Wings Over Scotland

We’ve commented before on the odd way that newspapers can reveal their bias in the way they phrase their reporting, rather than in the actual content of it, which can be entirely factually accurate. As we noted, a particular giveaway is the angle from which they view statistics, and especially opinion polls.

A poll showing 35% of people backing independence will almost always be reported as “ONLY a third back Yes”, whereas one with the exact same numbers for a different question might be presented as “OVER a third distrust Alex Salmond”. The proportion “one third” is in such a manner portrayed as being both a small and a large one, to suit whatever position the publication wishes to promote.

It’s in such a context that we invite readers to ponder today’s Mail On Sunday.

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This coming Thursday, March 13, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling will take part in an event at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, where he will be put “under public scrutiny at the hands of James Naughtie”, the presenter of the BBC’s flagship daily radio news show Good Morning Scotland.

Mr Naughtie, who was brought up from London to head BBC Scotland’s referendum coverage last year, has been frequently criticised by a former presenter of the same programme, Derek Bateman, for a failure to display an even-handed tone when questioning representatives of the Yes and No sides.

So we thought of an easy way for Mr Naughtie to put a stop to such allegations.

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It’s still hard for some people to believe in poverty in Scotland.

You could argue the word has been trampled into meaninglessness by overuse. It’s a constant in news reports these days, which most of us watch on nice TVs in our houses filled with cosy centrally-heated air, shielded from reality with expensive gadgets and convenience food and a million distracting channels of celebrity fluff.

You need only look at the comments section below any online news story on foodbanks or deprivation and you’ll always find at least one comfortable middle-class person saying we have no poverty.

What about those in the developing countries, they’ll piously lecture, who need to trek miles just for water? Our “relative” poverty – having less than your neighbours – is an offence to those who go hungry and thirsty on a regular basis.

But next week, the gap between Glasgow and those benighted TV images of parts of the third world ravaged by famine or war is going to feel just a little bit smaller.

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Last weekend, Scotland on Sunday ran a major story entitled “Scottish independence: Pension funds seek answers”, the theme of which was self-evident.

“Pension funds will step up calls for clarity over the implications of independence this week as the industry’s leaders gather for a key conference in Edinburgh.

The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has warned that more answers are needed if its members are able to make informed decisions ahead of September’s referendum.

‘I’m not sure we’re any further forward in getting answers to our questions,’ NAPF chief executive Joanne Segars told Scotland on Sunday. ‘It’s not for us or our members to tell people in Scotland how to vote but our members face a lot of issues around ­regulation, compensation schemes and scheme funding.’

‘But it is the funding of cross-border schemes that most urgently needs to be addressed‘, she added. Under European Union law, pension schemes with members both in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK would need to be fully funded at all times. In the November report, NAPF said such a regime would result in more final salary schemes closing.”

(Our emphasis.) Since then, of course, there have been some developments.

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Some Friday-night entertainment, courtesy of an alert reader.

Remember, folks – a No vote in September is a vote to give UKIP a major influence over your life. A Yes banishes them forever. Your decision.

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From the Norwich Evening News, 4 March 2014:

“‘It is ridiculous that independence for Scotland is even being given consideration at all.

Much blood was spilled over centuries to bring the home nations together.

It’s disrespectful to the honour of those that suffered to think that a cross on a ballot paper can undo that. National pride and patriotism is what being a Scot is all about, and there is not a nation in the world that has more of it than Scotland. We don’t need economic independence to prove it.’

Blair Ainslie is managing director of Great Yarmouth-based offshore firm Seajacks. He hails from Dunbar, East Lothian and moved south of the border in 1979.”

That one’s making our head spin.

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It’s a really slow news day today, so here’s an extended report from the Met Office.

The outlook in the event of a No vote: this is as good as it gets.

Johann Lamont attracts a considerable amount of criticism – largely, it ought to be conceded, from SNP and Yes supporters, but also from the media – for her inability to deviate from her prepared text at First Minister’s Questions when the FM’s answer isn’t what she was expecting it to be.

But she’s not the only one in her party with that problem.

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Here’s a story on the front page of the Guardian website.

Below is the headline you see when you actually click on the link.

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As we noted last week, Eton- and Sandhurst-educated Sir Norman Arthur, figurehead of the No campaign’s latest high-powered grassroots fundraising drive, has a very impressive military record – Commanding Officer of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Commander of the 7th Armoured Brigade, General Officer Commanding of the 3rd Armoured Division, General Officer Commanding of Scotland and mentioned in despatches during the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

It’s just lucky the IRA didn’t have Twitter, or things might have been different.

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Here’s a “Better Together” spokesman on Alex Salmond’s New Statesman lecture:

“Alex Salmond seems to have ditched his plan to be best pals with the rest of the UK and has instead decided to tell the English, Welsh and Northern Irish people how rubbish they are.”

We were there. Want to know what he actually said about England?

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So we’re just letting this one slide, are we?

“[David Mundell], who next year will mark 10 years as the only Tory MP in Scotland, says, if there is a Yes vote, the First Minister’s declaration of Independence Day will have no legal status and be merely an aspiration.”

The Edinburgh Agreement seems increasingly not worth the paper it’s written on.