Wings Over Scotland

… someone from the No campaign or a right-wing newspaper tries to tell you that Scotland’s attitudes to the EU aren’t actually very different to those in the rest of the UK, just show them this striking graphic and tell them to shush.

(And don’t take any “Well then we’d have to join the Euro!” cobblers either.)

If we choose to remain in the UK and the UK has a referendum on EU membership (which it’s highly likely to), there isn’t a whole lot of doubt about the outcome. There’s only one way to make sure Scotland stays in Europe. Businesspeople planning a No vote because they fear “uncertainty” might want to have a wee think about that.

A Radio 4 “Point Of View” programme by the writer and philosopher Roger Scruton on Friday evening attracted quite a lot of social-media ire from nationalists. We can only assume they were so angered by a few crass factual errors (“The Scottish economy is subsidised by the English”) and Dr Scruton’s rather patrician manner that they didn’t bother to listen all the way to the end.

“Suppose then we English were finally allowed a say in the matter, which way would I vote? I have no doubt about it. I would vote for English independence, as a step towards strengthening the friendship between our countries.

It was thanks to independence that the Americans were able at last to confess to their attachment to the old country, and to come to our aid in two world wars. Independence is what real friendship requires. And the same is true for those, like the Scots and the English, who live side by side.”

We can’t say we find anything there to disagree with. After some of the cross-border ugliness and bad feeling that’s been whipped up by the actions of Unionists lately, the only outcome of the referendum that will allow the people of Scotland and England to regard each other with dignity and mutual respect in the future is a Yes vote. Crawling pathetically back to London with our tail between our legs won’t do it.

(An update on this post.)

If the next Ipsos MORI poll shows a significant drop in the No lead, we can probably call that definitive. The days of the No camp being 30+ points ahead seem to be well and truly over. Five out of the seven British Polling Council members polling on the independence referendum now put the required swing for Yes at just 5-6%. Looks like Wings pollsters Panelbase were at the cutting edge again after all.

To save time, just take everything we said last week and repeat.

Perhaps the most telling thing, though, about this week’s edition of what now appears to be the BBC’s official late-night No-campaign propaganda slot is that Iain Martin used to be the editor of the Scotsman. Readers can draw their own conclusions.

SATIRE:

REALITY:

At least, we THINK we’ve got those the right way round.

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The Scotpulse poll we mentioned last night in a frankly shameful outbreak of tooting our own horn actually released two sets of data, accompanied by an odd email apologising that the survey had featured an overly wide range of questions. We don’t know if we’re going to see the others at any point, but the second one released yesterday was intriguing.

And we’re not talking about the somewhat leading preamble.

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Here’s we’re-not-actually-sure-what-he-is Bob Mills earlier this evening on Radio 4’s News Quiz, hosted by Sandi Toksvig with a very quiet Fred MacAuley twisting his tartan bunnet in the corner and hoping for a pat on the head.

Whatever will they do for laughs without us?

Someone just forwarded us the results of a survey by STV’s polling arm Scotpulse. It’s a “wordcloud” of the sort we have on this very site (it’s over on the right hand side and down a bit, marked “Tags”), where the more significant something is the bigger its name gets printed. It pretty much speaks for itself.

You’re the ones who put the word out there, readers. It’s working. Thank you.

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A reader comment this morning caused us to go back and double-check the facts in an old post (which turned out to be entirely correct, so that was fine). But for reasons which will shortly become clear, Wings Over Scotland is on a constant mission to distill aspects of the independence debate down to the clearest, most concise summaries possible, and the act of checking spurred us to lay something out.

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DOOM!

“Blair Stewart, head of the company’s Edinburgh Residential Department, said: ‘Going by the current movement in property market, I should think there will be a three to five per cent growth in the £300,000 to £800,000 bracket and the £1million-plus will remain static.

I am expecting a slowdown as we near the referendum with buyers adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude.'”

GLOOM!

“Delaying introduction of average speed cameras on the A9 until after the referendum has been branded a ploy to avoid an anti-independence backlash.”

We’re not sure we can take many more blows like this.

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So we’ve now had David Cameron, David Mitchell and David Bowie all “lovebombing” Scotland with pleas to stay in the Union (as assorted Tory ministers and their Labour and Lib Dem hangers-on lurk in the shadows a few feet away tapping knuckle-dusters into their palms and making throat-slitting gestures in our direction).

But the big question is, which David would you like to see try it next?

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