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Why beggars will be losers 325

Posted on February 06, 2016 by

Scottish Labour’s announcement that it wants to increase tax for everyone earning over £20k (and therefore anyone on under that who fancies making a little bit more, or might do a wee bit of extra overtime), reflects its acceptance both that the far left is in charge now and that this year’s Holyrood race is virtually over already.

oliver

SNP party folk will “take nothing for granted”, of course, and some aficionados might find it fun to see which candidates slink into list seats after they’ve lost the votes which count, but I’m really much more interested in what will come after that.

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Category comment, scottish politics, uk politics

The cost of everything 70

Posted on February 06, 2016 by

From an excellent letter in today’s Herald by Chris McLaughlin of Giffnock:

oftri

The only fault in Chris’ logic is that he’s a bit too generous to Labour.

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Category comment, scottish politics

Clown shoes 75

Posted on February 06, 2016 by

footshooter

Order “Welcome To Cairnstoon”, Chris’ compilation of Wings cartoons and more, here.

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Category scottish politics

Meet the new blood 142

Posted on February 05, 2016 by

STV have leaked the results of Scottish Labour’s list-candidate rankings. Alert readers will recall that Kezia Dugdale promised that her leadership would see an influx of “new talent and fresh faces” to the beleaguered branch office’s ranks.

mince3

So let’s see how that panned out.

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Category analysis, scottish politics

The Big Split 472

Posted on February 03, 2016 by

From a Daily Record vox pop today on Scottish Labour’s tax plan.

bigsplit

Seems there are some things nearly everyone agrees on.

Category comment, media, scottish politics

Help, we need somebody 77

Posted on February 02, 2016 by

It’s been a fair few months since we last documented the Daily Record’s increasingly panicky attempts to save its own hide over its infamous eve-of-referendum “Vow”.

recordvowsorted

In its growing desperation, the paper bizarrely turns today to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, demanding that SHE should be the one to fulfil a promise that the Record made specifically in order to thwart Sturgeon’s lifelong goal of independence.

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Category comment, history, media, scottish politics, uk politics

A Penny For Labour 109

Posted on February 02, 2016 by

We’re just going to leave this here.

“Penny dreadful for low paid: Inland Revenue figures back Labour claims public-sector workers would bear brunt of SNP tax plan

Labour will seek to put tax at the centre of its ‘big push’ for a Holyrood majority this week, with new figures showing nurses, teachers, and council workers will foot the bill for the SNP’s ‘penny for Scotland’.

A detailed breakdown of the tax’s impact reveals how public-sector workers would be forced to bear the brunt of a measure that would affect more than two million workers.

An analysis prepared by the Inland Revenue and passed to The Herald confirms Labour claims that the Nationalists’ flagship policy, intended to raise £690m extra for health and education, will fall disproportionately on those on low and middle incomes.

The figures, released with just 72 hrs to go to polling day, mark the culmination of Labour’s non-stop campaign against the SNP’s economic policies.

[Gordon Brown] said last night: ‘There is hardly a nurse, teacher, policeman, or council worker in Scotland who won’t be paying this tax increase. These are the very people the SNP claimed it wanted to help and instead they will be hit the hardest.'”

It’s a funny old world.

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Category comment, history, scottish politics

A kind of goldrush 202

Posted on February 01, 2016 by

An alert reader directed us to an article on finance site Bloomberg today:

oilwealth

It’s interesting to see a business and bankers’ perspective on something that we’ve already pointed out a number of times on Wings, namely that the lower oil price has at least as many upsides as downsides.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics, world

The Living End 171

Posted on January 31, 2016 by

Something kept nagging at the back of our minds as we read today’s front-page lead story in Scotland On Sunday about a battle between finance secretary John Swinney and a number of Scottish councils.

sosliving

And then we remembered what it was.

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Category analysis, scottish politics, wtf

Charity with menaces 173

Posted on January 31, 2016 by

Brian Spanner Fan Club chair JK Rowling yesterday moved quickly to correct some press reports that she’d abandoned her plans to sue independent MP Natalie McGarry over alleged defamation.

Tweeting to Herald reporter Martin Williams, she snippily noted:

rowlingwilliams

The true nature of the “request” therefore seems unmistakeable – “make a donation to my charity or get sued by someone richer than the Queen”.

And we can’t help wondering whether that’s tantamount to blackmail.

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Category comment, scottish politics

A world full of philanthropists 364

Posted on January 30, 2016 by

To the astonishment of all, it turns out that JK Rowling isn’t going to sue anyone after all. Or, as the ever-reliable-and-accurate Scottish Daily Mail puts it:

mailsue

(It seems needlessly churlish and picky to also point out that McGarry currently isn’t an “SNP MP”, so we won’t do that.)

Instead, the author, worth hundreds of millions of pounds, intends to try to pressure McGarry into making a donation to her childrens’ charity, Lumos, which we can only presume is happy to receive money generated by what some people might regard as intimidation bordering on blackmail.

So that’s all well and good. If you’re going to bully people, after all, it’s probably best if it’s at least for a worthy cause. Rowling was full of praise for abusive Tweeter “Brian Spanner” when he raised some money for the same charity last year by selling t-shirts mocking the loony “Scottish Resistance” campaign group.

But not all charitable donations attract such gratitude.

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Category comment, debunks, media, scottish politics

Broad shoulders, short arms 59

Posted on January 30, 2016 by

img162

Order “Welcome To Cairnstoon”, Chris’ compilation of Wings cartoons and more, here.

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Category scottish politics, uk politics

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