Professor Michael E. Smith, the Chair of International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, is a man who it’s fair to say knows his onions when it comes to the politics of transatlantic defence. A native of the USA who describes himself as “increasingly intrigued about independence”, he’s written extensively on EU military and security policy, and also understands the internal machinations of NATO a touch better than plebs such as ourselves or even, dare we say it, Willie Rennie.
So we were extremely delighted when he agreed to give Wings Over Scotland an exclusive interview on the subject of an independent Scotland’s future relationship with the West’s main military alliance.
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Category
analysis, scottish politics, uk politics, world
Forgive us another rummage around in our poll data, but we didn’t do a lot of study into gender differences in our first wave of analysis, and we were struck by something this morning as we idly browsed through the question about what Scots were scared of.
Along with the fact that women were almost twice as likely – 38% to 22% – to be undecided about their referendum vote* as men (and indeed about most other votes), it was one of the areas where the differences between the sexes were most stark.
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Tags: poll
Category
analysis, culture, scottish politics
Labour’s shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran is quoted in the Herald today presenting the award of £300m of contracts for the navy’s innovative new aircraft-free aircraft carriers as a benefit of the Union, and continuing the well-worn scare story that the Clyde and Rosyth shipyards would close in an independent Scotland.
We’ve already dealt with that particular canard, so instead let’s look at the sums.
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Tags: arithmetic failproject fear
Category
analysis, comment, scottish politics, uk politics
Even moderately alert readers will recall our expressing slight concern on Saturday at the recent disappearance of a page from the Scottish TUC website, in which the trade-union organisation outlined its view that the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system would result in a net loss of thousands of jobs in Scotland – a position which is strongly at odds with that of the Labour Party.
So we were relieved to be contacted on Sunday evening by the STUC’s Deputy General Secretary, Dave Moxham, who confirmed that the Congress’s opinion hadn’t changed, and that its full analysis could still be found here.
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comment, scottish politics
As we’ve already noted today, Wings Over Scotland has the internet’s most excellent readers. Two of them have been working together over the last week or so, after we put them in touch, to share some fascinating Scottish history with the rest of us.
Click the two images in this post for an intriguing hour-and-three-quarters.
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history, scottish politics, video
While the Scottish print media continues to almost totally blank our Panelbase opinion poll, it’s nice to know that they’re nevertheless paying close attention to its findings.
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comment, media, scottish politics
On the subject of Trident, which we more or less were, here’s an interesting thing.
It’s a page from the Scottish TUC website. Or at least, it used to be.
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scottish politics
We’ve already noted part of Willie Rennie’s appearance on Newnight Scotland this week, reinforcing the strange phenomenon by which the Unionist parties continue to suggest that an independent Scotland would be a dictatorial state more reminiscent of Zimbabwe than a modern western democracy with a proportionally-elected parliament.
But the full transcript of the segment (provided by our excellent and much-valued new transcribing department) adds a little meat to the bones. It’s fascinating stuff.
(NB YOUR PARAMETERS OF “FASCINATING” MAY VARY.)
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analysis, comment, scottish politics, transcripts, uk politics
Below is the headline of a story from this morning’s Independent.
We’ve read the article in question several times now looking for the supposed “bad news” for the Scottish First Minister, and we’re having no luck at all. Perhaps you can help us out with it, readers.
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Tags: misinformation
Category
comment, media, scottish politics, uk politics
If you weren’t up at 8.45am or so (it’s the weekend), click the image below to hear the interview on Good Morning Scotland on the subject of our Panelbase opinion poll.
The poll was also discussed (again) by prominent psephologist Professor John Curtice, who made a few helpful comments by way of expert advice. We’re new to the polling game, so let’s quickly address them.
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audio, comment, media, scottish politics
We might have to transcribe the whole thing, because it’s remarkable.
But for now here’s just a brief flavour of Willie Rennie on the subject of an independent Scotland’s membership of NATO, from last night’s Newsnight Scotland (from 5m 30s).
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comment, disturbing, scottish politics
