From the archives #9 88
The Times, 30 June 1998.
Wait, Michael who? Well, this should be good.
The Times, 30 June 1998.
Wait, Michael who? Well, this should be good.
You could actually weep for some of the people in our country.
But the point Yes supporters understand and Unionists don’t is that it’s everything to do with the question – because “who is or might be Prime Minister, or which party is in government” is never our choice. It’s the choice of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland together. One of those countries outnumbers the others by 8 to 1.
More than that, it isn’t just who is Prime Minister now, or who may be in the future – it’s every single Prime Minister in my 35 years of existence on this planet.
…for the EU election results, a reminder of days gone by.
Inexplicably, the Scottish Tory manifesto for the 2014 Euro election forgot to include the paragraph saying “Of course, if you vote No this September, then England votes to leave the EU in the most catastrophic manner possible, Scotland will be dragged out too no matter how it voted, and we’ll just tell you to shut up if you complain about it”.
It was probably meant to go in that space at the end, but you know how it is, mistakes happen. No harm done, eh?
Almost exactly two years ago, this website suggested that it might not be the smartest idea for Labour to go along with Theresa May’s call for a snap election. (Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, it couldn’t have happened without Labour’s support.)
And it occurred to us today that if they hadn’t, the current government would only have a maximum of one year left to run.
Lordy, is it that time again already?
Let’s leave aside the most toweringly and obviously cretinous aspect of that insanely illogical claim for a moment – namely, if the McCrone Report was such a smoking gun proving independence would be bad, why did the UK government suppress it for 30 years rather than sending a copy to every home in Scotland and shouting it from the rooftops every single day? – and just quickly look at what it actually said.
Another slow news day, so here’s one from the archives:
Don’t worry, we’re not going to make you try to read it that size.
Because we know the poor lad’s not very bright.
Yes, Murdo. Yes it has.
If we were to write an article every time Murdo Fraser said something moronic, we’d have to rename this site Wings Over Murdo Fraser, and drink an awful lot of Red Bull to be able to cover it all.
Stuff like this, for example, is almost too easy.
43% (actually 45.3% excluding Don’t Knows) is considerably more than Murdo Fraser has ever achieved in an election, either himself or as part of a party. His average over the seven elections he’s contested and lost since 1999 is just 30.1%, and until a blip in 2016 it had been falling lower and lower each time, as people have watched how he performed as an MSP and got less and less keen on the idea.
That’s still actually slightly more than the 28.6% his party secured in Scotland at the last election, though, in what was nevertheless generally regarded as an unusually impressive performance. Two years earlier they gathered just 14.9% of the votes cast.
Yet neither Fraser nor the Tories disappear for a generation every time Scotland tells them to go and get stuffed. Fraser keeps trousering an MSP’s fat salary despite two decades of unbroken and unequivocal personal rejection from the electorate, even as he demands that the independence movement gives up after losing ONE vote.
But in his defence, his leader’s not setting him much of an example.
“…but with a different meaning since you’ve been gone.”
Labour have now been promising to abolish the Lords for around 110 years, including 37 years as the UK government. But wait! They’ve got more promises for you!
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.