Wings Over Scotland

For at least a year now long-suffering newspaper readers have had to endure dire warnings from Unionist politicians about the dastardly Nats turning the Commonwealth Games into some sort of evil referendum propaganda campaign. (It was, of course, absolutely fine to continually invoke the “Olympic spirit” in 2012 and beyond as a reason Scots should vote to stay in the UK. That’s totally different.)

Today’s UK edition of the Daily Mail (on the left above, and somewhat different to the Scottish edition on the right) carries a story that appears in several papers about the opening ceremony, in which it transpires that the Red Arrows were forbidden by the Ministry of Defence from creating only blue-and-white vapour trails over Celtic Park.

But even after just one day, it’s far from the only example of the No campaign’s politicisation of the Friendly Games.

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Scotland enjoys the opening ceremony.

After the implosion of Rory Stewart MP’s “Hands Across The Border” initiative (to be replaced by “Make A Big Pile Of Rocks For The Union”, which we’re sure will be a roaring success, despite being currently £52,500 short of its fundraising target), we comforted ourselves that there was still to be a big lovebombing exercise between Scotland and England this month, in the form of the Border Union Rally.

Tragically, it seems as though some “unforeseen technical problems” have struck the event – although we’re not absolutely sure how you can have technical problems with going for a walk – and it too has had to be cancelled.

The website has vanished, so the precise details of these insurmountable logistical obstacles aren’t as yet forthcoming. (We’re finding it hard to shake the terribly cynical suspicion that they’re related to the difficulty of calling something a “rally” if there are only three people at it.) But we’ll bring you more news as we get it.

Get Me Out Of Here, And Onto The Telly Again.

Please.

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From last night’s Question Time. We don’t think it’s funny.

We think it sums up the respective campaigns pretty well, in truth.

Last month we carried a view of the Scottish independence debate from the Canadian province of Quebec. Today we hear from the English-speaking side of the country.

In English-speaking Canada, few people seem to be aware of Scotland’s independence referendum. It doesn’t register much in the papers, much less our cheerfully oblivious TV news. The couple of friends I’ve told about it were interested, but mainly viewed the event as they would the World Cup: a distant, if intriguing, foreign phenomenon.

Conversely, Scotland’s view of Canada has been quite the opposite. Commentators on both the Yes and No sides have drawn explicit parallels with the Canadian experience, especially Quebec’s fraught history of referenda and sovereignty debate.

As a Canadian-American who’s spent a good deal of time south of the border, however, I think there’s a much more apt comparison to be made.

Canada’s bizarre love-hate relationship with our dysfunctional, arrogant, yet somehow still likeable neighbours and friends in the United States of America is both cautionary and optimistic. And it indicates the absolute need for a Yes vote.

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There’s a curious piece in today’s Guardian about the Scotstoun area of Glasgow, home to the shipbuilding yard of BAE Systems. It typifies what’s perhaps the most successful and consistent strategy that the No campaign has managed to deploy in the entire independence debate. Let’s listen in.

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We think this is how Ed actually sees it.

Because remember, readers, nationalism is a virus.

And this time we’re not being sarcastic. We were bemused yesterday when a number of people on Twitter started swapping referendum-based jokes about Stanley Baxter, who for younger readers used to be some sort of pantomime star and vaudeville performer. The jokes were explained today when it was revealed, to our considerable surprise, that Mr Baxter was in fact still alive and urging a No vote in the referendum.

Baxter, who left Scotland 55 years ago and told the Times that he now returns only for “the odd funeral”, nevertheless felt able to assert from these occasional visits that support for a Yes vote was founded in hatred for the English from simple-witted Scots who “don’t know any better” caused by “Braveheart” and hey, stay awake at the back there because we’re coming to the important bit.

And that’s that the comedian, who made a career out of telling TV viewers that the people of Glasgow had hilarious incomprehensible accents in need of translating into proper English, also went on to (no doubt impeccably) articulate the real reason, never previously spoken aloud, that the No campaign wants Scotland to stay part of the UK.

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“…make sure you keep a place by your side for us.”

Now that’s what we call lovebombing.

This one, from today’s Scottish Daily Mail, might actually be beyond comment.

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Because some of you won’t have seen it yet. This is NOT a spoof.

That’s what they think will persuade people to vote No, readers.