Wings Over Scotland

The Guardian today runs an extensive interview with Labour's shadow Defence Secretary and former Scottish Secretary, the estimable Jim Murphy MP, in which Murphy demands that Labour must take the lead in the campaign to save the Union. We're a bit confused, though, because Murphy doesn't seem to be all that big a fan of said Union. Most of his responses were predictable and unremarkable, but this line really jumped out at us:

"I'm proud to [be] Scottish. The only flag I ever wave would be a Scottish flag."

The ONLY one? We're not alone in finding that odd, are we? We can't imagine considering ourselves to be citizens of a country, actively wishing to keep the people of that country united under one flag, and yet being afraid, ashamed or just plain unwilling to wave that flag ourselves. So why does Murphy want to save the Union when he can't bear to wave the Union Flag? If anyone can help us understand, we'd be grateful.

From “LiamHunter64”, manager of the “Keep Scotland British” Facebook page (a hotbed of the sort of positive Unionism* Tom Harris MP regularly contrasts with the nasty antics of the dastardly Cybernats) and allegedly based in Sangin, Afghanistan.

12 January 2012
“If it [independence] happens I’ll be moving to England and laughing at failure!“

Slightly later on 12 January 2012
“Typical SNP, Because I’m anti-Independence I’m also Anti-Scottish? I was born and raised here, my heart is in Scotland and will never leave.”

So let’s just get this clear: Liam’s heart will never leave Scotland, but his body will be in England laughing at the failure of the country he loves? That sure is some powerful Scottish patriotism right there. We hope he gets some advice from a medical professional before he packs those suitcases, mind.

(We’re not altogether certain why Scottish independence would provoke someone to leave Afghanistan for England, but we’ll let that one pass.)

The power of Unionist doublethink is strong. While the SNP talk of “the social union” and friendship with England and the rest of the world, those most prone to bellowing their “Scottish patriotism” and pride in Scotland seem to be those who do not acknowledge that their “country” is or should be a country at all.

We suspect dear Liam doesn’t even understand the contradiction in his comments, bless him. (We did ask him, but as yet have received no reply.) We’re not so sure that Tavish Scott, Jim Murphy, and all the rest whose loudly-asserted “patriotism” doesn’t stretch as far as having their country elect its own government or control its own economy, can fall back on the same excuse as their supporters.

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Sometimes this blog wonders if it’s missed a meeting that everyone else in the Scottish/UK media and blogosphere was at. It’s hard to explain in any other way the sudden outpouring of absolutely demented, nonsensical keech that’s inexplicably spewed from all corners recently about the SNP planning to hold the independence referendum in June 2014, on the 700th anniversary of the Battle Of Bannockburn.

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The political grouping in Scotland comprising Federalists, Unionists and Devolutionists finally said goodbye to its old figurehead at the weekend, as Labour bid farewell to Iain Gray and welcomed Johann Lamont as its new leader.

We shall miss the man so memorably and tellingly dubbed “Elmer Fudd” by the estimable and much-missed (he hasn’t died or anything, but barely seems to write anything for anyone any more) Rab McNeil, and by way of tribute we present not his most legendary appearance on Newsnight Scotland (for he wasn’t Labour’s leader at that time) but our favourite quote, from six minutes and 20 seconds into a session of First Minister’s Questions in March 2011, six weeks before the election with Labour still 15 points ahead in the polls:

“After 92 times at this, you would think the First Minister would have realised by now that I get to choose what the questions are about. But his turn is coming soon enough!”

We wish you more luck at hunting wascally wabbits, old friend.

Johann Lamont's speech to Labour at the announcement of her victory in the leadership elections had a number of quite interesting soundbites in it. But one in particular leapt out at us. At 3m 55s, Lamont spoke of:

"…people who want to build a prosperous Scotland that can pay its own way, a wealth-creating Scotland."

Note the future tense ("want to") there. For such a Scotland to require building, it must not currently exist. In other words, Lamont believes the narrative of the right-wing English Tory press that she lives in a Scotland which is a subsidy junkie, reliant on the munificence of England to survive, a parasite on the wealth of others rather than a nation which creates its own. That's a view she shares with Margaret Thatcher, who infamously told the Times in February 1990 that "We English, who are a marvellous people, are really very generous to Scotland."

We do not recognise that Scotland, either in the present or the future. If that's what Johann Lamont (who represents a deprived area of Glasgow ruled by Labour for most of the last century) believes to be the case, then we understand more clearly her terror of independence. But we share neither her vision nor her fear.

There's some fairly predictable outrage from Nationalists bouncing around the blogosphere today at the news that control of the Crown Estates will not be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. This anger seems to us to be misplaced.

