Several media outlets today relate a story from BBC Scotland’s fascinating three-part documentary of the indyref, revealing that secret UK government polling in the first week of September 2014 gave Yes a lead even bigger than the famous 51-49 one published by the Sunday Times on the 7th.
And naturally we couldn’t help wondering what might have caused it.
Dr Craig Dalzell of the Common Weal is a very sharp guy we’ve run several pieces by on Wings, and he’s currently appearing all over the place with a highly accessible and concise explanation of how an independent Scotland could sensibly run its economy.
If you haven’t been able to make it out to see him, a quiet Sunday might be an ideal time to catch up with it.
For some time, most polls for “Who’d make the best UK Prime Minister?” – the stat that really decides who wins general elections – have shown a solid lead for “Don’t know”, narrowly ahead of Theresa May and a long way ahead of Jeremy Corbyn.
It’s a prime symptom of a UK-wide contempt for politicians the magnitude of which we’ve never seen in our lifetime, and Scottish voters are in no way immune.
We loaded this question from our latest Panelbase poll in the party leaders’ favours, because you don’t have to think any of them is doing a GOOD job to say that one of them is doing the BEST job out of the four. Everything is relative – and we also didn’t ask the question specifically about Brexit.
But even with those get-outs, “They’re all useless” came out on top by a clear seven points over Nicola Sturgeon, and the rest weren’t even at the races.
The Scotsman is delighted to have some bad news to report:
So, the number of teachers is falling, right?
Tonight sees what’s likely to be a highly-charged Scottish Cup quarter-final replay at Ibrox Stadium. Defeat will effectively end the losing side’s season, and games between the participants, Aberdeen and Rangers International, have tended to be fierce affairs ever since the latter club was formed in controversial circumstances in 2012, with this season’s clashes already having seen numerous red cards.
(Mainly for the home team’s temperamental striker Alfredo Morelos.)
Football authorities will be hoping for a minimum of flashpoints on the field which might lead to repeats of shocking recent scenes of abuse and violence from spectators, which have prompted the nation’s media to wring its hands in theatrical angst and demand that something be done.
The public’s view on the subject, meanwhile, has remained absolutely consistent.
Sundays have been the low point of Scottish political journalism for a while now. Traditionally a day when newspapers are heavy on comment and light on news (because politics tends to happen on weekdays), they unleash all the weary old dinosaurs who’ve been driving away readers for the last 30 years.
So you really have to stand out to be noticed for especially appalling hackery on a Sunday, which is probably why nobody from Scotland On Sunday wanted to have their name on this toe-curling piece of second-hand, lifted-from-another-paper garbage.
Professor Ronald MacDonald, you say? That name seems to ring a bell.
David Davis on the Andrew Marr Show this morning:
MARR: “What would [Theresa May] need to bring back [from Brexit negotiations] to win you over?”
DAVIS: “She needs to bring back a clear ability on the part of the United Kingdom to be able to leave this treaty when it chooses to. There is no other treaty in the world I’m aware of where a sovereign nation undertakes to join up and can only leave when the other side says so.”
We’re pretty sure we can think of an example, David.
Michael Glackin of the Sunday Times is the only serious contender to the Scotsman’s demented Brian Wilson as the most poisonously, blindly instinctive hater of anything even passingly connected to the SNP or independence in the Scottish media. His weekly bilious rants in the paper make even Scottish Daily Express hacks wince and say “Blimey, that’s a bit strong”.
But even by those standards, this week’s column is quite something. So let’s take a little look at just how much of an idiot you can make of yourself if you never allow facts to get in the way of your rage.
Watching the Six Nations rugby tournament every year is usually quite a dispiriting experience – not just because of Scotland’s invariably underwhelming performances (broken up by the occasional false dawn), but because talking about it on social media always results in an extremely tedious flood of comments about how rugby is a sport played and watched exclusively by middle-class Tory No voters.
(That’s Scotland skipper Greig Laidlaw there, with Wings mascot Hamish.)
Speaking as someone whose interest in the tournament (in the pre-inflation days when it was the Five Nations) was first sparked when my extremely working-class Bathgate comprehensive school started taking pupils to Murrayfield in the 1980s – 50p for the bus and 50p for the match ticket, which got you a seat on wooden benches actually on the grass – this attitude has always instinctively felt like complete nonsense.
So when we did our latest Panelbase poll during this year’s competition, we figured we may as well actually find out.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
