Wings Over Scotland

Yesterday we ran a short piece about a report published by what the Scotsman referred to as a new “centre-left” think-tank called the Scotland Institute. We’d been unable to find out much about this new outfit before going off to watch another one squeeze past Brechin City, but while we messed around taking silly pictures of football the dedicated readers of Wings Over Scotland set to work doing our research for us.

In doing so, they uncovered some very interesting information about the Scotland Institute and its driving force. We think it’s reasonably safe to say that on the basis of what we’ve seen so far, the term “centre-left” is stretching the bounds of credibility far beyond any reasonable assessment.

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We were intrigued by a story in Scotland On Sunday this morning, concerning the first output of a new “centre-left” group calling itself the Scotland Institute (which seems to have no website). The organisation’s debut report concludes that the “ideal” solution to the problem of poverty in Scotland is to elect “a UK-level government that is prepared to turn its back on the neo-liberal economic and social policies that have done so much damage and then a Scottish Government that can adapt that wider framework to meet the particular challenges faced in Scotland”, rather than for Scotland to become independent and elect an anti-neoliberal government of its own.

Mysteriously, however, the report neglects to identify just who this UK government “prepared to turn its back on the neo-liberal economic and social policies that have done so much damage” might potentially be. It can’t possibly be thinking of Labour, who in 13 years of Westminster power increased the gap between rich and poor, and upheld the neoliberal consensus so enthusiastically and dogmatically that Margaret Thatcher described Tony Blair as a “kindred spirit” (this at a time when there was still a Conservative PM in Downing Street and most of those on the left saw Blair as some sort of anti-Tory messiah) and her natural heir, while Norman Tebbit approvingly applied the same accolade to Gordon Brown.

We’re a bit concerned that an organisation we presume considers itself to be a source of serious grown-up analysis has concluded that the best solution to Scottish poverty is for Scots to somehow persuade everyone in the UK to vote for a political party that doesn’t actually exist. If it’s all the same to the Scotland Institute, we’ll continue to focus on addressing the issue via methods that aren’t entirely based on fairytales.

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When we knocked up this image in Paintshop for a bit of fun a month ago, we had no idea it was going to turn out to be quite so prophetic. The final act of the Rangers saga is going to play out just like the three-way Mexican standoff at the end of Reservoir Dogs, with Sevco, the SFA and the SPL all shouting furiously, pointing guns at each other and daring the other to crack first.

Charles Green’s consortium is still, at time of writing, thought to be refusing to accept the SPL’s right to pursue the dual-contracts investigation against Rangers Football Club PLC (in liquidation) and apply its findings to Sevco Scotland Limited. By doing so, it is in effect holding the whole of Scottish football to ransom. If our game is to survive the next 48 hours with any integrity and meaning whatsoever, the SPL, having (with massive reluctance) come this far, must not blink.

Because any Doctor Who fan will tell you what happens if you blink now.

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There seem to be a lot of things disappearing from the Scottish media today. First the interesting Robbie Dinwoodie story on Olympic football in the Herald does the Bermuda-Triangle routine, and then we see this odd piece in The Scotsman. It opens powerfully, promising to refute (or at least contest) one of the commonest and most compelling arguments made in favour of independence:

“ED MILIBAND has attacked the SNP’s suggestion that Scots face a choice of either independence or Conservative rule from Westminster as the Labour leader made his latest intervention in the referendum debate.”

We’ve read the rest of the short article three times now, however, without being able to locate a single sentence in which Mr Miliband (pictured in the piece as the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) refers to said choice in even the most oblique passing manner, far less “attacks” it. We’re rather keen to hear the official Labour answer, too. Can any eagle-eyed readers help us out?

The headline above (and slight variants thereof) is a time-honoured response to reports of any event at which the reader’s interpretation of proceedings might differ significantly to that of the writer. Today’s press provides a striking example of the phenomenon.

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We’ve noted before that it’s flattering to see the grown-up media pinching this blog’s stories. Sometimes it’s possible to put it down to innocent coincidence, such as the Guardian’s report today on the sweatshop conditions of workers producing London Olympic mascots – something Wings Over Scotland readers were reading about almost a month ago. At other times, though, the plagiarism is rather more obvious.

