The Daily Telegraph just released a video called “100 Reasons Why Brexit Was A Good Thing”. It listed them to a soundtrack of “Jerusalem”, the same song that closed the Labour Party conference earlier this week with its stirring ode to just one of the four nations of the United Kingdom.
We’ve saved a few of the highlights below, just in case the Telegraph should delete the video in a fit of sanity. We’ve also added one fake one. See if you can spot it.
The Sunday Times has a new Panelbase poll out today, and it borrows a question that was first asked by this website (via the same pollster) 14 months ago. These were the results this month:
They broadly show little change from when we asked last year (for the five options the changes are +1, 0, -3, +8 and -5), suggesting that the main practical upshot of the EU referendum campaign was to halve the number of Don’t Knows, which was achieved by shifting almost all of them straight onto the Leave side with the Remain camp’s abysmal recreation of Better Together’s “Project Fear”.
Nevertheless, the chart is a fascinating and pertinent one. Because while there’s only one of the four non-DK groups in the list who definitely can’t get what they want, there’s another one whose decision will be a lot harder than Yes supporters would like.
We originally wrote this article in March, in response to the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (better known as GERS) figures for 2014-15. We’ve updated it to take account of events since that time, of which there’s been one rather major one.
Today saw the publication (just five months after the 2014-15 GERS) of the 2015-16 stats, which are again triggering a convulsive orgy of “BLACK HOLE!” articles across the media, as every Unionist in the land falls over themselves to portray their own country as a useless scrounging subsidy junkie without actually using the exact words “too wee, too poor, too stupid”.
And once again, everywhere you look there’s a “Proud Scot” screaming about how the figures – showing an essentially unchanged “deficit” despite an almost £2bn fall in oil revenue – destroy a case for independence that those same people have spent most of the last four years stridently insisting never existed in the first place.
If there haven’t been as many posts on this site as people might expect at a time of such incredible political turmoil, it’s because Wings isn’t at heart a commentary blog. We don’t do a lot of flat-out opinion pieces, tending to concern ourselves more with measurable, empirical facts, and since nobody knows anything about anything at the moment, we haven’t had all that much useful to say.
But the closest thing there is right now to a certainty is that sometime quite soon, Unionist politicians in Scotland are going to have to grow up and deal with this:
And their problem is that there’s no possible way to.
So the official Westminster line is that Scotland will HAVE to become independent if it wants to remain in the EU. We’re sure the FM will be absolutely gutted to hear that.
If your only source of news was the mainstream media, you could be forgiven for thinking that the consensus in the EU regarding an independent Scotland was bleak. Spain would, we’re told endlessly, veto Scotland’s place in the EU out of hand, and so, allegedly, would France.
And when Scotland’s First Minister went to Brussels after the referendum vote to meet with EU officials in regards to Scotland’s membership, we were told that this bold act of outreach fell on deaf ears.
The language of the press was hostile bordering on sadistic. The First Minister, acting to secure the democratic will of the people of Scotland, was apparently “running out of friends” and had to “beg” Ireland to help us out.
The reality, readers will be astonished to hear, is somewhat different.
Earlier today we were moved to tweet our scepticism regarding a claim made by the Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale, as reported in the Guardian.
Even on the most casual glance, the numbers just didn’t seem to add up. If 62% of Scots voted to stay in the EU and 55% voted to stay in the UK, with no correlation between the two things, then the Venn-diagram intersection between those two groups seems pretty unlikely to add up to more than 50%, let alone a “vast” majority.
Despite having an even number of participants, the panel is split 3:1 in favour of Remain and 3:1 against independence (surely the biggest specifically Scottish issue likely to arise from the Brexit vote, and which several polls in the last couple of weeks now show is backed by a majority of voters).
Half of the debaters are also Labour politicians, which means that the third-placed party which got 22% of the vote in this May’s election has as much representation as two parties who got 69% between them.
We’ve been racking our brains for a couple of hours trying to work out a way in which such a multiply-skewed line-up could be justified (other than flat-out trolling), and we’ve got nothing. Does anyone have any ideas?
