Wings Over Scotland

Well, hopefully there won’t be too much of that, as we’ve got a sitter in to keep the Separats in check while we’re away. But activity on Wings will probably be a little sparse over the next few days, for hopefully-obvious reasons.

There’s a limit on how much we’ll be able to say about the case, and chances to post on the site will be restricted in general, but we’ll try to keep on top of any important events. Normal service will be resumed ASAP. In the meantime, behave yourselves.

Wings Over Scotland is seven years old today (the period of time defined by the Good Friday Agreement as a “generation” in terms of referendums), and it doesn’t feel like a day over 25. Can we hurry up and have another indy vote before the entire country burns to the ground around our ears, please?

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It’s probably time we started collecting all the media articles from the last couple of weeks about our ongoing legal battle with former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale, because it’s getting increasingly hard to plough through them all.

The story that Labour were pulling Dugdale’s legal funding was first broken by the Huffington Post on 19 September. Below is all the coverage we’ve found between then and now (most recent first). As best as we can recollect, incidentally, we’ve been asked for quotes for TWO of these stories.

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We’d hoped not to have to write any more about this for a while, but a story broke this evening on left-wing Labour website Skwawkbox that we thought those of you not on Twitter would want to see.

Following a previous piece casting huge doubt on Dugdale and the Scottish media’s version of events, the site got hold of a letter (dated yesterday) from Labour’s general secretary Jennie Formby to Mary Fee MSP, who’d sent a complaint about the party’s decision to stop funding Dugdale’s legal costs.

And it’s quite the read.

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We hadn’t been intending to talk about this again today, but the John Beattie show on Radio Scotland just ran a segment that we really can’t let go unremarked.

Here’s the whole thing. Some of that’s going to need interpreting for the sane.

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We’ve been keeping coverage of our ongoing court battle with former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale to a minimum on the site, partly because little of any material impact has actually happened yet.

However, there was a mildly interesting development last night, which was scooped and accurately reported by the Scottish Sun.

Reactions to the party’s statement have already seen serious amounts of what we’re generously going to call “misinformation” generated and circulating around social media, so we’re going to have to clear some of it up. Apologies.

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We’ve got to admit, the Yorkshire chap makes a fair point.

Earlier this evening the Herald’s poor demented David Leask made an extraordinary and completely untrue allegation:

We haven’t said a single word on the subject (we haven’t a clue if it’s true or not), so several people challenged Leask on the claim, and eventually got a response.

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Anyone who’s ever written to the BBC, or who follows this site, will already know that the Corporation’s instinctive standard response to any request for information is “Get stuffed, pleb. Just because you pay for us doesn’t mean we’re answerable to you.”

But they do tend to show a little more respect if you used to be the First Minister.

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We couldn’t help noticing one particular Rory Bremner tweet last night.

And we thought, “Well, WE know someone who predicted those things.”

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A couple of months earlier than we were expecting it, we’ve had the Sheriff’s decision on our court hearing a month ago against Kezia Dugdale.

tl;dr version: we won.

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From time to time in our Panelbase polls we like to test Scotland’s opinion of its media, since that’s the main focus of our website, and our newest poll was one such time. It found that Scotland’s preferred broadcaster for political coverage was… Channel 4.

The station scored a net +23 rating with respondents, higher than STV (+19), with BBC Scotland trailing in last but still on +16 overall.

The BBC was the only one which had a notable difference in perception between Yes and No voters. C4 got +25 from Nos and a very similar +21 from Yessers, STV was closer still at +20 vs +19, but the BBC had a sizeable gap: just +6 from independence supporters (which is still startlingly high), but a thumping +23 from Unionists.

All broadcasters in Scotland are required by Ofcom rules to be neutral and balanced. We suppose that two out of three more or less managing it isn’t bad.

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