Wings Over Scotland

Let’s all agree: from now on, anyone who says “An independent Scotland would have to join the Euro!” is either deliberately lying or a dribbling slack-jawed imbecile without the faintest idea of what they’re talking about.

As such their views should be dismissed with contempt, and ideally they should be chased out of town by an angry mob with pitchforks and flaming torches. We’d say Dr Zuleeg was pretty unequivocal and definitive on the subject here.

We wouldn’t like to suggest Unionists are clutching at straws this week, but:

Number of words actually spoken by David Bowie about independence: 4

Number of words written about it so far by major news outlets: 3,916

To be honest we stopped counting after that.

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Recently discovered by an alert reader, another gem revealing the sort of razor-sharp attention to statistical detail that led the UK into the most disastrous recession of all time, from a man who thinks the population of Scotland is six million:

“Asked if he fancied another crack at being chancellor in the future, Darling said: ‘At the moment I am totally focused on the [Scottish] referendum in October 2014, after that I will see where I stand.'”

Might want to work a little more on that focus, Cap’n.

(Quote from May 2013, two months after the referendum date was announced.)

One way or another, pretty much the entire history of mankind has been that of a struggle for power. Whether military conquest to secure resources, religious crusades to impose ideology or the fight for individual human rights, people across the globe have constantly striven for power over themselves and each other, and do to this day.

Scots seem to be the only exception.

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We’ve noted on several previous occasions the somewhat alarming way in which “Better Together” campaign chairman Alistair Darling can barely contain his fury at the sheer outrageous temerity of the independence movement in seeking to peacefully secure democratic self-determination for the people of Scotland.

We were all set for more of the same on BBC News this morning after Alex Salmond’s speech on currency, but were surprised to be met instead by a calm, softly-spoken and altogether more statesmanlike approach.

And in fairness, he kept it up for a good 15 seconds.

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This piece just appeared in a little corner of the Scottish Sun:

Kudos to the paper for raising the issue of the No camp’s incredible, almost Stalinist levels of censorship, known well to those inside the debate but only measured thanks to the diligent work of the Facebook group “Silenced by Better Together”.

We know the accusations are true because we’ve experienced it first-hand. Without ever posting anything abusive or offensive, we got ourselves deleted and blocked by BT within hours of first posting there, and we’ve seen countless examples of completely innocuous posts being removed and their authors blocked.

We do have one quick question, though.

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We’re always amused when we get our weekly email from “Better Together”, begging for money. Because that’s invariably what they are – the standard template is a short preamble about whatever the issue of the day is, followed by “which means you need to SEND US CASH NOW”. (We might be a crowd-funded website, but hey, at least we only ask readers to cough up a couple of times a year, not every few days.)

Sometimes we’re so busy chuckling at the convoluted panhandling of an organisation more used to six-figure cheques from Tory businessmen than soliciting the odd tenner from members of the public (and at the obvious lies like the second paragraph) that we miss a more interesting line. But we were on top of things this week.

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As we’ve noted before, the Independent is by a large distance the most English of all the UK’s “national” newspapers. Alone among its peers, it has no Scottish edition, no Scottish news section, no Scottish editor, not even a full-time Scottish correspondent. It struggles to shift 3,000 (not a typo – THREE thousand) copies a day in Scotland.

So if we were conducting a panel debate about Scotland on a news channel, we’re not sure that the paper’s chief political commentator Steve Richards is the guy we’d call for expertise. But the BBC, bless it, has other ideas.

That notwithstanding, today’s edition of Dateline London was an interesting watch. Correspondents from the USA, China and Greece, and host Gavin Esler, offered some largely insightful comments, only occasionally interrupted by Richards butting in in a desperate attempt to get the discussion back on the standard UK-media line.

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Sometimes you have to wonder if the Scottish Wars of Independence are actually over. Throughout many long centuries, Scottish independence was seen by England not just as a threat, but as something that wasn’t actually legal.

Throughout the medieval period, the argument revolved around homage – which Scottish King had done homage to which English king, hence confirming the fact of feudal overlordship and thus the Scottish monarch’s subordinate position. When that was denied, violence was the usual result. And in his own only slightly more modern way, George Osborne this week declared the same war once more.

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Labour’s Michael Kelly on last night’s Newsnight Scotland, explaining that Scottish Labour MPs and MSPs would “to a person” back Ed Balls refusing a currency union, even if it damaged Scotland, because otherwise Labour might lose a UK election:

It’s nice to know clearly and unambiguously where Scotland stands as far as Scottish Labour’s concerned, isn’t it, readers? The only purpose of Scottish votes is to get Labour into power at Westminster, even if it means hurting Scotland to do it.

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Britain and Scotland’s journalists have set a high bar for stupid today, but this might take the biscuit. Almost every half-cut hack and so-called expert who talks about the currency options open to Scotland casually mentions that Scotland “could join the Euro”. Whether such people are doing so through ignorance of the rules of the Eurozone or through malicious intent is for observers to decide, but either way, this particular piece of witless misinformation just will not go away.

So, let’s make it nice and easy for all the lazy people who can’t be bothered Googling “Eurozone Convergence Criteria”, shall we?

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It’s been hard to miss the constant shrieking from Unionists in recent days (and indeed, weeks and months) about the consequences of an independent Scotland telling the rUK where to shove its debt in the event of a non-cooperative approach to negotiations. The words “renege” and “default” are repeated constantly, sometimes dozens of times in a single interview, alongside dire warnings that international markets would regard Scotland as some sort of pariah state.

This is of course utter bumguts – to use the proper financial jargon – on about half a dozen levels. An independent Scotland would in such circumstances have no debt, a budget surplus (because our current deficit is entirely down to UK debt repayments – without those Scotland would be in the black BEFORE it even factored in savings from different policy choices, like the £800m a year on defence), and a vast reserve of tangible resources, most notably oil, as security.

The rUK, by comparison, would have a debt of £1,500,000,000,000 and a huge budget deficit. If you were going to lend someone money, would you choose the guy living within his means with plenty of assets, or the guy who already owes his entire annual salary and is still spending more than he earns?

Nevertheless, we were still intrigued to see the comments of Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, in his published advice to the Chancellor today, because we like it when people who aren’t on our side agree with us.

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