Behind enemy lines 71
Posted on
August 01, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Michael Moore is the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Keep that in mind when you read the next line.
Archive for the ‘comment’
The squirrel parade 40
Posted on
August 01, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Some of the more cynical independence supporters among our readership may today be asking themselves “What is it that Labour are trying to bury today with all this ludicrously farcical ‘Labour For Independence’ business?”
Allow us to suggest a few possibilities.
Running scared 108
Posted on
August 01, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Labour voters are going to be key in deciding the outcome of the independence referendum. Even if everyone who voted SNP, Green or SSP in the last Holyrood election voted Yes in 2014, it wouldn’t be quite enough to secure a 50%+1 result.
But with polls consistently showing 15-20% of Labour voters are already in favour of independence, and also that a huge majority are dissatisfied with the status quo, it can be no surprise that the Unionist parties and media are extremely nervous of any growth in the Labour Yes faction.
But while nerves are one thing, blind panic is another.
The pride of Britain 149
Posted on
July 31, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s very rare, viewers, that we get so angry in the course of writing a post that we have to stop.
But when we ran a picture last night of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander MP, opening a foodbank with a cretinous smile on his face as if being a member of the government of a modern industrial nation in need of foodbanks was something to be happy about, a reader suggested making a gallery of similar images.
This is as many as we could bear.
Another country 137
Posted on
July 30, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Wings Over Scotland went to London last weekend, for no particular reason other than a change of scenery. After a trip to the faux-bohemian Camden Market – in which about six different stalls are now repeated over and over in a sad, gentrified mockery of its previous more anarchic life, yet while still maintaining much of the vibrant feel – we set off in no particular direction and found ourselves in Trafalgar Square.
Despite having been to the capital dozens of times, I’d never visited the home of Nelson’s Column, which is far bigger in real life than it looks in pictures, managing to dominate what is a very large plaza with no shortage of other imposing monuments and decorations. (Including the vast National Gallery and, at the moment, an incongruous enormous bright blue cockerel.)
Suitably inspired, we elected to take a stroll to the Embankment, past the London Eye, and from there on a walking tour of the heart of the British establishment. Searching for exploitable weaknesses, obviously.
Unfortunate juxtaposition 72
Posted on
July 29, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
From a heavily-spun Huffington Post piece on Scotland’s relationship with the monarchy, in which Dennis Canavan expressing a personal opinion when asked a question becomes an “outburst”. You know the sort of thing. (The story was also reported in the Telegraph as “Yes camp in disarray”, before a hasty rewrite.)
It’s an interesting definition of “overwhelming majority”, we’ll grant you. But it might explain why the No campaign apparently thinks it has the referendum won already.
One down 80
Posted on
July 28, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Empty chairs 68
Posted on
July 27, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As yet we’ve had no replies from anyone to our invitation to the Yes and No camps to conduct a public head-to-head independence debate. Dennis Canavan is on holiday at the moment, but none of Blair McDougall, Alistair Darling, Blair Jenkins or the official Yes and No campaigns have bothered to respond at all, despite both regularly proclaiming that they want to get the public more involved in the discussion.
It’s a dismally poor show from both sides. We’ll keep you posted.
An open invitation 177
Posted on
July 26, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We just had to have a lie down after wading through Tory councillor Tom Kerr’s speech in Bathgate last night. We don’t know if we dare inflict the full incoherent horror of it on you, to be honest. But something quite interesting happened after it.
A local activist stood up and asked Blair McDougall if David Cameron was prepared to debate Alex Salmond on independence, and his answer was enlightening.
The Bullshit Files 137
Posted on
July 26, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Tonight saw the launch of “Better Together Bathgate”, the No camp’s debut foray into our beloved hometown. The email advertising the event, sent out on the 15th of July, said “I hope to see you at the on 28th June” [sic], which might help to explain the rather sub-spectacular turnout of around 40 hardy souls from a town of 16,000.
Of that 40 or so, several (perhaps as many as a quarter) were dastardly pro-Yes spies. And we know that for certain, because one of them was ours.
The slowest reader in Scotland? 75
Posted on
July 25, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We don’t like to resort to personal abuse or crude language on this website, but we’re really struggling not to use the phrase “clueless thick comedy twat” here. Dammit.
Blair McDougall is the director of the “Better Together” campaign. He’s rumoured to be paid £100,000 a year. Yet his skills don’t appear to extend to reading the news.
Guest post: No more silence 31
Posted on
July 20, 2013 by
Scrap Trident Coalition
It has long been clear that, if they remain in government, the Tories intend to replace Trident, and this week’s Lib Dem Trident Alternatives Review shows that they are also committed to maintaining the UK as a nuclear state in the face of public opposition. But what of the Labour Party?