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As we’ve said before, we really don’t see much point in getting worked up about opinion polls when we’re still more than two years out from any public vote on anything.  A new poll by Panelbase has some fairly standard results – the SNP well in front in Holyrood voting intentions (up 2% overall on the 2011 result, with Labour and the Greens both up 1%, and the Tories and Lib Dems down 1.5% each), independence trailing by 9% in a two-way vote with 20% undecided, and the three options (including greater devolution) neck-and-neck when set directly against each other (independence 30, devo-X 29, status quo 28).

While we’re encouraged by these numbers at the height of the Great 2012 Festival Of Britishness, they essentially mean nothing at this point, and don’t tell us anything we haven’t known for months or years already. But what IS mildly interesting is seeing how the Scottish print and online media handles them.

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We’re really hoping that there’s going to be some proper Scottish-politics news when we get down to scouring the newspapers today. But in the meantime, just for a quick bit of Monday-morning fun and to offer up an entirely unnecessary hostage to fortune by sticking our heads on the chopping block purely for the thrill of it, we’re going to have a go at predicting the outcome of the imminent negotiations between Sevco Scotland Limited and the Scottish football authorities.

The clock is ticking, so it won’t be long until we find out if we’re right or wrong.

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In the debate over whether the SPL buys the broadcast rights to SFL games featuring Rangers, we’ve just spotted a rather interesting quirk. Sevco Scotland Limited was accepted to the SFL as an Associate Member, and will not be eligible for full Member status for four years. Rule 19 of the SFL Constitution says:

“An Associate Member shall have no financial interest in the assets of the League and shall not be accorded any voting rights.”

We assume “the assets of the League” include its media rights. (Indeed, as far as we can see those would be pretty much the only assets jointly owned by the League.) Rule 19 would seem to suggest that if the SFL does want to sell “Rangers” games to the SPL – or indeed to anyone else – not only will the newco not be entitled to a vote on the matter, but it won’t be entitled to any of the money either.

We haven’t seen anyone else mention this. It seems quite significant.

(EDIT 23-7-12: See comments for SFL response.)

It looks as though we spoke far too soon when we suggested late last week that The Rangers Saga was effectively over. It had seemed that, with Charles Green having accepted the imposition of a deferred 12-month transfer embargo as a condition for assuming the old Rangers’ membership of the SFA, there were no remaining obstacles (in the short term, anyway) to his new club taking its place in SFL Division 3.

We know. We’re embarrassed too. What can we have been thinking? Yesterday saw a fresh outbreak of chaos and insanity which could yet derail the entire fiasco and see SFL3 kicking off with just nine teams, as Sevco Scotland manager Ally McCoist decided to act the chimp and launch a hefty pile of shit right at the fan(s).

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When watching the Olympics over the coming couple of weeks, it’s probably not likely that you’ll be pondering the massive spending that goes into the defence and security industry as a result of such events. Yet in both superficial and deeper senses, it now represents the primary purpose of the Games, with sport merely the disguise under which the true agenda is smuggled past the unsuspecting public.

The precedent for this phenomenon was set over 70 years ago, by the event which would go on to become the template on which all subsequent Games were based. We refer, of course, to the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Nazi Germany.

On the 13th of May 1931, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin. The choice was intended to signal Germany’s return to the world community and its rehabilitation after the defeat and humiliation of World War I. However, two years after the award was made Adolf Hitler seized power, and spurred on by his Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels he set about making the games a showcase for Nazi Germany.

The intention was simple – set up the games to portray the new Germany in the best light possible. The Games were to be a place to play down plans for territorial expansion, and would be exploited to instead bedazzle foreign spectators and journalists with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany. The opportunity to portray an image of how the Nazis wanted to be seen, with the world watching and listening, was too good to pass up, and so political will was deployed behind the Games, with Hitler himself becoming an ardent supporter.

Plans to boycott the Games in response to the maltreatment of Jews and non-whites already apparent under the regime were discussed in the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands, but were short-lived. The outcry was more vociferous in America, but the President of the American Olympic Committee at the time, Avery Brundage, declined to back a boycott, on the now-familiar grounds that “The Olympic Games belong to the athletes and not to the politicians”. Little did he know what the Nazis had in store.

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