Wings Over Scotland

We had to give the BBC a nudge before it replied to the last of our three Freedom Of Information requests, but at least this time we didn’t just get the standard fob-off.

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Well done to everyone who correctly guessed that our Mystery Guest last night was indeed Ruth Davidson. If you’d like to listen to Ruth’s 2009 demo reel for voiceover work which accompanied the letter, click the image below.

From that to the leader of a major Scottish political party in just two years. Hats off.

Professor James Mitchell of Edinburgh University, 2 December 2013:

“Under what circumstances would a UK Government (or Scottish for that matter) incline towards cooperation or conflict in its relations with its neighbour? The key is motivations.

Nobody should expect either Government to be motivated by good will. London will owe Scotland nothing and Edinburgh will owe London nothing.  Self-interest will dictate behaviour. Neither Government will act against its own self-interest but neither will act spitefully unless it wants to inflict harm on itself long-term.”

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The realisation that the No camp’s reaction to the independence White Paper has been based on a massive, scarcely-believable misunderstanding/misrepresentation of reality has thrown a new light on all sorts of things from the past week.

The most recent “BLACK HOLE!” story is a case in point.

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As a living embodiment of the posh, braying public-school Tory-boy stereotype, Fraser Nelson of the Spectator used to reside in our “Zany Comedy Relief” links bar until we kicked him out for rarely lowering himself to write about Scotland.

But his guest appearance in today’s Telegraph we enjoyed at least parts of.

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In “breaking news” during a dull ding-dong of a debate on Wednesday’s Newsnight Scotland, we were breathlessly told that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had made an important intervention in the debate about whether Scotland should keep paying for railway lines between London and Birmingham, weapons of mass destruction and Ian Davidson’s expenses. (We paraphrase.)

Stopping just short of a drum-roll or mariachi band (yes, those are Mexican, but are you telling us BBC Scotland would know the difference?), viewers were dramatically informed that in a major new development Mariano Rajoy had said… exactly what he’s been saying for most of the last two years. 

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We’re still dutifully ploughing through “Scotland’s Future”, but in truth we’re not really its target audience. We’re already convinced, and much of it is just like reading our own articles back except in rather blander language. What we can definitely say for certain is that it doesn’t lack detail – the composition of an independent Scotland’s armed forces, for example, is laid out almost down to the rifle.

Naturally, that didn’t stop the No camp from rushing onto the nation’s TV screens within minutes of the press launch ending with their considered, serious and thoughtful assessments of a document none of them had read.

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There’s an atrocious piece of journalism in this morning’s Guardian, and on this particular occasion we’re referring to its technical standards rather than any bias or spin. Here are the opening paragraphs:

“The Treasury has claimed Scotland’s voters will face tax rises of £1,000 per head after independence unless the next Scottish government immediately cuts billions of pounds in spending.

In a calculated effort to undermine the release on Tuesday of the landmark white paper outlining the case for Scottish independence, the Treasury said those increases would hit 2.4m people now paying the basic rate of income tax.

It said the alternative, according to the most optimistic scenario for Scotland’s economy and debt levels sketched out last week by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, would be to cut public spending by £3bn more than the UK government plans by 2021.”

We’re confused already.

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So today we got a response from the BBC to our Freedom Of Information request concerning this story. Those of you who’ve ever sent an FOI request to the state broadcaster before probably won’t need to read any further.

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We’re indebted to an extra-specially-alert reader who keeps an eye on the Spanish press for us. Last week, leading newspaper El Pais carried a story which reported an interview given by Alistair Carmichael to various foreign media. The first paragraph contains a quote which Google Translate renders thus:

“If Scotland becomes a foreign country, we will treat [it] as a foreign country.”

A fascinating use of “we” there from the Secretary of State for Portsmouth, we’re sure you’ll agree. (Though we’re not sure who “we” would be in that scenario, as if Scotland was independent there’d be no Scottish Secretary and no Scottish MPs, so we can’t quite fathom what Mr Carmichael’s locus would be in the matter.)

We’d be prepared to chalk it down to the vagaries of automated translation, were it not for the fact that the minister said basically the same thing twice more this weekend, first referring to Scotland as “they” on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday morning, and then repeatedly as “her” on The Sunday Politics.

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There’s an interesting piece from Lesley Riddoch in this morning’s Scotsman, pointing out that “Better Together” is scared to put its prospectus for a Scotland inside the UK to the electorate, preferring a purely destructive critical approach to the Yes side’s:

“If this was an important individual decision like the choice between two homes or two cars, you can bet your bottom dollar the pros and cons of each option would be minutely listed, questioned and compared by prudent consumers.

And yet as citizens we are content to make a decision on the future of Scotland based on scrutinising the apparent shortcomings of the independence option only.”

But while the piece echoes one we wrote last weekend pointing out that Scots will be choosing between two different futures next September (not just opting to keep things as they are) Riddoch doesn’t quite capture the full extent of the No camp’s cowardice, because she misses one important point.

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(Story.)