Wings Over Scotland

…we would give it to Ian Bell, for he’s hit the nail so hard on the head in today’s Herald that he must surely have broken his own. As we’ve said before, we don’t make a habit of reproducing stuff from behind newspaper paywalls, because as journalists ourselves in our day jobs we support the idea of paying for quality journalism, and at just 75p a week a Herald online subscription is very fairly priced, unlike some.

But Bell’s piece today (which also indirectly addresses the hysterical, hypocritical faux-outrage over Joan McAlpine’s “anti-Scottish” comments) is more important than that, and deserves a nationwide audience who can be directed to it time and again over the next two and a half years. Read it below, and then please consider whether for Scotland’s sake you can afford NOT to support one of its few remaining outlets of decent, honest and reasonably balanced writing about politics.

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The Guardian today runs an extensive interview with Labour's shadow Defence Secretary and former Scottish Secretary, the estimable Jim Murphy MP, in which Murphy demands that Labour must take the lead in the campaign to save the Union. We're a bit confused, though, because Murphy doesn't seem to be all that big a fan of said Union. Most of his responses were predictable and unremarkable, but this line really jumped out at us:

"I'm proud to [be] Scottish. The only flag I ever wave would be a Scottish flag."

The ONLY one? We're not alone in finding that odd, are we? We can't imagine considering ourselves to be citizens of a country, actively wishing to keep the people of that country united under one flag, and yet being afraid, ashamed or just plain unwilling to wave that flag ourselves. So why does Murphy want to save the Union when he can't bear to wave the Union Flag? If anyone can help us understand, we'd be grateful.

Tonight's edition of Newsnight Scotland featured duelling lawyers, with conflicting views on the legality of the Scottish Government's proposed referendum. Professor Adam Tomkins from the University of Glasgow put forward the opinion that Holyrood basically had no power to do anything at all and should be grateful for Westminster's "very generous" offer to help out, while Professor Stephen Tierney (University of Edinburgh) posited the interpretation that an advisory referendum was perfectly fine as it didn't in itself lead to legislation and therefore exceed the Parliament's competence.

Presenter Raymond Buchanan tried to navigate the tricky constitutional minefield between the two, and after Prof. Tierney had given his explanation of why the referendum bill might be lawful, Buchanan stabbed right at the heart of the dilemma when he asked the question viewers across the nation were shouting at their screens:

"Just to clarify that: so, so, if there was a Yes vote, which said "Go and negotiate with Westminster" and then, uh… then Westminster… or the… what you're saying whether the voters rejected that then, what would happen or… Westminster rejected it, what impact would you, were you saying?"

Well and truly clarified, we'd say. It was a feat of no small magnitude that the Daily Record's Torcuil Crichton actually managed to haul the intellectual level down a couple of notches from there later in the show, but that's another story. The important thing is that the future of the independence debate is in safe hands!

(See here for the whole story.)

"Does the Prime Minister agree with me that we must make the case for the Union – not simply against separatism, but the positive case about the shared benefits to us all of Scotland's part in the United Kingdom?"
(Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, January 2012)

"I'm happy to say that this is an area where the Right Honourable gentleman and I are going to be in 100% agreement."
(David Cameron, Prime Minister, January 2012)

So it seems we can look forward to imminently hearing that "positive case", which sadly neither of these illustrious figures had time to actually outline at Prime Minister's Questions today. Any minute now, we're sure.

As you might imagine, the sudden burst of sunlight cast on the independence referendum yesterday has seen the media scurrying around like hundreds of cockroaches who've just had the rock lifted from on top of them. There isn't time to come anywhere close to a complete analysis of the reaction and we've got a lot of stuff to do today, so we're going to cut through the swamp and point you at a handful that cover all the core issues with the minimum of fluff and waffle.

