Wings Over Scotland

From today’s Herald:

Mmm, that’s positive.

The ever-delightful Taxpayers’ Alliance, speaking at the Conservative conference:

We’re not sure about that last line, chaps.

The newspaper is a fantastic concept. A cheap, accessible product, it’s a brilliant way of keeping yourself broadly abreast of current affairs. You turn a page and are presented with a diverse selection of interesting stories, often on subjects you’d never have thought to go and seek out in the self-refining echo chamber of the internet.

(Theoretically links on websites serve the same purpose, but dodging “sponsored” advertorial, gutter-level clickbait, pop-ups, autoplay video and pages that judder and leap around so much while loading all this rubbish that you’re about 50/50 to have an epileptic fit before you can read the story, has made clicking on one into a game of Russian Roulette fewer and fewer people are willing to take a chance on.)

This site has never believed that the ongoing steep decline in newspaper sales is a fundamental problem with the format. Rather, the truth is that people stop buying papers because they’re full of garbage.

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You might have thought that the publication of the “Project Fear” book last month was an embarrassment for the motley collection of highly-paid but hapless Labour and Tory apparatchiks who ran “Better Together”, but it turns out there was worse to come.

Politics Home today reports what sounds like some alarming news:

“Pro-EU campaigners in Better Together talks

Informal discussions have taken place with Blair McDougall, who was campaign director of the cross-party body which successfully defeated the Scottish separatists.”

But put down that noose and cough up those pills, Europe-lovers.

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An alert reader last night reminded us of a story from March this year:

It told a chilling tale.

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An extract from First Minister’s Questions earlier today:

That was Kezia Dugdale’s opening question. Despite the Presiding Officer making it absolutely clear that the question was improper and outwith Holyrood’s remit, the Scottish Labour leader went on to use her entire allotted time on the issue. She was then followed by Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson doing the same.

The people of Scotland are being done a grave disservice.

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Alert social-media users couldn’t have failed to notice Unionist activists and hacks working themselves up into a very great lather last night over (currently former) SNP MP Michelle Thomson. The ex-director of Business For Scotland has resigned the party whip and is now sitting, at least temporarily, as an independent while police conduct an investigation into some property purchases in which she was involved.

As yet no criminal activity by anyone has been alleged, and Police Scotland has said that it has no plans at the moment to even interview Ms Thomson, let alone arrest or charge her. As yet it’s a political non-story.

But the mere proximity of the member for Edinburgh West – previously the victim of a smear related to the Ashley Madison website hacking – to even a sniff of impropriety has triggered a paroxysm amongst the media and the beleagured opposition.

Amusingly, some senior journalists have even tweeted an accusatory blog written by Labour activist and regular BBC pundit Ian Smart, whose own membership of the Labour Party remains a subject of uncertainty after a series of abusive incidents – Scottish Labour have persistently refused to confirm whether he’s been expelled, despite having been “investigating” him since April.

But that’s not the most interesting piece of hypocrisy on show.

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Neil Kinnock, 1987:

Did voters come home to Labour? No.

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We know that the media isn’t normally shy about identifying which side of the Scottish independence debate people are on, especially if they’ve been behaving badly.

So we were a little puzzled by the papers this morning.

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In the spirit of straight talking, honest politics, I’m going to put my cards on the table right now: I’m a Corbyn voter. As a classic hand-wringing, middle-class, North London leftie, the mad fact of Jeremy Corbyn’s candidacy compelled me to register as a Labour supporter; empowered me to bet £3 on the foolish notion that Something More might somehow, suddenly, be achievable.

In no small part, I was inspired to do this by what happened in Scotland this year. I’m sure many of us were: finally, a viable political force south of Berwick was willing to show two fingers to austerity.

And if anyone called us out, if they told us we were crazy and that nobody would vote for such a “loony”, “radical”, “hard-left” candidate? Well, then we had a perfect example just north of the border to throw back at them. The SNP had hoovered up 50% of the vote on an anti-austerity ticket, and after all, aren’t we one nation? One people fighting for a common cause, et cetera? Couldn’t we put labels aside and work together?

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Given that he’s the last Labour MP left in Scotland, it’s perhaps just as well that Ian Murray is a quite interesting figure, because there’s going to be a lot of attention on him in the next five years.

Unlike the over-promoted, under-skilled, Buggins’-turn knife-and-fork-operators who’ve disgraced what were previously weigh-the-vote Labour constituencies in Scotland for decades, the member for Edinburgh South has some genuinely admirable qualities. As we noted before the election, he’s earned a reputation as a hard-working local MP: holding surgeries, replying diligently to letters and speaking up in the Commons.

He’s got a sense of humour about his lonely role, he’s the only Unionist politician ever to talk to Wings on the record, and on account of running a large tent at the Bath Festival most years he’s well known to several of our good friends in the city, who all speak highly of his personal character and work ethic.

So in all seriousness, we’re not without respect for the man. Which makes it all the more painful every time he opens his mouth.

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