A pair of recent polls have reinforced what we've known for years – the constitutional settlement preferred by the large majority of the Scottish electorate is so-called "devo max", or Full Fiscal Autonomy, under which the Crown Estate would pass to Holyrood along with all other powers of revenue raising and expenditure. However, the three Unionist parties (or as we should more correctly put it, those who variously prefer to dub themselves Federalists, Unionists and Devolutionists, or FUDs) are all bitterly opposed to offering voters this option in the independence referendum.

With the status quo by some distance the least popular of the three possible arrangements for Scotland's governance, the opposition appears to be hell-bent on forcing Scots to make a straight choice between that and independence. It seems clear to this blog that such a stance can only be good news for supporters of the latter.

Were the UK Government to concede issues like the Crown Estate and Corporation Tax, plainly those who favour greater devolution would see progress being made, and in all likelihood be more content to reject full independence and continue down the gradualist path. But by going all out to signify that the UK will not grant the Scottish Parliament even fairly modest further powers, the Unionist parties can only succeed in driving more and more of those who want devo-max into the independence camp.

For our money, the starker the choice in the referendum is, the better.

The media commentariat – or at least, that majority of it which sits in the Unionist camp – has been in quite the foment ever since David Cameron's refusal to do whatever it was he refused to do at the EU summit this week. (Despite thousands of column inches and airtime minutes having been devoted to hyperbole on the subject this week, nobody actually seems very sure of what, if anything, has or is about to meaningfully change in the lives of the British citizenry as a result.)

In Scotland's press, the consensus is that whatever it was that happened (or possibly didn't happen) is a massive game-changer in the campaign for independence. Pundit after pundit has lined up to hyperbolically proclaim the huge impact that this will have on the referendum, and more broadly on the SNP's thinking with regard to its attitude to Europe. The Scotsman in particular is beside itself with excitement – Eddie Barnes posits some worst-case scenarios including the UK leaving the EU entirely while the paper's twin old Tory buffers Alf Young and Bill Jamieson both tack a few paragraphs of Scottish scaremongering onto the back of a pieces about the ramifications for Britain generally, with Jamieson's ending with the spectacular assertion that "an independent Scotland would be little more than the fetid fag-end of a Vichy vassalage".

Everyone agrees that as a matter of urgency the First Minister must rush back from China with a definitive statement on what this all means for Scotland, its future choice of currency and its future relationship with the EU, lest the electorate be left uninformed on these critical issues when the referendum rolls around in three or four years time. Which, our more alert viewers will probably be pondering, is missing the point by a fair few kilometres.

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The parties of the Union must be pleased with themselves today. Seven months ago the Scottish electorate delivered its verdict on their previous four years in opposition – an opposition marked by an almost uniformly negative and bitter response to the SNP's unexpected minority victory. The two parties who were the least constructive – Labour and the Lib Dems – were severely punished by the voters in 2011, while the relatively co-operative Tories lost the fewest seats.

In the face of this clear message, though, the Unionist parties seem to have learned nothing. The SNP's stunning majority and the prospect of the independence referendum that will come with it appears to have had no chastening effect on the others, and the nationalist government has endured a daily barrage of unrelenting vitriol from the opposition and media, much of it documented here on WingsLand.

In the meantime it's been forced to make some difficult cuts thanks to a decreased budget, and has brought forward some highly controversial legislation – minimum pricing for alcohol, an anti-sectarianism bill loudly decried by Old Firm bigots as well as some high profile pundits and bloggers, and a proposal to legalise gay marriage which has brought down the wrath of some large religious communities on the government's head. Throw in a gruesome consultation document about the nation's railway infrastructure and you've got a recipe for plummetting popularity.

Except, of course, that the SNP's poll ratings have instead just climbed to a record high of 51%, with the First Minister's already-impressive personal approval among the electorate also rising and the opposition stagnant or falling, leaving Labour now backed by just half as many Scottish voters (26%) as the Nats – a staggering, almost mind-boggling turnaround of 40 points from March 2011 when Labour led the SNP by 15 points in the polls just eight weeks before the election and were talking of their own Holyrood majority. And of course, this comes hard on the heels of the Scottish Social Attitudes survey showing record (and growing) levels of support for independence itself.

This blog doesn't often praise the Scottish Government's opponents, but we'd like to take a moment to register our appreciation for their efforts over the 12 months, and to express our sincerest hopes that they continue in the same vein for the next four years. We love you, guys. Don't ever change.

