It’s a Bank Holiday and frankly there’s absolutely bugger-all of any interest in the news today, so I hope you’ll forgive me a personal indulgence, readers. I’ve only used the personal pronoun for a couple of Wings articles out of over 2,300 in the site’s two and a half years of existence, because the independence debate isn’t about me. But a curious piece in today’s Herald by David Torrance merits such a response.
If you don’t see what it’s got to do with that video*, bear with me.
We’ve quite frequently highlighted the ugly, irresponsible tone of the No campaign’s – and especially Labour’s – comments about “foreigners”in the independence debate. And the reason we do is because that sort of language feeds attitudes like these.
I had no idea what to expect from the UKIP public meeting in Bath tonight. The city is genteel, wealthy and has been solidly Lib Dem for over 20 years. While there are of course some sketchier areas and it hasn’t been immune to the UK’s recent economic troubles, generally speaking it has little to complain about.
So when UKIP booked the 730 downstairs capacity of the Forum (a rather beautiful old Art Deco former cinema from the 1930s) for a public meeting, I hung onto the hope that there was at least a reasonable chance it’d be half-empty.
We’re off to watch the Scottish Cup semi-final now, so to keep you all entertained for the next couple of hours here’s a little something we put together at the request of columnist and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch, and for anyone who was listening to Radio Scotland’s “Headlines” this morning.
Hopefully we won’t need it ourselves by 3.30pm. #COYR
If it’s Wednesday, Labour must have changed their position on their future-devolution proposals again. Following our latest highlighting of the glaring contradictions in the shambolic “Devo Nano” plans, responses have started arriving to your letters.
If you’ve been listening closely, you’ll have heard that the position on whether the Scottish Parliament would be able to reduce taxes below the UK level has see-sawed from “No you can’t” (Johann Lamont MSP, 18 March) to “Yes you can” (Richard Baker MSP, 28 March) and back to “No you can’t” again (Tom Clarke MP, 4 April).
Earlier today we highlighted two pieces of disgraceful, mendacious smearing by The Scotsman, in conjunction with an “anonymous” Labour MP. The articles coincided with a wider campaign of demonisation across most of the Scottish and UK media against supporters of independence, backed up by elected Labour representatives on social media in what might easily be seen as a co-ordinated attack.
The tweets above are from the account of semi-literate Labour councillor for East Kilbride, James Docherty. They follow a week in which the Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray described the placing of one or more small “Yes 2014” stickers on his constituency office windows as an “out of control” escalation of intimidation and Alistair Darling accused some people objecting to a businessman sending a document full of scaremongering lies to 500 employees of his company as “shaming Scotland”.
These hysterical smears would be laughable were it not for the consequences they may yet bring about. We highlight some of those consequences below.
While we wait for the full detail of what look like being even more watered-down and insipid “Devo Lite” proposals from Labour than we were expecting, we suppose we might as well spend a minute on last night’s big “Better Together” announcement that Eddie Izzard was going to hold a benefit gig for the No campaign, putting the Union on a par with starving Ethiopians and earthquake victims.
Einstein is claimed to have said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (and readers hopefully already know our views on Quote Nazis), so we found a line attributed to Izzard in the press release particularly striking.
Young Lochinvar on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “OK David I agree. But what about the manager and coaching staff? Unless I miscounted fingers (and apologies if I…” Mar 8, 02:04
DaveL on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““…have got to ask, when did Uncle Sam actually last win a war?“ I think it was way back in…” Mar 8, 01:07
Cynicus on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “David Holden says: 7 March, 2026 at 6:50 pm “Oh well I see Italy has just beaten the mighty England…” Mar 8, 00:22
Young Lochinvar on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “I see The Donald is now saying he doesn’t need British support now “the war is won” (sic). Juvenile. Well,…” Mar 7, 22:29
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Shield of the Americas. The cartels are Toast.” Mar 7, 20:02
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Rugby is a hooligans game played by gentlemen. Football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans.” Mar 7, 19:52
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Nine tenths of all rational BTL comments, Alf. Don’t you ever feel an overwhelming urge to mock some of the…” Mar 7, 19:16
agentx on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Yes Scotland were great today and England were crap.” Mar 7, 19:06
David Holden on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Oh well I see Italy has just beaten the mighty England at rugby union only a few years after our…” Mar 7, 18:50
TURABDIN on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “VIVA L’ITALIA…… the «big one», bring it on Donaldo, after your mega dose of viagra of course.” Mar 7, 18:43
Red on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “whatever happened to the Scottish independence movement? When they killed nationalism, which was the intellectual foundation of the independence movement,…” Mar 7, 18:38
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The majority of their drones have been fired at the UAE. Who also think Starmers a wanker.” Mar 7, 18:25
TURABDIN on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Forget Eurabia, we have Euramerica….. Some one’s end is nigh. Very Sad. Classical reason is cowering in a corner.” Mar 7, 18:17
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “It was on the good ship Dragon The deckhand started cryin’ His lipstick broke Coz he’s a poncy woke As…” Mar 7, 18:13
Alf Baird on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““you already have a solid track record of mocking anybody” Pot and kettle, Hatey over Scotland, as ‘mocking anybody’ is…” Mar 7, 18:12
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Thousands, Willie? Reports indicate dozens certainly, maybe into the low hundreds in total. But thousands? Naw.” Mar 7, 18:11
Cynicus on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Had you told me last week that France would come to Murrayfield and scored 40 points I would’ve put my…” Mar 7, 17:11
Willie on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Seems that one of the UKs aircraft carriers is being readied in case it needs to head off to protect…” Mar 7, 16:59
Sven on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “I take it our Prime Minister was successful then, and they must have, “Released the sausages” then Mark. Calls for…” Mar 7, 16:38
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Does Milliband know it’s going full speed? That must be slaying the nautical miles per gallon figure. Won’t anybody think…” Mar 7, 16:35
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Not factually accurate, YL. We all know that in the Mad Mullah’s frame of reference, step 2 is: 2. Slay…” Mar 7, 16:22
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “HMS Sausage steaming full speed towards Cyprus. Britannia rules the waves.” Mar 7, 16:19
David Holden on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Well that was a bit special as Scotland beat France at Murrayfield in what has to be one of the…” Mar 7, 16:14
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Actually, Geri, your juxtaposition of R and love reminds me. I was wondering if your recent absence was down to…” Mar 7, 16:08
