Wings Over Scotland

The 2010s end in a matter of hours, and everyone and their genderfluid dog is writing retrospectives of the 10 years just past. This site, which came into existence in the second year of the decade, has very little interest in following suit – we’ve always been about the future.

But a cursory glance over the shoulder does reveal one immediately striking fact that’s worthy of passing note.

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Remember this guy? Go on, give it a minute, it’ll come to you.

He popped up today to chuck in his tuppence-worth about inflammatory language in politics, and how – like everything else bad – it all started with vile cybernats in 2014 (because as you’ll of course remember, it was Yes supporters who never shut up about “surrendering”) and has now sullied even the dignified halls of Westminster.

We wonder how that can have happened.

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We see Gordon Brown is celebrating his 500th article promising “federalism” in the Scottish media today. Which is nice. We always enjoy hearing about the stuff Labour pretends it’s going to do when it’s in power.

But like everyone who’s been waiting 100 years and counting for it to abolish the House Of Lords (a pledge which also gets another runout in Brown’s latest intervention, bless him), we won’t be holding our breath.

Ah, the good old days of the positive case for the Union.

But oh no! Shock twist!

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Yesterday we reminded you of how Wings predicted Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister of the UK several years ago. But of course, other soothsayers are available, like this confident chap from August 2014:

In news that will come as a shock to absolutely no readers at all, McDougall wasn’t just lying, and wasn’t just wrong about one thing, but was both wrong and lying about pretty much everything he said.

Both of the Yes camp’s “scare stories” which were sneeringly mocked by McDougall during a BBC debate in Inverness actually came true – the Tories DID win the next election, and Johnson DID end up as leader of the party and then as Prime Minister.

(McDougall burst into tears at Scottish Labour HQ on the night of the 2015 election as his party lost 40 of its 41 seats despite his services as Jim Murphy’s speechwriter and adviser, his powers of chortling seemingly having deserted him.)

And it’s interesting to revisit the debate.

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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”.

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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.)

Hey readers, remember that time when England went to war with Germany?

You know, just England, under its Union Jack flag. Nobody else.

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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.

That’s the only reasonable interpretation of this tweet from Jenny Marra MSP.

Because clearly if the Scottish Parliament of 1707 was an illegitimate oligarchy that didn’t represent the people – and it certainly didn’t – then it can’t have had any right to sign away the sovereignty of Scotland and the Acts Of Union must immediately be repealed and a new referendum held to decide whether Scotland should join the UK.

And of course, we already know how that would go.

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The Times, 30 June 1998.

Wait, Michael who? Well, this should be good.

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