Wings Over Scotland

There are some questions that are guaranteed to bring a sudden end to any internet discussion. (In real life it’s harder for people to just vanish into thin air.) One always effective on Labour supporters, for example, is the classic “Would you rather live in an independent Scotland governed by Labour or one in the UK governed by the Tories?”

Of course, more strictly speaking that’s actually a near-certain way to ask someone to choose between Option A and Option B and every time get the answer “Non-existent Option C”. Other questions, though, are sure to solicit no response at all.

Last year, when occasionally debating with Rangers supporters about whether The Rangers International PLC (or whatever it’s called today) was a new club or not, I must have asked this one at least 60 or 70 times of 60 or 70 different people: “If they’re the same club they always were, why are they in SFL 3? They were neither relegated on the field nor demoted as a punishment, so why aren’t they still in the SPL?”

I’ve as yet never had a single response – even a bad one – to that, just instant and complete radio silence or, at the best, an abrupt change of subject. And recently I’ve discovered there’s a holy water for the Tory type of vampire too.

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Alert readers might have noticed that this morning we tweeted a link to a post on the Facebook page of Labour For Independence. It was a retort to a sneering claim from Anas Sarwar that the group had “one or a maximum of two Labour members” and was in fact a front for the SNP, and it responded by printing a list of 13 named Labour Party members who were active in the group. One of them stood out a little.

Now, we have absolutely no idea if that Alex Foulkes is the same Alex Foulkes who’s the son of arch-Unionist peer and Nat-basher Lord George Foulkes. We’re sure there are lots of people called Alex Foulkes in the Scottish Labour Party. But given that Lady Judy Steel (the excellent wife of Sir David, another prominent No voice) came out for independence a while ago – prompting a slightly misjudged joke from Murdo Fraser last week – it’d be a moderately amusing development if it was.

After all, if the leading lights of the No campaign can’t even convince the closest members of their own family to back the UK, how the heavens are they going to be able to sell the ailing Union to the rest of Scotland?

Bless ’em, they’re getting closer. After some nagging, the Herald has now finally changed the story about jobs at Faslane that it printed a correction for earlier this week. And credit to them, the new version is a good 5% less wrong than the original.

Rather more distressingly, though, the newly-edited story still doesn’t match up even to the Herald’s own correction, never mind any kind of reality.

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We hope you’re just drunk, Ian. Honestly we do.

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We’re indebted to commenter “DougtheDug” on A Sair Fecht for spotting this one. On Tuesday in the House of Commons section 30 debate, Labour MP Ian Davidson bitterly attacked the Scottish Government for allegedly timing the independence referendum to coincide – at least to within six months – with the 700th anniversary of the Battle Of Bannockburn. (Ignoring the fact that the referendum would have happened years ago had it not been vigorously opposed and blocked by Labour.)

Davidson claimed that the timing amounted to “celebrating the murder of hundreds or thousands of English people“, and accused the SNP of exploiting anti-English sentiment for “partisan advantage”. It was a contemptible enough piece of dog-whistle politics in its own right, but all the more extraordinarily hypocritical in the light of this:

Lurking in the Westminster archives is an Early Day Motion from late 2003, in which Mr Davidson was happy to attach his name to a Parliamentary celebration – tabled by the Conservative MP for Romford, Andrew Rosindell – of what we presume we must call “the murder of hundreds or thousands of French and Spanish people”.

We must admit, we’re a little confused. Apparently openly and explicitly rejoicing at the historic deaths of enemy troops is fine if you’re a British nationalist, but disgusting, racist political chicanery if you’re a Scottish one (even when you’re not actually doing it). Can anyone point us at the rulebook for this sort of thing?

Perhaps we’re being overly suspicious here. But the “sex scandal” incident currently surrounding Glasgow City Council leader Gordon Matheson actually happened over a month ago – December 12th to be precise. Having evaded the attention of the press for so long, there’s no obvious reason for the story to have suddenly broken now.

Except, that is, if there was another story centred on Glasgow City Council – a much more serious one, that the Labour council wanted to deflect attention from with a juicy bit of sleaze gossip. And hey, guess what?

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At the time we write this, the Herald’s inaccurate story about Faslane jobs remains uncorrected. But as we were scouring the page last night for any sign of the Herald’s “clarification” of its figures, we stumbled across a gem in the comments.

