Wings Over Scotland

For the seasoned political analyst (and also for idiots like us), it can be hard to offer a rational explanation for why any thinking human being would ever believe a word the Labour Party says about anything any more.

It came to power 16 years ago promising to introduce electoral reform, then ditched it. (But still hilariously claims to be committed to the principle despite 100 years of failing to deliver it.) It also pledged not to introduce university tuition fees, then introduced them. It campaigned for re-election on a promise not to increase them, then increased them. It – well, we could go on all day, just about tuition fees alone.

But let’s cut to the chase and move up to the present day.

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Vince Cable in today’s Herald:

“Millions of Scots will lose out on an RBS share bonanza worth up to £800 if they choose independence, Business Secretary Vince Cable has warned.

The Treasury is considering giving every taxpayer in the UK shares in RBS as part of a give-away ahead of the next general election. Coalition sources calculate the windfall could be worth £400 to £800 per person.

Coalition Cabinet minister Mr Cable said his Liberal Democrat party backed the payout to ensure taxpayers benefit from 2008’s billion-pound bailout of the Edinburgh institution, although he cautioned the Coalition not to “rush” the process.

Asked if Scots would get a chance to benefit in an independent Scotland, he said: “No. It is at the moment vested in the British Government.”

Even leaving aside the astonishingly crude bribery/blackmail aspect, we’re still a bit confused. Unionists constantly tell us that RBS is “Scottish”, and that therefore an independent Scotland should take on all of its debt. But apparently the people of the rUK will still own the whole bank, so they’ll get all the shares and the profits.

Sometimes, readers, it really does seem like the No camp is devoting most of its anti-independence efforts to putting us out of a job.

An alert reader gives us advance notice that the BBC are planning a live online readers’-question-and-answer session with Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Something to coincide with the Scottish Lib Dem spring conference next week. Here’s the one we submitted – we feel sure the BBC will select it to ask him.

“Mr Rennie, do you think it’s conducive to a constructive debate to insultingly refer to people who disagree with you as ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’, as you did in response to the recent vote in favour of independence by a large branch of the postal-workers’ union which covered your own parliamentary region? Would it have been acceptable for Blair Jenkins or Nicola Sturgeon to dismiss all the Glasgow University students who voted No in their mock referendum as ‘daft wee kids who don’t know anything about life’?”

Why not send in yours too?

The Scottish Sun Says, 7th March 2013:

“Here’s a radical idea for the Better Together campaign.

Just once, just for a change, let’s hear something positive about why Scotland would be better staying part of the United Kingdom. Because frankly, the scare stories are wearing a bit thin.

The latest is over a leaked SNP document that’s cue for a doom-laden warning about slashing pensions, cutting defence spending and shedding public sector jobs. Strip away the hysteria and what you actually have is a sensible Government prepared to make sensible decisions about spending. A Government aware they are operating in a tough economic climate where there is no bottomless pit of money.

And that’s whether you’re an independent country or part of the UK. Is there a single household in Scotland that doesn’t have similar conversations about what they can and can’t afford? It would be a shambolic Government that didn’t behave in the same responsible way.

Bear in mind, too, this document was written a year ago in different economic circumstances and that oil prices and revenues have risen. The net effect and the hard fact is that the finances of Scots are £863-a-head healthier than the rest of the UK.

Or isn’t that scary enough to tell folk?“

We think the Scotsman may finally have jumped the shark this morning. A piece by Scott Macnab (which we’re not going to link to, but have made a local copy of) on the No campaign’s year-old “decoy dossier” from yesterday is so extraordinarily, laughably biased and transparently dishonest that it couldn’t see even the most distant edges of decent, honourable journalism with the Hubble Space Telescope.

It is, however, just the most nakedly partisan of a series of Scottish newspaper headlines and lead stories this morning that once and for all give the lie to the notion that the country is served by anything remotely resembling a fair and balanced media.

We’ve spoken a few times of the “swarm of wasps” approach to large-scale lying that’s frequently deployed by the anti-independence movement. But this week’s desperate, co-ordinated, all-fronts onslaught on truth is more akin to a sudden mass infestation of hundreds of nasty, disease-ridden little bugs, trying to be too many to stamp on.

