Wings Over Scotland

Supporters of independence are enjoying an unusual feeling this morning – enjoying an issue of the Daily Mail. A screaming front-page headline warns of a “CRISIS” in the No campaign, and a double-page spread inside lays into “Better Together” chairman Alistair Darling, while Professor John Curtice lambasts the work of the ex-Chancellor and his team of “Abominable No Men” to date, noting that:

“To be effective, a campaign message needs three qualities. It needs to tell voters something new about a subject that matters to them, it has to be delivered by a credible source and it should not be widely disputed. The No side’s messages have fallen flat on all three grounds.

The No side often gives the impression constant criticism of independence will win the day. Maybe it is time for it to think again.”

And in fairness, the Unionist camp has reacted positively.

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Sorry we’ve been a bit post-light today, readers. The phone’s barely stopped ringing, and when it did it was only for long enough to scratch the surface of an avalanche of tweets and emails, all concerning this week’s zany goings-on with the Glasgow Subway. Suffice it to say that you haven’t heard half of what’s transpired yet, but we hope to bring you the full story pretty soon.

For now, for anyone who missed them, STV, BBC and the Guardian.

So, who wants to play a wee fun quiz game over how many responses we’ve had from the members of Labour’s Devolution Commission to our polite request for clarification of some issues regarding their post-No taxation policy?

(a) None, still not even a single form acknowledgement of our email?

(b) Oh, you got it already.

It’s almost as if they wanted to pretend it didn’t exist, isn’t it?

The advert below is being distributed by Glasgow Subway to its passengers today.

But that’s okay, because it’s not “political”.

We think we might have just worked out why Scottish newspaper sales are in irreversible decline, readers. It’s because if you buy the papers for about two weeks you can just keep them in a drawer, bring them out a few weeks later and read all the same stories again without having to pay for them twice.

Because in the Scottish media, every day is Groundhog Day.

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Still not a single email, nor even a simple acknowledgement, in response to our list of polite, factual questions about Labour’s proposals for “enhanced” devolution. We also tweeted every member of the Devolution Commission with a Twitter account yesterday to ask if they’d be replying, and haven’t had a response from any of them.

Tune in tomorrow for the latest developments!

There’s an interesting survey over on the Herald at the moment. Self-selecting and therefore non-scientific, it’s nevertheless quite intriguing, with (the paper notes) strong support for the Scottish Government’s positions on childcare, Trident, renationalising the Royal Mail and encouraging more flights from Scottish airports, but opposition to its plans to cut Corporation Tax.

A couple of the other results, though, are reported a bit more oddly.

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Our collection of toe-curling Johann Lamont interviews from Labour’s party-conference weekend wouldn’t be complete without the longest one, in which the BBC’s Brian Taylor proves that while he might be a toothless pussycat as an analyst, he takes no prisoners as an interviewer.

It’s been impossible to avoid a negative tone in the last few days, readers, because the Scottish Labour conference is like a dark storm-cloud of hatred, raining grimy, toxic lies and hypocrisy into the political landscape, and the print media wallowed around in the evil, sucking glaur it produced until everything was thick with concealing mud that plugged the yawning holes in the party’s promises.

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“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

It’s one of the most famous lines in the history of cinema. I’ve heard it a hundred times. And lately, to me, it’s a pretty fair summation of everything that’s gone wrong in Scottish Labour’s relationship with both its own members and its voters.

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Earlier this week we noticed the curious lack of media coverage of the “Devo Nano” report. As the document spelling out Labour’s “more powers” offer to Scotland in the event of a No vote, its release was ostensibly the most important milestone so far in the independence debate, so we found it very strange to see it get such a muted reception, particularly from the Daily Record.

Two days later the explanation arrived, in the form of the so-called “Red Paper”. Described by some journalists as a “mini-manifesto”, it was a 64-page uncosted wishlist of vague feelgood notions like reducing child poverty. (A brave, daring and controversial step there to be sure.) And this time the papers were all over it.

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We think this picture makes further comment unnecessary.

The last 40 years of UK politics accurately summarised in 30 seconds.

(From episode 3 of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, still on iPlayer at time of writing.)