £250,000 to NO campaign)

Electoral Commission recommendations for regulated referendum spending limits:

YES side: £2,994,000
NO side: £2,931,000
(advantage of £63,000 to YES campaign)

Oh no! It’s another defeat for the SNP!

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This is the referendum question the Scottish Government wanted:

“Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country? YES/NO”

This is the referendum question the Unionist parties wanted:

“Voters should be presented with a statement on the ballot paper: ‘Scotland should become an independent state’, and asked to put an ‘X’ against ‘I agree’ or ‘I disagree’.”

This, we’re told today, is what the referendum question will be:

“Should Scotland be an independent country? YES/NO”

Yep, sounds like another “comprehensive defeat” for the SNP all right.

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There’s a small but quite vocal subset of opinion among followers of Scottish politics that David Cameron and the Tories are doing their damnedest to “throw” the independence referendum. A string of implausibly clumsy interventions starting with the Prime Minister’s attempt to lay down the law of a year ago have led to growing speculation that the Conservatives would in fact be somewhere beyond delighted to see Scotland go its own way, but simply can’t be seen to be saying so.

It’s an argument that has a lot of rational weight. Scotland hasn’t returned more than one Conservative MP since 1992, and seems unlikely to change that statistic any time soon, effectively giving the Tories a handicap of 50+ seats in every general election. There’s now little remaining dispute that the balance of Scottish revenue/expenditure at the Treasury is basically neutral, so there’s no great financial blow to be endured if the Scots make off with the remainder of North Sea oil.

(And even senior Scottish Tories think that the sort of complete break with the toxic Conservative brand which would accompany independence is the only hope of ever reviving their fortunes north of the border.)

Are we really meant to believe, then, that Cameron’s party is unbreakably committed to keeping a pathologically ungrateful Scotland in the Union for purely sentimental reasons? Pull the other one, readers – it’s got bells on.

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We don’t look at British political cartoons very much, mainly because we can’t think of a consistently good one. It seems to be a lost art since the long-gone days of Angus Og, devoted less to cutting insightful and acutely-observed satirical commentary than to the altogether baser pursuit of grotesque caricature.

Even the Guardian’s much-vaunted Steve Bell leaves us stone-cold 99% of the time, and often desperately scouring the news pages to work out what the joke is supposed to be about, let alone whether it’s funny. (He’s been drawing David Cameron with a condom on his head for a fair few years now, and we still have no idea why.)

But half-awake this morning, we clicked on a link in a tweet that led us to The Scotsman’s latest effort, and it’s a sort of masterpiece, in much the same sense that while murder is a terrible thing, Harold Shipman was undeniably really good at it.

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It’s commonplace for professional journalists these days to dismiss bloggers and social-media users as “internet bampots” – frothing, furious, abusive lunatics ranting at parked cars. But in fairness, some do tend to get a bit over-excited from time to time.

By way of example, let’s check out a couple of the wilder-eyed nationalists who’ve been allowed out by the nurses to air their rage in public this week.

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We know for certain that a good many Scottish newspaper and broadcast journalists read this website, so maybe one of them will enlighten us about something. The latest Scottish Social Attitudes Survey report contained a wealth of tables and statistics in respect of the independence debate, but the entire media seized, with complete and startling uniformity, on one in particular.

It was a curious choice to highlight, as it related to a vaguely-worded, ambiguous question with no relevance to the options which voters will actually choose between in the referendum. Yet the very same survey contained a much more interesting set of results which got either a dismissive passing mention or no coverage at all.

Since, as we’ve already established, there’s no Grand Unionist Black-Ops Society which meets in Pacific Quay to decide how best to serve the grim needs of the No campaign, we’d honestly like to know how not one single newspaper, TV channel or radio station thought this particular question merited lead status in their coverage of the SSAS. Because it presents a radically different picture of Scottish opinion to the one absolutely everyone decided, by miraculous coincidence, to paint.

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It’s a real bonus for us when other people dissect something so comprehensively, from a variety of angles, that we don’t have to bother. The solitary piece of what could conceivably be described as solid content in Ruth Davidson’s speech in Edinburgh yesterday appeared to comprise a well-known football chant, which we’ll paraphrase for sensitive readers: “We’re [not of a very high standard], and we know we are”.

Fortunately, we’ve been saved some time in pulling it apart in detail thanks to three excellent and forensic examinations by the unlikely trinity of Lallands Peat Worrier, Alex Massie in the Spectator  and – heavens above – Alan Cochrane in the Telegraph.  We’re off now to check our temperature and make sure we don’t have a fever.

As we’ve noted before, media bias is a subtle beast. It doesn’t (we think) take the form of dastardly late-night meetings where BBC or Scotsman editors gather to plot the next day’s subversion of the Yes campaign. Much of it comprises things journalists often aren’t even consciously aware they’re doing, as documented by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in their remarkable book “Manufacturing Consent”.

(We’ve appended a footnote below this piece by Douglas Daniel, summarising a few of the book’s core principles as they can be applied to the independence debate.)

Let’s be uncharacteristically charitable, then, and assume honest intentions when we examine an interesting piece by Magnus Gardham in the Herald today, which goes by the headline “PM’s Euro gamble has strengthened SNP’s hand”.

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When I wrote previously about how Scotland’s export business does not depend on the UK (as had been claimed by Alistair Darling at last year’s Mackintosh Memorial Lecture), one of the questions I was asked was what export business Scotland has.

On Wednesday, in a piece lurking at the bottom of Scottish news section, the BBC reported a £1.6bn rise in Scottish exports. The Global Connections Survey (GCS) – full report here – showed that exports were up to record highs both to the rest of the UK and to the rest of the world. Scotland’s exports to the rUK showed a value of £45.5 billion, and to the rest of the world they rose by the headlined £1.6bn, up to £23.9bn.

It’s worth noting that none of these statistics include oil (see page 2 of the report), despite the mention of “refined petroleum” below – we’ll deal with that another day.

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