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Students of the Scottish media weren’t exactly surprised when the BBC’s Glenn Campbell published a story yesterday lunchtime (12.07pm) entitled “Scottish independence: Luxembourg warns against ‘going separate ways'” and opening with the more specific line “The government of Luxembourg has warned against Scotland becoming an independent country.”

Experienced observers were considerably less than astonished when the government of Luxembourg issued an angry denial a few hours later (reported at 5.57pm), claiming that their minister’s words had been misrepresented by the UK state broadcaster. News site Wort.lu reported:

“Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister has backtracked on a comment about Scotland’s independence which was quoted in the British media, saying it was misinterpreted.”

So far so standard, then.

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Last week (Feb 28th, to be precise) marked the anniversary of the founding of arguably the most successful mass anti-nuclear protest movement the world has ever seen. We’re talking, of course, of the Nevada-Semipalatinsk Anti-Nuclear Movement, which was active between 1989 and 1991.

If – for some unaccountable reason – you haven’t heard of it, then read on, for it’s a tale of how the ordinary people of a provincial part of the former Soviet Union found that a mass protest movement, well-organised and with right on its side, forced an intransigent, distant government to concede its demands. Are there lessons for the people of Scotland in their story? Let’s find out.

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You’ve got to admit, this is pretty fast work.

Daily Record, 23rd February 2013:

The Herald, 5th March 2013:

Who’s next?

We were oddly pleased to discover yesterday that the full iPad edition of the Daily Record is free five days a week. Partly because, regardless of content, reading the actual paper (albeit on a screen) is a much more evocative wee reminder of home than a generic website, and partly because the Record’s online presence carries only a fraction of the stories of the print version.

One such print-only item is today’s small piece – in fairness quite prominent at the top of Page 2 – about last week’s vote of a large Scottish branch of the CWU (the trade union which represents postal workers) in which the branch decided by a huge majority to campaign for a Yes vote in the independence referendum.

Oddly, the vote has attracted far less media attention than the “mock referendum” held at Glasgow University recently, which got near-blanket TV and news coverage. We’re sure the different outcome has nothing to do with that whatsoever.

But in all the reporting and discussion of the Glasgow Uni vote, we’re pretty sure we don’t recall Blair Jenkins or Nicola Sturgeon responding to the result by saying “Well, they’re just a bunch of stupid know-nothing kids, so screw them”.

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Whenever we put up one of our very occasional football-related posts, a few readers grump about their apparent lack of connection to the wider sphere of Scottish politics. So we couldn’t help but notice this comment lurking unassumingly in the middle of a Davie Provan rant in today’s Scottish Sun about the Rangers cheating verdict:

“Despite the £250,000 non-disclosure fine, Nimmo Smith ruled that Rangers had gained ‘no sporting advantage’ through their use of EBTs. If that’s good enough for the man who tried the Lockerbie bomber, it should be good enough for the rest of us.”

We think that’s what they used to call “friendly fire”.

Look, you knew we’d have to do this. Today’s ruling of the commission investigating SFA/SPL rule breaches by Rangers is almost the closing act in the farcical saga that’s enveloped Scottish football for just over a year since the club went into administration on Valentine’s Day 2012, so we’re nearly finished now.

Nevertheless, Lord Nimmo-Smith’s judgement is so extraordinary and bizarre it simply can’t pass without comment. We gave a gut reaction to it this morning, but it’s in the detail that you really see the contortions into which the Commission was obliged to twist itself in order to let the club off scot-free.

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If you’re a banker in a small country and you criminally destroy the entire national economy out of personal and corporate greed, you go to jail.

If you’re a banker in a large country and you criminally destroy the entire national economy out of personal and corporate greed, a laughably small fine is imposed and you get to keep everything your fraudulent actions helped you line your pockets with.

If you’re a small Scottish football club and you field an improperly-registered player once, by accident, you forfeit the match and are disqualified from the tournament.

If you’re a large Scottish football club and you field numerous improperly-registered players, repeatedly and deliberately, to gain an unfair advantage, a laughably small fine (which will never be paid) is imposed on a completely different and bankrupt company, and you get to keep everything the unregistered players in question helped you win.

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