Wings Over Scotland

We’ll be honest, there are some bits of this that make us wince, and unfortunately most of them come in the first two minutes where they’ll do the most damage in terms of getting a persuadeable voter to watch the rest of it. But it’s an important piece of work, containing stuff even we didn’t know about, and it should be seen.

If you want to show it to people who aren’t already Yes, though, we’d suggest giving them a link that starts 123 seconds in.

Old media and new media spoke with one voice in Scotland today:

But for once it was the dead-tree press that held the moral high ground.

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The tone of coverage deployed by the Daily Express (Scottish and English editions alike) with regard to the First Minister of Scotland in recent weeks has been both bizarre and disturbing. Yesterday the paper ran this “story”:

It’s a load of gibberish, obviously. But if the FM was preparing herself for a punch-up, you could hardly blame her given what’s apparently been going on.

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When you choose to declare to the world that you’re not actually a country but just a small region of someone else’s, this sort of thing will happen.

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Alert readers may have noticed reports in the press that the famous French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this month carried a four-page feature on the state of politics in Scotland, having sent two of its senior staff – accompanied by their French police bodyguard – over to conduct a series of interviews.

We thought you might like to see it, so we commissioned a translated version.

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A parable of internet abuse. Acknowledgements to Alan Moore and Frankie Boyle.

Dedicated to David Torrance, Susan Calman, Johanna Baxter and Angela Eagle.

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In December 2013, the editor of this site – who knew nothing of the secret this article is about to reveal – tweeted “When we write the chronicles of independence, I hope there’ll be a whole chapter on @A_DarlingMP”.

Well, this is as close as we’re going to get.

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“Bias” is a word we hate. Other than in the article you’re about to read, you’ll almost never find it used on this site, for a string of reasons. It’s one of those words that – regardless of context or literal justification – simply makes people switch off instantly and dismiss your arguments. (See also: “Zionist”, “Quisling”, “fascist”, “Liebore”.)

It’s also largely irrelevant, because there are very few people or organisations who have any duty NOT to be biased. When it comes to Scottish independence we’re as biased as all heck, and there’s no legitimate reason to expect the Daily Record or Scotsman or Daily Mail to be any more impartial than we are. They’re privately-owned businesses and entitled to take any position they like.

(The difference, of course, is that unlike them we’re committed to still telling the truth when we’re being biased, and to always providing linked original sources so you can judge our biased interpretation of facts and events for yourself.)

But there’s one exception to that rule.

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You’ll never guess what’s happened, readers.

At least they left a slightly more decent interval than with Michelle Mone.

Today we’re a boxing site, and that’s all there is to it.

I was born to be a Rangers supporter. I had no real choice in the matter. My father was a Ger, as was his father and his father’s father. I was accepted that as soon as I was old enough to be lifted over a turnstile I would attend Ibrox, faithfully.

From 1964 (aged 5) I worshipped at the shrine of Rangers for almost three decades. Fortunately for me, my father was the least bigoted man you could wish to meet. His religions were the trade unions and Rangers. Because he wasn’t bigoted our next-door neighbour and dad’s friend used to take me to Parkhead to watch Celtic too, which I found thrilling as I was convinced the “Tims” could see right through me.

This caused me a bit of confusion at school, because some of my family were “Tims”. In fact my favourite aunty was a convert to Catholicism and was as devout and decent a Catholic as you will ever meet. The conflation of football and religion was as normal as the smog-filled air we breathed. It just was what it was. You were either Proddy Ranger or Timmy Celtic. It wasn’t to be questioned.

Except my dad questioned it, loudly and often. He tried to explain the wrongs of the situation to me many times. I remember asking him why he still was a Rangers man if he disliked the whole Proddy/Tim thing that went with it.

“They’re my team, son. The morons can’t change that”, he told me.

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