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “FFS Confused. Just take yourself off to Mecca and sign up or exchange blood or whatever it takes to join.…” Jun 21, 23:53
Confused on The End Of Law: ““the female of the species is more deadly than the male … ” Something just hit me there – lara…” Jun 21, 22:55
Red on The End Of Law: “There are no “concerns” about the findings of the Rape Gangs Inquiry Report. There are only lies and obfuscation, which…” Jun 21, 22:40
sam on The End Of Law: “Aidan, Still trying to read my mind and put words in my mouth. There are concerns about the adequacy of…” Jun 21, 21:46
Lorncal on The End Of Law: “Do you think that men who have no dangly bits are women? Really? If you are so disturbed that you…” Jun 21, 21:27
Red on The End Of Law: “Yes, it’s mostly about ‘cheap’ labour. Of course it’s not ‘cheap’ for taxpayers, rape victims, or the Scottish people who…” Jun 21, 20:56
agentx on The End Of Law: “A 15-year-old boy rescued two men who had fallen from an inflatable toy boat off the Isle of Skye by…” Jun 21, 20:24
Mark Beggan on The End Of Law: “It’s get your jacket time Sam. Pick a window you’re leaving! You fucking idiot.” Jun 21, 20:08
Lorncal on The End Of Law: “Because women and girls stand in the way of ‘progress’ – that is, most of them – not all, God…” Jun 21, 19:53
Red on The End Of Law: “GM, yes there is only one reason to keep this secret from the Scottish people It’s believed one may have…” Jun 21, 19:07
James on The End Of Law: “With his one-eye? Sounds about right. You gie-ing him a haun?” Jun 21, 18:51
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “Wally Walrus wakes? Nah. Another 5 letter word preserving the alliteration.” Jun 21, 18:37
Ex President Xiden on The End Of Law: “Exactly, HR departments are used to socially engineer our thinking. Nobody complains as they fear for their jobs.” Jun 21, 18:31
Aidan on The End Of Law: “Don’t believe the lying rape victims, says Sam.” Jun 21, 18:30
gm on The End Of Law: “The working cops did their jobs properly. I don’t know where the order to keep the operation secret came from.…” Jun 21, 18:27
gm on The End Of Law: “https://www.scotland.police.uk/access-to-information/freedom-of-information/disclosure-log/disclosure-log-2024/march/24-0363-operation-cerrar-child-exploitation-glasgow-2020/ It happened in Glasgow. Operation Cerrar. You can search it. Deeply worrying. What was worse was the response of…” Jun 21, 18:19
Captain Caveman on The End Of Law: ““Do you people own anything?” #spoiler alert Nope. “IT WUZ THE TORRREEES” etc. Hatey has hit the bullseye here.” Jun 21, 18:07
Red on The End Of Law: “There’s a special place in Hell for Rape Gang deniers, sam. Have you no shame?” Jun 21, 17:59
sam on The End Of Law: “Unsubstantiated garbage” Jun 21, 17:32
James on The End Of Law: “Excellent idea, Onlooker; let’s get on with it! Sadly there are bad actors from another country, and their compromised stooges…” Jun 21, 17:08
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “House! I just needed green cheese to complete four corners.” Jun 21, 17:05
James on The End Of Law: “Can you read? Even one eyed?” Jun 21, 17:02
James on The End Of Law: “Unionist Prick.” Jun 21, 16:59
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “Jay I do attach much weight to personal responsibility. Such as the responsibility of the SNP voters in Arbroath. They…” Jun 21, 16:57
Red on The End Of Law: “List of areas where Muslim Rape Gangs have been found operating in Scotland (so far): Aberdeen City Angus Argyll and…” Jun 21, 16:46
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “Loving it, sam. We need to improve benefits and free health care so we can draw even more millions of…” Jun 21, 16:23
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “You’re missing that a male minus dangly bits isn’t a female. Quite a big miss. Maybe excuse yourself from framing…” Jun 21, 16:18
Nemisis Benn on The End Of Law: “Am I missing something? The blurb from Pollock doesn’t quite say that certain criminals are serving their sentences in establishments…” Jun 21, 15:20
Saffron Robe on The End Of Law: “The admissions practice has been deemed unlawful and yet it remains in place. The irony is, of course, that if…” Jun 21, 14:41
Alf Baird on The End Of Law: ““Wasn’t it psychology” Indeed so, for colonization ‘is based on psychology’ (Cesaire). Of course, colonization itself leads to many other…” Jun 21, 14:39