Malcolm Harvey over on Thinking Unpopular Thoughts finally got round to his delayed assessment of the state of the SNP this week, completing his analysis of all five of the parties in the Scottish Parliament. And given that the SNP is currently riding at a dizzying all-time high in every measurable sense it's a pretty downbeat view, echoing (and indeed directly quoting) many of the recent complaints of the erudite legal blogger Andrew "Lallands Peat Worrier" Tickell. Over on A Burdz Eye View, meanwhile, Kate Higgins is bemoaning that the SNP's recent announcements about future projects have been overly "macho", and haven't focused enough on wimmin.

Here at Wings over Scotland, though, we must admit to being bewildered by the wave of negativity from some nationalists lately. Is there something in our national DNA that tends to self-destruction? Heck, you'd only have to look at our diet and drinking habits to find some supporting evidence for that theory. But is it in our politics too?

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There are many good reasons not to envy Scottish Labour members, but the miserable choice they're being offered for their new leader must be near the top of the list right now. Last night's edition of Newsnight Scotland was devoted to a hustings between the three hopeful candidates at the BBC studios in Glasgow, and watching it felt like an intrusion on private grief.

To be fair, the setting didn't do much to portray the candidates in a good light. Newsnight's Raymond Buchanan was a clumsy host, alternately barging in over the top of the three when they were trying to give an answer then letting them waffle on when they were saying nothing at all. The audience was also a limp rag, putting up mostly feeble, long-winded and vague questions capable of inspiring nothing but empty platitudes from the contenders.

(One bloke in a red tie wasted about a minute of the show's limited airtime wittering on incomprehensibly about sport before Buchanan finally cut him off in exasperation, and the final audience contribution was particularly toe-curling. Some studenty girl came out with a half-baked Marxist polemic demanding to know what "direct action" the candidates were going to do about the nasty bankers and such. When Buchanan asked her what sort of direct action she'd like to see taken, she clearly wasn't expecting to be asked to provide a constructive suggestion and just stammered that she wanted to hear the candidates' plans. Even the vacant rhetoric she got in reply was better than the question deserved.)

But even allowing for the difficult circumstances, McIntosh, Lamont and Harris offered little to fire enthusiasm among the comrades, or even to distinguish themselves from each other. The only partial exception was Tom Harris, and we still can't tell if he's serious or just trying to use shock tactics to kick some life and sense into his party. Either way, we're not sure that coming out loudly and proudly in favour of tuition fees and nuclear power stations is the way to lead Labour to glorious recovery in Scotland.

Harris is also a dyed-in-the-wool Nat-basher, a strategy which failed Labour on an epic scale in 2011 and which Lamont and (especially) McIntosh appear to be backing away from as fast as is decent. We know these things because all three spent the vast majority of the broadcast talking not about Labour, or even about the Westminster coalition that's imposing savage austerity cuts on Scotland, but about the SNP.

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It’s even happening in Bath. Even in one of the richest corners of Britain – a city so posh that it refused a local organic dairy farm permission to open a boutique ice-cream concession in its expensive new shopping area in case it “lowered the tone” – there’s an Occupy protest. A couple of dozen tents huddle together in Queen Square, a small green space in the middle of a busy traffic junction that’s more accustomed to hosting farmers’ markets and games of boules.

To be honest, I’m surprised there are that many. Bath’s housing, parking and public transport are all so cripplingly costly that poor people can barely get into the centre of town even for a visit. But still, like most of the Occupy protests nationwide (those that still survive at all, anyway), the numbers are pretty pitiful. At a time when the government has all but openly declared class war, when everyone from the Socialist Worker to the Daily Mail is furious at the greed of the wealthy, why aren’t there millions on the streets, rather than a few little pockets out camping in the cold?

The answer is obvious, but for some reason is never spoken aloud. Despite the Occupy movement’s catchy and evocative slogan, we aren’t the 99%. But that’s understandable, because “we are the 33%” doesn’t carry quite the same moral punch.

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In these brutal economic times, you could be forgiven for easing the pain with the occasional drift into fantasy. Britain is broke, and even after five years of the most savage austerity cuts since World War 2 the Chancellor of the Exchequer admits the books still won't be balanced.

But imagine, just for a moment, that we inhabited some sort of magical fairytale universe. Instead of a bankrupt neo-liberal service economy run for the benefit of obscenely overpaid bankers and hedge fund managers, imagine if Scots could live in a country of five million people with a social-democratic outlook and vast oil wealth which was used for the benefit of the entire population rather than just a tiny elite.

It's a ridiculous, impossible idea, of course. This is the real world, and reality isn't like that. But once in a while, just to cheer yourself up enough to keep grimly soldiering on through the hideous years to come, it's nice to dream.