If we’d seen this sooner, we’d have bet every penny we owned on Leave:
The game just changed, readers. We’ve been up all night. We’ll have some analysis for you in a few hours. For now, spend a few moments pondering who the “narrow nationalists” and “separatists” in the UK are.
One of the more intriguing aspects of the EU debate has been the claim made by former Labour minister Tom Harris that a vote to leave the EU would transfer a raft of new powers, including over fishing and farming, to the Scottish government.
(Part of a fairly major volte-face by Harris on who should control what in Scotland, but let’s not get into that right now.)
On the face of it, this is a perfectly feasible possibility, since devolution was set up on a “reserved list” basis – any issues not specifically reserved to Westminster are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. In theory this would indeed mean that powers over farming and fishing would revert to Holyrood automatically upon exit from the EU.
But it’s not quite as simple as that.
The Prime Minister with Andrew Marr this morning:
So it’s great to be a small oil-rich independent nation? Who knew, eh?
Readers may have noted that Scottish Labour’s complaints about the delay in opening the new Forth Bridge have been uncharacteristically subdued.
It is, after all, rarely difficult to distinguish the branch office from a cuddly fluffy bunny made of candyfloss and children’s smiles. But this time we may know why.
Sometimes we feel as though dumbing down Scottish politics until the Times’ political reporter Kenny Farquharson can understand it is our full-time job. It’s something we have to do quite a lot, whether it’s reminding him what manifestos look like, or pointing out that protecting EVERY child in Scotland from harm is actually a good thing, or even basic stuff like explaining what the SNP’s position on Scottish independence is.
So we’re pretty used to this sort of thing by now.
Iain “but where will the money for an oil fund come from?” Gray gets a couple of sharp thwacks with a verbal Lochgelly tawse at today’s FMQs:
Yesterday we reported on a rather weird Scotland on Sunday poll that the newspaper reported last month, which pollster ICM seemed to want nothing to do with and whose results weren’t made public until weeks after they should have been, and only under sustained pressure from this website.
Here’s another extract from the paper’s coverage:
Now, that’s some pretty shabby and misleading editorialising right from the off by the paper’s super-Unionist political editor Tom Peterkin. The SNP had pledged to replace the tax in their 2007 manifesto, and attempted to do so as a minority administration, but were foiled by the combined opposition of the Unionist parties voting to block proposals for a local income tax. The Nats accepted defeat and the pledge wasn’t repeated in the 2011 or 2016 manifestos.
But the poll is even dodgier than that.
It was revealed yesterday that NHS Scotland now has the highest staffing levels in its history, a positive story justly celebrated in today’s Times:
It’s in there if you read closely, honest.
Last month Scotland on Sunday published some findings from a poll covering, among other things, backing for Trident and for a second independence referendum in the event of a Brexit vote.
We didn’t think much about it until a reader told us that Labour MSP Jackie Baillie had trumpeted the Trident result – a wafer-thin 43-42 majority in favour – in her column in the Helensburgh Advertiser. We were curious to see the finer details and set about finding the full data tables for the poll, which was conducted by ICM.
(Under British Polling Council rules, pollsters have to release full data within 48 hours of any headline findings being made public.)
Weirdly, they didn’t exist.
Something remarkable happened in the last couple of days, readers. After we told you about the imminent delivery of the print edition of the Wee Black Book, there was a flurry of orders for several thousand more copies. And that extra influx of cash took the independence movement past a significant milestone.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