"Salmond outmanoeuvres Westminster", says Hamish McDonnell in the CalMerc, reflecting/summarising what seems to be the general media take on the subject

David Maddox in the Scotsman, apparently unaware of when the Scottish Parliament's term ends (it's April 2016, Dave) presents events from the Unionist perspective

The Guardian highlights the arrival of the civic-Scotland devo-max movement and its potential for complicating the issue

Michael Moore explicitly tells Scotland Tonight the UK government WON'T bring a legal challenge if the SNP launch a referendum without Westminster approval – we're amazed nobody else has questioned him in more detail on this. It would be absolutely extraordinary if the British government stood idly by and watched an illegal attempt to break up the United Kingdom, so why is Moore saying they won't? And what does that reveal about the UK government's true opinion on the legality of the referendum? (Warning: 300 years of adverts first)

Devolution expert Alan Trench analyses the situation in detail

Unionist misinformation kicks off early as The Telegraph runs a headline poll claiming low support for independence, but waits until the small print at the bottom before revealing that its Scottish sample is under 500 – ie less than half the number required for a survey to have any legitimacy

And Ian Smart asks an excellent question

Get through that lot and we'll see where we are.

If, like us, you made a bad decision last night and watched the juvenile playground rammy on Scotland Tonight rather than the simultaneously-broadcast edition of Newsnight, here's the link to the BBC show. (If you plumped for the Beeb, the STV programme can be viewed here. Earplugs advised.)

Gavin Esler was on very good form generally, but the high point was this introduction (at 12m 30s) for his second interview of the night:

"There used to be a joke that you could fit all the Scottish Conservative MPs into a taxi. Now you can fit them all into one chair. And here he is, Scottish Office minister David Mundell!"

Nice to see Scotland making the grown-up version of Newsnight, but we suspect we better get used to hearing the exact same pre-prepared soundbites parroted out on air an awful lot in the coming months and years, so we're going to be even more grateful for any half-decent jokes that get thrown in along the way.

(See here for the whole story.)

We honestly thought we were going to get something this time. Not, if we're being honest, from the terminally vacuous Dougie Alexander (writing in famed Labour paper the Telegraph), and he didn't disappoint us:

"Politics is about emotion as well as simple accountancy. So as well as making the economic case for staying in the United Kingdom, we also need to tell a better, more positive story for Scotland’s future to compete with the SNP’s narrative of nationalism." (Actual positive story not included. Nor the economic case, now we come to think about it.)

But we thought there was a real chance from Tory opinionist Andrew McKie in the Herald yesterday. After all, it was practically there in the headline ("A positive reason for the Union? Most Scots want it"), and the article itself was clear about its goal, noting that "Politicians are much given to talking – as Mr Cameron did yesterday – about 'a positive case for the Union' and commentators (I'm one of them) have been asking for the same thing for some time. Since nobody has yet been willing to do this, I'll try to make a modest start".

Sadly, though, the actual case presented by McKie turned out to be, shall we say, not entirely convincing:

"It is a strategic mistake for Unionists to bang on about whether Scotland is subsidised by England. It is, a bit, compared with many English regions (though London is subsidised more), but then we have Glasgow to contend with, as well as huge remote areas such as the Highlands and Islands, which demand higher spending.

The benefit of the United Kingdom is that such costs can be shared among a much larger population; the Union gives freedom of movement, lack of tariff barriers and equal benefit, healthcare and pension entitlement to all citizens.

This should be stressed as a positive advantage, not as a claim that the Scots couldn't afford to go it alone, or that they are subsidy junkies." [paywall link]

In other words, McKie's "positive" reason is basically "Glasgow is such a dump that we need the rest of the UK to bail out all the benefit scroungers there". Or in other words, the same old negative scaremongering, but now simply called a positive boon. (Also, he appears to rather bizarrely believe that an independent Scotland won't have freedom of movement, healthcare or pensions. All this positivity is overwhelming us.)

In fairness to McKie, he does go on to assert the claim made by his headline, namely:

"That positive case for the Union is not one which any convinced Scottish Nationalist will agree with, but it is the most forceful of them all: the positive case for the Union is that most Scots do not want to abandon it."

But that's not so much a case as a statement, of something nobody actually knows yet. We will know after the referendum whether Scots want to abandon the Union, and not before – in 304 years of Union, this will be the first time Scots have been given any vote on it. The manager can say before the game that his team has it won, but you don't actually get the three points until the final whistle.

So sadly, nothing yet. But there's still time! Come on, Unionists! You can do it!

