The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Archive for the ‘comment’


Something worth remembering 237

Posted on March 19, 2015 by

From politics.co.uk this morning:

“Those hoping that a Labour government would look very different from the current Conservative-led government are likely to be disappointed.

Asked by the Today programme what he would reverse from Osborne’s Budget yesterday, Ed Balls replied that there was nothing.

Looks like we’ve slept in again 172

Posted on March 19, 2015 by

Sometimes the UK media is so soul-crushingly moronic, readers, that it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. Nevertheless, we’re pretty sure we haven’t nodded off and woken up in 2017, so today’s papers must be even more idiotic than usual.

ampp3d

telegraphobr

Read the rest of this entry →

A close call 201

Posted on March 18, 2015 by

The Daily Record, five days before the independence referendum:

recordnhs

The Times, earlier this month:

timesnhs

Phew! Thank goodness for that No vote, eh readers?

A question for the Labour Party 243

Posted on March 17, 2015 by

From a piece on Labour’s welfare shadow Rachel Reeves in today’s Guardian.

scumreeves1

So… who DOES represent those people, then?

Read the rest of this entry →

What’s your point, caller? 288

Posted on March 17, 2015 by

For those of you who missed it, me ringing in to the Kaye Adams show this morning.

Read the rest of this entry →

Cross-vortex perspectives 105

Posted on March 17, 2015 by

Editorial in today’s Scottish Sun:

sunscot1

The Scottish Sun is around 80% the same newspaper as the English edition (with the bulk of the difference being accounted for by football coverage) so presumably the south-of-the-border version has a broadly similar view, right?

Read the rest of this entry →

The old hand 195

Posted on March 17, 2015 by

If we’re honest, readers, we almost never bother with BBC Scotland’s televised political coverage any more. We suspect the viewing figures for Scotland 2015 are down to fingers-and-toes territory now, and if last night’s edition – which we gritted our teeth and watched after noting the incredulous response on social media – is anything to go by, the state broadcaster is now using it to try out work-experience kids.

But we can cut fresh-faced new boy David Henderson (who suffered the indignity of being billed as Sarah Smith) a bit of slack for being outmanoeuvred by an experienced operator like Jim Murphy, who at one point in the show was actually interrogating the presenter rather than the other way round.

Kirsty Wark, regular anchor on the Corporation’s current-affairs flagship Newsnight, on the other hand, has no such excuses whatsoever.

Read the rest of this entry →

The squishy floor 146

Posted on March 16, 2015 by

Alert readers will have to decide for themselves whether bravado or sheer desperation is to blame, but Scottish Labour just can’t seem to stop themselves from lying to the people of Scotland about the formation of the next government.

Mindbogglingly, the party has just released a video in which Jim Murphy repeats the lie again, and in today’s Daily Record its Ayrshire candidate Sandra Osborne openly admits that “We are talking to people on the doorstep explaining that whoever ends up the biggest party after the election will form the next government”, despite it having been proved beyond the tiniest shred of dispute that that’s simply not true.

Fortunately, reinforcements have arrived.

Read the rest of this entry →

Putting [INSERT NAME HERE] first 134

Posted on March 16, 2015 by

When someone sent us a link last week to a picture of an Anas Sarwar election leaflet, we were immediately struck by the fact that it had the weird characteristic of being ostensibly handwritten but underlining every word in a sentence individually, which reminded us of one we’d seen from Douglas Alexander back in January.

So after a busy weekend of saving stray cats from going blind, we went to dig the two leaflets out, in the modest hope of getting a quick cheap joke about them both using the same fake-handwriting font. But instead we got a bit of a surprise.

puttingxfirst

Read the rest of this entry →

Spoken in jest 266

Posted on March 16, 2015 by

From today’s Sun (English edition only, natch).

image

This is how Scotland is seen in the largest part of the UK today. There’s nothing at all new about Scots being portrayed as “stealing” money rightfully belonging to England, of course, nor in the stereotype depicted by the Jimmy hat. It’s the word on the placard that tells the story: “immigrant”.

Read the rest of this entry →

The lemon pledges 92

Posted on March 15, 2015 by

A lot of people this week quoted a line supposedly from the former Labour cabinet minister Roy Jenkins, which runs “a statement is only interesting if a sane man could say the opposite”. We haven’t been able to verify if he ever really said that or not, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s true either way.

pledgecard

So where that leaves this mess is anyone’s guess.

Read the rest of this entry →

So, yeah, this happened 274

Posted on March 14, 2015 by

ig2015

More than two weeks still to go. We don’t really know what to say, readers.

