Wings Over Scotland

Our ever-attentive readers will already have noticed that since the weekend there’s been a new link on the centre column, called “CAMPAIGN MATERIALS”. Over the next 100 days it’s going to be key to getting our message out to the people of Scotland, and it’s your chance to take it directly to your own neighbourhood.

Because even with quarter of a million readers, it’s no good just sitting here preaching to the already-converted. We need to go on the road.

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The top five most-read stories on Wings Over Scotland in the last seven days.

1. OBAMA INTERVENES IN REFERENDUM
All two words of it. We’re not sure how to feel about that.

2. It’s about democracy, stupid
A more eloquent response from American Scot Jean Muir.

3. What Alistair Darling said
We’re still waiting for the New Statesman to release the tapes.

4. Zombies walk the Earth
The reason Labour have shoved Anas Sarwar off onto a bus.

5. How times don’t change
You’d already forgotten the Strathclyde Commission happened, hadn’t you?

This week’s theme: spot the sensible.

The latest leaked poster from our spy in the No camp. “They’re pretty sure this one’s legally bulletproof“, was all it said on the note in the envelope.

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
– Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

This is what the media is asking you to swallow today, readers:

“If Scotland wants to be like the vast majority of NATO members and have no nuclear weapons stationed on its territory, NATO will cut off its own nose to spite its face and reject Scotland as a member, even though that would leave the strategically-crucial North Atlantic Gate (also known as the ‘GIUK Gap‘) guarded by a non-member state and one with basically no military at all.”

Right.

“Scientists who currently think Scottish universities and laboratories are the best place to research a cure for cancer will suddenly decide to use what they previously considered to be inferior facilities if Scots vote to take control of their own affairs, because as we all know, cancer-research scientists care more about Scottish politics than curing cancer.”

Uh-huh.

“Using the anniversary of D-Day as a tool to campaign for the Union, even though the men of countless independent nations besides the UK sacrificed their lives for freedom there, ISN’T a crass politicisation of the event.”

Sure. Of course.

We’ve said it before, readers, and with the heaviest of hearts we must presume that we’ll have to say it many more times in the next 100 days: they think you’re morons.

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“Great Britain” began with the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James the VI of Scotland ascended to the Throne of England and Ireland, but the “United Kingdom” didn’t come into existence until the Act of Union in 1707, which effectively dissolved the Scottish Parliament. The “British Empire” began with the Union with Scotland and, if those in support of a Yes vote have their way, it will end with Scottish independence.

But what’s any of that got to do with Barack Obama?

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This is a story in today’s Scottish Daily Express:

Now that’s what we call some rapid inflation.

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Launched amid much fanfare over a year ago, Scottish Labour’s ironically-named “2014 Truth Team” has been a source of great merriment to Yes supporters for many months. Having apparently run out of “truth” after just a few weeks of snarky tweets, the account had been silent since last summer, so imagine our surprise when it suddenly burst back into life today.

We say “back”, but in fact the Twitter account had been wiped clean as if it had never existed. All the old followers were still there, but now there were just four tweets, all of them advertising an exciting new feature on the Scottish Labour website entitled “The Top 20 Nationalist Assertions” and promising to “set out the facts” about them – the implication being, of course, that the assertions were untrue.

Fact-checking, eh? Well, that’s the sort of thing we just can’t resist.

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For the sake of our blood pressure we don’t normally tune in to Radio Scotland’s weekday phone-in show, but as Lallands Peat Worrier was on it today we stayed with it for a few minutes, and found ourselves getting increasingly annoyed as presenter Kaye Adams asked caller after caller if they thought Barack Obama’s comments on independence yesterday (in so far as he actually made any) had been “off the cuff”.

We knew they hadn’t been, so we rang up just to keep the record straight.

We wanted to have Obama’s awkward, halting delivery on file anyway, so this’ll do.

We got another letter from the government today. After a sudden outbreak of candour last week with regard to the civil service writing Buzzfeed articles, this is more the sort of thing we’re accustomed to from Freedom Of Information requests.

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One of the most commonly-occurring arguments proffered by the left side of the No camp (regardless of how often it’s comprehensively debunked) is that should Scotland decide to leave the Union, it would condemn the English to perpetual Tory rule.

It’s essentially an appeal for Scotland to give up the chance of self-governance in order to mitigate someone else’s problem. But it could be even worse than that.

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There’s a considerable amount of uncertainty currently flying around on the internet with regards to Alistair Darling’s comments in an interview with the New Statesman which was published on the magazine’s website yesterday.

There seems to be no dispute that the “Better Together” leader compared Alex Salmond to dead North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, adding his name to the illustrious pantheon of assorted Unionist politicians and journalists who’ve likened Scotland’s democratically-elected First Minister to a series of genocidal murderers.

There is, however, something of a grey area around whether Mr Darling also accused the entire SNP of promoting “blood-and-soil nationalism” – an extremely offensive term normally used in reference to Nazi Germany, where it translated as “Blut und Boden”.

Well, let us clear that up for you. Yes, he did.

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