TIME ELAPSED: 5 years, 0 months
CONFIRMED SIGHTINGS OF POSITIVE CASE FOR UNION TO DATE: 0

We don't often have anything nice to say about Kevin McKenna, but this lovely passage from his weekend Observer column deserves credit:

"Last week, the [SNP]'s formidable organiser, Angus Robertson, could scarcely keep the glee out of his voice as he once more displayed his pride and joy: the IT system that reveals to the SNP exactly where each of their supporters lives and, very possibly, the elasticity quotient of their foundation garments.

Even if Labour were to take delivery of a similar model tomorrow, it would take them half a political generation to feed in sufficient data from which to draw reliable conclusions. Even then, glancing along Labour's frontbench, you could never be confident that some of them would not simply throw their dirty washing into it and look for the 'on' switch."

Nice work, Kev. We'll make a writer out of you yet.

Nick Clegg's been upsetting people this week. Now, you might reasonably retort that there was nothing unusual about that, especially in a week when newspaper headlines suggested that the Lib Dems were down to a single voter. But the unusual thing on this occasion is that he's upset people by telling the truth.

Much of the Scottish political village was up in arms about comments the Deputy Prime Minister made in an interview with the Scotsman, which the paper chose to present as Clegg calling supporters of Scottish independence "extremists". The story set various camps off into various types of huff. Liberal Democrats, for example, were angry both at the comments and at the Scotsman – which they accused of "misreporting" Clegg on the grounds that he hadn't actually used the word "extremists" – while some nationalists were predictably outraged at the perceived slur.

But these complaints are wrong on every level. Firstly and most obviously, Clegg DID use the word "extremists" – you can see it in paragraph 8 of the Scotsman piece, where the paper quotes him thusly:

"All the evidence suggests that [greater devolution] is the mainstream of opinion and the extremists are those who either think that we need to yank Scotland out of the United Kingdom tomorrow, or those who say there should be no further change at all."

This statement is, in itself, entirely accurate. When it comes to the constitution, independence and the status quo are the extremes of opinion (discounting the real lunatic fringe who want Holyrood closed down altogether). But even where more sober commentators recognised this fact, they misleadingly left out the last part of Clegg's quote, giving the false impression – just as the Scotsman had done – that he'd only applied it the nationalist camp, when in fact he'd explicitly labelled the supporters of the status quo in the same way.

And, indeed, himself. Because while the Deputy PM was clearly attempting to isolate Labour and the Tories and carve out the popular middle ground for his own party as it embarks on yet another consultation on "Home Rule" (despite the Calman Commission, whose findings the Lib Dems backed, having barely closed its doors), the fact of the matter is that whenever the referendum arrives, the Lib Dems will by default be campaigning for the status quo too, making them just as extremist as everyone else. And despite all the faux-shock, that's something that everyone already knew long before Clegg opened his mouth.

There is absolutely no chance that the latest Lib Dem talking shop will produce a devo-plus proposal to be included in the referendum. Even if they wanted to they'd never get such a thing approved by their UK coalition partners (and unlike independence, any altered devolution settlement requires the consent of the Westminster parliament), and they don't want to anyway – the Scottish Lib Dems have been absolutely unequivocal, along with the other opposition parties, in demanding a one-question Yes or No referendum. And the likelihood of the Lib Dems being in power on either side of the border by then, and therefore in a position to negotiate or grant any further devolution at a later date anyway, is pretty much zero.

So when it comes down to it in 2015 or 2016, by Nick Clegg's definition everyone will be an extremist. Only the two extreme positions will be on offer, and the voters will have to pick one or the other. This blog, for one, commends Nick Clegg on stating that simple and obvious fact, and isn't quite sure why anyone else would be offended by it.

(One for the Manics fans in the audience, there.)

Reliably right-wing politics periodical The Spectator this week runs a leader column called "Save the Union". Its plan amounts to having David Cameron determine the timing and format of the independence referendum, and having Labour's Scottish MPs (not its MSPs, who the magazine clearly considers useless) conduct the campaign. The reason it gives for not having the Prime Minister lead the fight to preserve the UK is the unpopularity of the Tories in Scotland, but curiously the column writer doesn't think to extend this logic to the likely effect a Westminster-dictated referendum would have on Scottish opinion.

