Wings Over Scotland

Matthew Norman in the Independent, 15 April 2014:

“In the entire global history of the political campaign, has any been more misconceived, wretchedly executed and potentially self-defeating than the one designed to keep Scotland within the United Kingdom?

Readers who may have been alarmed that the Scotsman hadn’t run any Michael Kelly columns for a while can breathe a sigh of relief this morning, as the role of “clueless idiot blithely spouting inflammatory and wrong-headed drivel about sectarianism and independence” is clearly in safe hands.

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We didn’t do a stats post at the start of April (still just under 4m pageviews a month, if you’re curious) but when someone tweeted these figures this morning we thought they were worth a wee toot, because they’re more than just nice news for us.

They’re from the independent web-traffic analysis site Alexa.com, and they detail the relative rankings for the seven biggest dedicated Scottish politics sites on the web.

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With the Scottish Parliament on a two-week break, it appears to have fallen to the Telegraph to take on the role of Johann Lamont this Thursday.

Scottish Labour’s regional manager has recently been under the curious impression that the most pressing issue on the minds of the people of Scotland is the fine detail of the First Minister’s hotel bill during a trip to America to promote the Ryder Cup in 2012, and the Telegraph seems equally obsessed.

But that dramatic splash isn’t quite what it seems.

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The one on the left is for these guys, the one on the right is for these guys.

We particularly like the Scotsman’s use of the word “error”, as in “Whoops, we totally accidentally rewrote this story three times in 24 hours, with four different headlines, in order to make it more and more pejorative and sneery. Tch, clumsy old us, eh?”

Well, sort of, anyway. We were going to have another poll post tonight, but your eyes go a bit squiffy after an entire day of cross-referencing spreadsheets full of percentages so instead we’re just going to allow ourselves a wee brief glow of pride about this.

We hadn’t any idea the vote was taking place so we couldn’t even shamelessly urge readers to stuff the virtual ballot boxes, so we’re pretty chuffed to be sharing what we’re officially calling “joint 11th place” with some very decent reporters indeed, and to even be on the same list as the likes of Alex Thomson of Channel 4 and other people who get actually shot at for a living (instead of just on the internet) isn’t the worst feeling we’ve ever had.

And the fact that we’re the only other crowdfunded operation, along with the winner, means that you – Wings Over Scotland’s readers and employers – get the credit too.

Thanks to anyone who voted for us, and to everyone who’s helped make it happen.

The other (and more complete) view of this story from yesterday:

Remember, readers, when we were all over the papers as “creepy as f**k”, intimidatory “spies” for peacefully and non-confrontationally documenting alleged “Better Together” events with long-distance photos in which we carefully avoided publishing anything that could be used to identify any individuals?

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So anyway. Alert readers will have noticed by now that we’ve had a poll out, and earlier today we finally got the full data tables in.

It’s going to take us a while to fully analyse everything (though we’ve dropped a few tantalising snippets on our Twitter account, which many of you are now stylish enough to follow), but we’re going to start with a theme we return to often in our polls – trust.

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The image below depicts three of what have been at least four different versions of the Scotsman’s story about our latest Panelbase poll. (So far, that is – who knows what might happen in an hour’s time?)

They show a fascinating evolution of editorial line, wouldn’t you say?

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As someone who’s kept them as pets for over 20 years, I know a thing or two about rats. Intelligent and affectionate creatures, individuals nevertheless have very distinct personalities, and occasionally you’ll get a timid and/or grumpy one. Those take a lot of care, patience and attention to bring out of their shell, and until that point they may try to escape and hide in the tiniest, darkest, most inaccessible corner of the house.

When found, and with all escape routes blocked off, these tiny creatures become incredibly ferocious. They have very long, razor-sharp teeth and move with astonishing speed, and won’t hesitate to attack something hundreds of times their size. Any long-term rat owner will have a few small but permanent battle scars.

And so to today’s Scotsman.

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Sorry to keep you hanging on, readers, but we figured it was worth giving the Sunday Times the exclusive in return for getting the story on the front page.

Please note that this is only the headline Yes/No finding, not the whole poll. Tune in here at 1am for our full analysis of the very interesting Yes/No data.

(We don’t have the tables for the rest of the questions yet).

Bill Jamieson in the Scotsman today:

“Yes, there should be No poll abuse

The independence debate has been getting ever nastier and it’s time for all sides to take a breath.”

It must have been a short breath, because just six paragraphs later:

“Bill Munro, the head of Barrhead Travel, one of our most successful Scottish companies, was subjected to a volley of threats and abuse after he advised staff in a letter to vote No.

A line has been crossed here between fair rebuttal and menacing nastiness. More of this and we could be on the way towards a Caledonian Kristallnacht.”

Because a surefire way to calm debate is to liken one side to the Nazis, right?

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