Wings Over Scotland

The BBC’s Reporting Scotland is, in our view, directly responsible for at least 80% of Yes supporters’ belief that the UK’s state broadcaster is biased against independence. Almost all of the worst examples of unbalanced or downright dishonest coverage over the last five years come from the flagship teatime bulletin.

But last night’s edition made even the most wearily cynical jaws drop.

Let’s just take that in for a moment.

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A series inspired by a Unionist blog insisting that “On a practical level, I do not believe for one moment that Scotland could thrive alone”, and which led to our thinking about some of the world’s other independent nations.

NO. 3 – LUXEMBOURG

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A series inspired by a Unionist blog insisting that “On a practical level, I do not believe for one moment that Scotland could thrive alone”, and which led to our thinking about some of the world’s other independent nations.

NO. 2 – ICELAND

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Last month saw the first meeting between the UK Brexit delegation and the EU’s, and by many accounts it fell far short of the UK’s expectations. David Davis spent months drumming up the “strong and stable” approach which would see both the divorce deal and the subsequent post-Brexit trade deal negotiated simultaneously. He was told by everyone that this wouldn’t happen, but simply brushed off the warnings. When push came to shove, he finally accepted that he’d have to negotiate the divorce deal first.

This is just the latest in a long string of failures and ineptitudes over the course of the UK’s handling of the whole farcical process and it got me thinking. If Scotland had voted Yes in 2014, what would it have looked like if the Scottish Government had handled that vote the way the UK has managed Brexit?

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Millionaire-funded diehard loyalist forelock-tugging faction Scotland In Union published an extraordinary blog post yesterday.

Its 606 words comprised a sort of Caledonian Cringe Greatest Hits, allegedly penned by someone called Fiona Annesley (of whom we’re told nothing else, and who has no detectable online presence), but the line that particularly caught people’s eye was this:

“On a practical level, I do not believe for one moment that Scotland could thrive alone.”

And that got us thinking about some of the world’s other independent nations.

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Today’s Daily Record covers the story we mentioned yesterday about a report from a Scottish Labour campaign group making the pretty factually-uncontestable point that the branch office’s dismal strategy in last month’s election held the UK party back.

And it made the Record really angry.

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Broadly speaking, the psychological phenomenon known as the Pollyanna Principle is a tendency to neurotically see the most positive possible view of a situation. It’s not generally widely found in newspapers – for whom bad news as a rule sells much better than good news – but for some reason the Scottish press makes a uniform exception when it comes to military shipbuilding.

This, for example, is today’s Herald:

Now, in itself that headline is – unusually – true, so far as it goes. But it only takes until the first sentence of the article text before things start to fall apart.

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Today the BBC finally officially revealed what everyone already knew.

So now Scottish viewers definitely know where we stand.

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Here’s Kezia Dugdale in the Daily Record today:

If only there was somewhere that Labour DID already run the NHS so that we could judge the truth of that claim, eh readers?

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We’re always loath to criticise political journalists for feeble stories published during the summer season, when parliaments are in recess and there’s nothing much happening to fill space with. But the Sunday Post has started pretty early this year.

Let’s see if we can put a number on the degree of “dilution” here, shall we?

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Of all the tropes of the 2014 independence referendum, few were fought over more repeatedly and bitterly, or more dishonestly by the No campaign, than the saga of the Type 26 frigates. The UK government promised Clyde shipbuilders hit hard by years of neglect and job losses that it would build 13 of the state-of-the-art vessels at BAE’s Scotstoun yard, but only if Scots voted No.

Once that vote was secured the number very swiftly dropped to eight, accompanied by a whirlwind of misinformation insisting that there had in fact been no reduction. (As keen social media users will know, this brazen lie was pushed particularly hard by the militarist website UK Defence Journal.)

So we were interested to see a story in today’s Scotland On Sunday which showed how desperate the Unionist side is to cling on to the ships as a future blackmail tool.

The paper has chosen to present the news with a super-positive spin, as you can see from the headline. But the text of the article tells a very different story.

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Pictured below are Ruth Davidson and her 13-strong* cohort of Scottish Tory MPs.

When they were elected earlier this month, the group rushed to tell anyone who’d listen that they were ready and willing to “defy” the UK leadership and act (ironically) as an independent party, standing up bravely for the people of Scotland.

They would be able to do so, they said, from a position of “unprecedented influence”, because without the Scottish Tory group Theresa May cannot get a majority to pass any legislation, even with the support of the DUP. It could be reasonably argued, then, that for that reason Ruth Davidson’s 13 are at least in theory the most powerful group of Scottish MPs in Westminster history.

So what concessions have they extracted with all that power?

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