(Indeed, the idea is so idiotic that the Spectator's own Scottish correspondent Alex Massie instantly rubbished it on the publication's own blog, even going so far as to suggest that not only should the referendum have a devo-max option, but that the Scottish Conservatives should campaign for it – a fascinating theory which would leave Labour alone in campaigning for the status quo, which would be as disastrous for the party as it would be hilarious for everyone else.)

Meanwhile, over on the Express, occasional book author Frederick Forsyth (the last one we've actually heard of came out in 1984) offers his own thoughts (we use that word rather reluctantly, but "outpouring of batshit-mental witterings" seems needlessly rude) on the subject. According to Forsyth, the surefire way to guarantee the salvation of "the most successful four-nation union the world has ever seen" (as opposed to, um, we're not sure which others) is for voting to be compulsory for anyone within Scotland, optional for any Scot living elsewhere, and subject to a 55-45 threshold. The Electoral Commission would determine the wording of the question and the spending limits, and forbid any return to the issue for a minimum of 10 years.

This blog fervently hopes that these ideas are enthusiastically adopted by the UK Government. We'd like to see them get Michael Winner on board as well – we're sure he'd have some interesting opinions, and he too is known for his Death Wish.

Wings Over Scotland continues to regret the Scotsman's failure to provide a viable link to the commentary of former Glasgow Lord Provost, Michael Kelly. The veteran Old Labour stalwart's columns rarely fail to provide a chuckle, and today's is a peach.

Kelly is no stranger to the barking mad, particularly where the SNP is concerned, but his latest column makes an extraordinary assertion even by his standards.

"By bringing down the Callaghan government in 1979, the SNP forced a general election at the time most propitious to the Tories, and thereafter they ruled the UK for the next 18 years. This was not a mistake. The SNP calculated that by allowing the Tories to inflict maximum damage on Scotland they could portray themselves as saviours."

That's right, folks – the SNP quite deliberately installed the Tories in power for two decades, apparently able to accurately foresee that a subsequent Labour administration would create Scottish devolution (a strategy, let's remember, that was designed by Labour to "kill nationalism stone dead"), then handle it so badly that the SNP would be able to form a minority administration eight years later, then oppose that administration so spectacularly ineptly that the SNP would win a majority at the next election and finally be able to hold a referendum on independence.

(With such an incredible vision stretching 32 years into the future, you have to wonder why the SNP didn't also back every Grand National winner in the intervening time and have a lot more money than it does now.)

But we shouldn't be too unkind to poor Dr Kelly, an elderly man who appears to be suffering from the early stages of dementia. Later in the piece he attacks the SNP's scandalous intent to determine the Scottish Parliament's legislative schedule, on the tissue-thin basis that it runs the Scottish Govermnent. Barely controlling his rage, Kelly accuses Alex Salmond of

"trying his best to fix both the timing and wording of the referendum question – the former on the grounds that he promised it would be held late in this parliament: a promise for which there is as little evidence as for a dragon’s fiery breath."

We're not sure how many dragons Dr Kelly sees in the average day around Parkhead, but evidence of Salmond's promise on the referendum timing is rather easier to come by. A quick Google initially produces this Telegraph article, which quotes the First Minister saying during a BBC leaders' debate on May 1st that economic concerns would take priority and push the referendum bill "into the second half of this Parliament", gleefully reporting the statement as a "massive retreat".

(The Telegraph piece also quotes the then Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott making the case for not bothering with a referendum at all, which he'd go on to repeat on an STV debate a couple of days later, saying "If you want independence you can vote for it on Thursday". He had in fact made the exhortation several times on the BBC debate, going so far as to say "This election is about independence, if people want it they can vote for the SNP". Oddly, neither Scott nor the rest of the Lib Dems have since been heard describing the election result as a vote for independence.)

Should the former Provost not wish to take the Telegraph's word for it, the relevant part of the debate can be seen and heard on the BBC website. Now, about those dragons.

…according to today’s edition of The Times, is Alex Salmond. If you were wondering:

“We are fully aware of the irony of awarding this title to someone who does not believe in the idea of Britain itself.”

You can read the full story below.

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