Wings Over Scotland

Depending on which parts of the media you were reading yesterday and this morning, the economic case for independence was either “shattered” (the Herald), “demolished” (the Spectator), “shredded” (Daily Record), “smashed to smithereens” (Willie Rennie, bless) or any number of other apocalyptic metaphors for total destruction, by a 1% fall in Scottish revenues resulting from a steep drop in oil prices which led to a notional Scottish budget deficit that by some measures was as high as 10% of GDP.

We must assume, then, that the economic case for the UK being an independent nation was rendered unto ruins in 2009-10, when its deficit exceeded 11% of GDP.

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The BBC’s Brian Taylor on GERS:

As we have, of course, noted before.

(The GERS figures actually showed Scotland’s revenues in 2014/15 dropping by ONE PERCENT as a result of the oil price collapse. Non-oil revenues were UP by 3.2%.)

This year’s GERS figures will be published today, purporting to illustrate the financial relationship between Scotland and the rest of the UK. With oil revenues down, they’ll undoubtedly provoke an orgasmic explosion of glee among Unionists crowing about “black holes” and how Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid to survive alone.

We’ve already run an extremely detailed explanation of all the flaws and booby-traps in GERS, but of course we’re a pro-independence website and we would say that. So instead we’ll direct you to someone who’s very much NOT on our side.

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This week Scottish Labour have been attacking the SNP’s rather timid plans for the reform of Council Tax, which is an entirely fair and legitimate opposition pursuit.

But as is their wont, Kezia Dugdale’s branch office just can’t help overplaying their hand and doing it in a highly dishonest way.

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The dogged determination of Scottish Labour to insult the Scottish electorate is a source of constant slack-jawed astonishment to us. Over the years we’ve lost count of the number of times the party’s politicians have effectively said “People are just too stupid to vote for us”, in the apparent belief that abuse is the way to win back support.

But it’s not always so overt. The subtler ways in which the party treats voters like morons include the assumption that people’s memories only go back to yesterday’s newspapers, and there can surely be no more stark illustration than its recent adoption of the attack line that the SNP are standing “shoulder to shoulder with the Tories”.

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If you’ve ever heard people talking about the “Scottish cringe” but don’t really know what it is, you could do a lot worse for an example than this:

Jeez, Ken, Valentine’s was a fortnight ago, you had your chance.

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An interesting and illuminating exchange has taken place in the last few days between the First Minister and Times columnist Kenny Farquharson, one of the many senior journalists who’ve recently jumped from the sinking ship of The Scotsman to take up less prestigious but more secure positions elsewhere.

It started on Saturday night, when Farquharson tweeted this:

And then people said more stuff.

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So after all the kerfuffle and commotion and comedy, a deal was done, of sorts. The unsquareable circle wasn’t squared, but the day of facing up to it was punted down the line for five years, by which point everyone hopes that it’ll be someone else’s problem. (Which is certainly the case for David Cameron.)

Every newspaper in Scotland tomorrow will look like this:

But what else happened?

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It’s quite incredible that someone with Jim Sillars’ political experience should be so naive about the tactics surrounding the EU referendum. Regardless of your feelings on the EU itself, there’s absolutely no point in any supporter of Scottish independence voting Leave this June, and here’s why.

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Alert readers can’t have failed to notice a desperate Scottish Labour dusting off the old “Tartan Tories” attack on the SNP recently, over the Nats’ unwillingness to join in with Kezia Dugdale’s kerrazy kaper of hiking up income tax.

So after today we can only assume they’ll be looking for some similarly pithy zingers for their colleagues in Wales. They can have this one for free.

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And you can’t say that every day.

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