Read the rest of this entry →

  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.

    Stats: 6,975 Posts, 1,250,317 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Burnham gave him a wee piece of Manchesterism to play with. Said “Here you go, John, you can be King…Sep 4, 23:41
    • James on Anything But That: “Cheers, girls; you’ve proved my point. As expected.Sep 4, 23:10
    • willie on Anything But That: “Water was hived into East , West and North before it it was fettled up to become Scottish Water. A…Sep 4, 23:05
    • Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “2+2=5.Sep 4, 22:50
    • willie on Anything But That: “Water was hived into East , West and North before it it was fettled up to become Scottish Water. A…Sep 4, 22:47
    • Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “@ James says: 4 September, 2026 at 9:33 pm “all they have is inults” Side splitting for two reasons, the…Sep 4, 22:25
    • Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: ““Fourteen health boards into two” Why two? Theoretical mathematicians argues there are only 3 numbers worth dealing with: zero, one…Sep 4, 22:18
    • Aidan on Anything But That: “Oh it’s “James” – this should be good Adult nappy.Sep 4, 21:59
    • Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Baby Swinney says “We are going to make the NHS great again. Believe me. We’re going to march down there…Sep 4, 21:42
    • James on Anything But That: “oh, Yoon pile-on. As usual all they have is inults. Keep going, Alf, you’re getting to them. Truth hurts and…Sep 4, 21:33
    • Aidan on Anything But That: “So if you reject the authority of the courts, are you proposing for your ideas to lead to a violent…Sep 4, 21:24
    • Chas on Anything But That: “I fail to see the detailed analysis. I do see the usual mince. Figures plucked out of thin air yet…Sep 4, 21:19
    • Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: ““No person or institution that took part in negotiating, agreeing, signing, or ratifying the 1707 Treaty of Union ever held…Sep 4, 21:01
    • Xaracen on Anything But That: “@Aidan; The question of lawful authority in 1707 is not a matter for judicial discretion. It is a matter of…Sep 4, 20:58
    • Aidan on Anything But That: “Yes Alf – your tautological proposition is: – if Scotland was wealthier than Norway (because) then Scotland would be wealthier…Sep 4, 20:49
    • Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: ““places a liberated Scotland above Norway” Wow, fifty years of Scotland’s oil wealth being “plundered by England”. Fifty years of…Sep 4, 20:42
    • Aidan on Anything But That: “If it’s irrefutable Xaracen – then why not argue it in court where these matters are properly determined?Sep 4, 20:06
    • Chas on Anything But That: “The usual mince from the supposedly learned professor. Figures plucked from thin air and a conclusion that does not stand…Sep 4, 19:51
    • Xaracen on Anything But That: “@Aidan; “Ultimately – those proposing independence are those proposing to change the status quo.” And so they absolutely should! The…Sep 4, 19:48
    • Alf Baird on Anything But That: ““If there is anybody who genuinely believes in this £150+ billion a year figure” Well here’s another quite detailed analysis…Sep 4, 19:42
    • Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Seems like hardly any time since you were telling us it’s £200 billion a year. Whatever, what’s £50 billion between…Sep 4, 18:52
    • Alf Baird on Anything But That: ““The court in The Hague reckons the Orcs owe $4.22 billion” Small beer, or the cost of one dodgy aircraft…Sep 4, 16:34
    • Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Respect to the Norwegians. They’re rediscovering their inner Viking and taking back control of the seas around their coastline. All…Sep 4, 14:28
    • Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Aye, James, breaths there as many as even ten True Sovereign Scots who have not, on reading your post, redoubled…Sep 4, 13:42
    • Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: ““highly valuable natural resources” Odd that nobody, either in Scotland or outside, knew we had any highly valuable natural resources…Sep 4, 13:36
    • Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Dear Slave, Shut up and eat your porridge or we will stop your privileges. Yours faithfully Sir Biggus ‘Fluffy’ Dickus…Sep 4, 13:22
    • James Che on Anything But That: “There is ni UK parliament concerning Scotland, as the UK parliament has a start date of origin of 1800, When…Sep 4, 12:03
    • James Che on Anything But That: “Willie, Jacob rees Mog was on his podcast yesterday praising that should the lights go out, not to worry as…Sep 4, 11:58
    • Northcode on Anything But That: ““Plunder Scotland (UK) is a carpetbagging operation largely owned by non-Scottish, foreign ‘investors’ and overseen by Westminster who takes a…Sep 4, 11:15
    • Anthem on Anything But That: “Well said Wullie.Sep 4, 11:03
  • A tall tale



↑ Top