Wings Over Scotland

This afternoon we reluctantly watched some of the House Of Commons debate entitled “Scotland’s Place In The UK”, because it’s our job. It was as dispiriting as its arrogant and presumptuous title suggests, and we could bear no more by about a third of the way through and went off to do something less annoying, like thread a muddy needle under a stroboscope while wearing boxing gloves and listening to One Direction.

Nevertheless, we managed to pick out a few choice lines at the time, and a few more from Hansard this evening, with our blood pressure soothed by merely having to read, not watch, Labour, Lib Dem and Tory MPs alike braying and hooting throughout, behaving with a lack of dignity and class that would have shamed a chimp’s tea party.

(Or as Labour’s Willie Bain put it, “the best of the House of Commons”.)

The winner is below.

Read the rest of this entry →

This. This actually happened. We’re not making it up. Click it and see.

Go on, read it again. We dare you.

Read the rest of this entry →

For some time now, we’ve been documenting a couple of intriguing aspects of the No campaign. One is its apparent shortage of grassroots activists, leaving “Better Together” to instead rely on the Scottish and UK media to get its message out. The other is a reluctance to engage in public debate with adults.

Where BT has deigned to participate in public hustings at all, the bulk of the events have been those at schools and colleges. Invited to debate independence in front of crowds of grown-ups, the No camp is oddly reticent, as we discovered ourselves last year when we offered to pay for and set up a head-to-head, with a neutral and mutually-approved chair, between respective campaign figureheads Dennis Canavan and Alistair Darling, getting only abuse in response.

Of course, a bunch of evil cybernats such as ourselves might expect to be rebuffed. But what if the cuddly, respectable official Yes Scotland organisation had a go?

Read the rest of this entry →

There’s a remarkable piece in today’s Scotsman that we had to share with you:

And if you think that magnificent headline’s good, wait until you hear the rest.

Read the rest of this entry →

Peter Arnott in The Global Dispatches, 29 January 2014:

“We have been tempted to believe in Scotland that our tactical pattern of voting one way in a Westminster elections and another in Holyrood elections would continue to shelter us from the worst neo-liberal excesses of Westminster – our parliament after all came into existence as a retroactive shelter from what was inflicted on us (and everyone else in non-Tory Britain) the last time the Conservatives were in power. 

We are still behaving as if this is the case even while history is whisking that carpet from underneath our feet.”

And that, readers, is why it matters that I live in England.

Read the rest of this entry →

We do hope none of these shock troops get caught up and hurt in the lovebombing.

Scottish independence: Cable warns of VAT on food

Caroline Flint warns that independence would mean £875 on energy bills

Warning of risk to transport links after Yes vote

No camp in grocery price rise claims (NB unrelated to VAT)

RBS would move to London if Scotland breaks away

That’s all just today. Anyone sound frightened to you?

Read the rest of this entry →

Here’s the Herald today on YouGov’s latest independence polling:

“Support for independence has remained unchanged with one in three voters wanting Scotland to leave the UK, the latest poll shows. The YouGov survey put support for a Yes vote at 33%, trailing backing for No on 52%. A further 12% were undecided with the rest saying they would not vote in the referendum on September 18.

Yesterday, a wealthy American man who as far as we know won’t have a vote in the referendum expressed a personal opinion about independence which made the front page of half of Scotland and Britain’s newspapers, was trumpeted all over the TV and radio, and got “Better Together” very excited.

This morning some idiot based in Luxembourg honked about it on BBC Breakfast news, throwing in his own clueless and ill-informed (and of course, unchallenged) view. We’re having some difficulty working out why we’re supposed to care about either man’s position, or why they were given lots of free airtime to espouse them.

Read the rest of this entry →

On the eve of Wings Over Scotland’s 2000th post, we thought we’d celebrate.

Because today we learned something strange.

Read the rest of this entry →

It seems that today marked the official start of the much-vaunted “lovebombing” campaign aimed at persuading Scots to stay in the UK by showing them how much they’re loved by the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The opening salvo did some unfortunate and costly collateral damage, but luckily the Union had a white knight following close behind to smooth over any injured feelings.

Would you like to meet him, readers?

Read the rest of this entry →

There’s both good and bad news for the embattled Scottish Labour “leader” in today’s newspapers. But before we get to that, we’d like you to watch this.

The gent posing the rather lengthy question is Sean Clerkin, the man Iain Gray hid from in Subway. We must admit we’re not quite sure why he thinks Johann Lamont has anything to do with Atos sponsoring the Commonwealth Games – something which would presumably be a matter for the Scottish Government and/or Glasgow City Council, neither of which she controls – but the Labour MSP’s reaction is remarkable.

Read the rest of this entry →

We were a little perplexed this morning by the Daily Record’s banner headline.

And not just because of the unusually generous use by the Labour-supporting paper of the term “SNP Government” (rather than “Scottish Goverment”) on a good-news story.

Read the rest of this entry →