As long-term readers will probably be aware, Terry Kelly isn’t just some random comments-page troll. He is in fact an elected Labour councillor for the lucky people of Paisley North West, though such is the volume of his daily outpourings in various newspapers (he’s one of the few people the Herald appears to see fit to bless with automatic comment approval) that it’s a wonder he finds any time to represent them.

Terry’s we-wish-it-was-unique blend of arrogance, smugness and complete ignorance is pretty standard No-campaign troll fodder, but the example above is particularly fine.

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In all the time I’ve lived in Bath, it’s snowed on average about once every five years. A combination of its south-west location and sitting in a big natural bowl means that there’s almost never a flake of the stuff in sight, let alone a drift. It’s always a welcome sight when it does arrive, because without it winter can really drag – six long months of grey, cold, dark and drizzle, whereas at least back home in Scotland you get a sense of time passing as the distinctive seasons change.

Well, today it snowed – a solid three or four inches. It’s lovely, and I’ve just been for a stroll in the city’s biggest park to enjoy it. It’s not going to be easy to turn a bit of chilly weather into a piece of searing polemic about Scottish independence, but dammit, where would the fun be in it if it was?

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An unnamed SNP spokesman on STV News:

“We have no wish to comment on Cllr Matheson’s private life. The issues which are important to the city are Labour’s scandalous £500,000 pay-off to a supposed anti-poverty boss which has been condemned by the charity regulator, the closure of day centres for adults with learning disabilities without consultation, and their incompetence over plans to redevelop George Square.”

Still, we’re sure that free wi-fi will be along any day now.

I’ll make a confession: I don’t think Scotland needs independence. I’m not certain full independence is the most desirable option. At this stage in the debate, on Wings Over Scotland, that might be a quite contentious assertion. But last year, on numerous talkboards and comment threads, starting with that statement frequently saw me being called a “cybernat”, an “SNP stooge” or in one instance, “Salmond’s stormtrooper”.

That was because the statement always came with a “but”: “…but we do need control of welfare” or “…but we do need fiscal autonomy”“. And the “but” never went down well.

Full fiscal autonomy was the reason I voted Liberal Democrat in 2007. It had much to recommend it over the SNP’s full independence policy, both for Scotland and the rUK. It would have been a gradual approach that wouldn’t have scared many horses, north or south of the Tweed. It was an “I do want independence but am too polite to say so, in a very British way” kind of option.

It could have passed barely noticed by the UK media. Friends and family in England would have responded to your declaration of being a “full fiscal autonomy supporter” with a weary eye-roll and “Do shut up about Scottish politics, dear”. Independence, even if virtually synonymous in the detail, instead attracts “What? You want to rip my country apart, literally destroy 300 years of history and rob me of my entire identity, you evil separatist nat bastard?”

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Seeking some light entertainment, this morning we belatedly got round to reading a piece by Jim Murphy MP on Labour Uncut while we were waiting for First Minister’s Questions to begin. (An event we were startled to see Labour and the Tories both turn up to, recklessly lending legitimacy to an undemocratic one-party dictatorship.)

Murphy’s piece was the usual drivel, but a line caught our eye:

“Opposition to independence increased from 50% in January to 55% in June then 58% in the latest poll. At the moment, the nearer we get to the vote the further away the SNP look like winning it.”

Naturally we were confused. Murphy’s piece was published on Tuesday, so you’d have thought by then he’d be aware of the “latest poll”, which was published by the Herald on Monday and in fact showed “opposition to independence” plunging from 58% to 48% – a level below even the lowest figure in Murphy’s timeline, dating back a year.

Can anyone point us to this more recent poll than Monday’s? Cheers.

Ten days ago, Scottish Labour “deputy” leader Anas Sarwar issued a press release in his capacity as head of Labour’s referendum campaign, noting that “[Nicola Sturgeon] is right to say there has been a lot of negative campaigning. We will be raising the level of debate and ensuring that Scotland gets the level of debate it deserves.”

Here are some extracts from Sarwar and his independence-fearing colleagues’ contributions to yesterday’s epic House of Commons “debate” (in which one side got a little over 10 times as long to put its case as the other) on the motion giving the Scottish Parliament the power to conduct the independence referendum.

Make your own judgement as to how they did, and the level of debate they apparently consider Scotland deserves.

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