2 August 2018: Ruth Davidson is the second most popular Tory with party members surveyed by Conservative Home, and regularly spoken of by the press as a potential future Prime Minister.
2 August 2019: not so much.
Oh well, that’s showbiz.
This seemed like an extraordinary piece of subservient snivelling:
But then it all made sense:
Scottish Labour, everyone.
We’re being somewhat generous with the numbering here, to be honest, but you’ve got to start the official count somewhere, right?
Alert readers will recall that current Scottish Labour policy is to enshrine in law the right to a free bus pass for all Scots over the age of 60:
This time last year, for example, their transport spokesman Colin Smyth specifically and indignantly condemned any possible suggestion by the dastardly SNP of perhaps increasing the qualifying age from 60 to state pension age (currently 65 and due to rise to 68 and beyond), saying:
“Sadly, the scheme is now under threat with SNP ministers refusing the rule out increasing the age citizens can qualify for a pass in a bid to try and save money. Ordinary people in their 60s should not be paying the price of Tory austerity because the SNP refuse to use the powers of the parliament to fund our services properly.”
A commendably unambiguous and righteous position. Indeed, the North British branch of Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist party announced at this year’s conference that if elected they’d not only keep the threshold at 60, but would extend free bus travel immediately to everyone in Scotland under 25, and then swiftly to everyone of any age.
So we can safely assume that in Wales, where Labour have been in power for all 20 years of the devolved Assembly, all those things will already be happening, because otherwise it’d just be embarrassing.
At the very least, we can be certain that there’s no chance of the qualifying age going up from 60 to state pension age, because we already know that Labour regard that as a scandalous and unthinkable moral outrage.
Let the bells ring out and rejoice.
Still, at least the Record hasn’t been so completely lacking in self-awareness as to point a finger at others in Scotland and say something like “far too many people who should know better are complicit in the tragedy”.
29 June 2016. Don’t say we don’t warn you, readers.
And this was February of the same year, when Barack Obama and David Cameron were still in charge of their respective nations:
You’ll always read it here first, folks. Even when you don’t want to.
We weren’t sure whether tomorrow’s Cairnstoon was going to be delayed by technical gremlins (it turns out it isn’t), so we prepared an emergency backup plan on the same theme and you may as well see it now as a sort of trailer.
It’ll be good every time they dig him up yet again in the future too.
(With profound apologies to Oliver Frey.)
Last night, grudgingly, we watched the whole of the final Tory leadership debate, for a contest in which pretty much everyone believes Boris Johnson has already gathered enough votes to comfortably win even though there are several days of voting to go.
The headline outcome the media appears to be focusing on is that both candidates proclaimed the Irish backstop “dead”, to which the EU’s response will without a doubt be “Is it, aye?”
So where does that leave us? Let’s have an update.
Hey readers, remember that time when England went to war with Germany?
You know, just England, under its Union Jack flag. Nobody else.
Things were different in 2009.
Of course, they meant if they LOST the first one. But readers might feel that a certain degree of irony has perhaps manifested itself since then, particularly in terms of people knowing “what they would be in for” after June 2016.
So just to recap the UK government’s rules for the Yes movement:
– If you win, you don’t really win and you have to go again in case things change.
– If you lose once, that’s it forever, no matter how much things change.
Always remember what we’re dealing with, folks. The rules are always whatever they say they are, regardless of what they might have said a minute ago, and no matter what happens we’re swimming against the sea.
We haven’t done a good old-fashioned Quoted For Truth in quite some time, but on occasion someone else makes a point in a way that just can’t be improved on.
We’ve always known/said that this is THE core case for independence, of course, but sometimes seeing it from another country’s perspective brings the message home.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
