Archive for the ‘scottish politics’
Workfare for Holyrood 113
The media is in full-on spin mode today, reporting Ruth Davidson’s miraculous Damascene conversion to the principle of “more powers” for the Scottish Parliament, just 18 short months after her Churchill-esque declaration of devolutionary defiance to the effect that the petty tinkering of the Scotland Act was a “line in the sand”.
Most of the papers, of course, feign critical analysis by highlighting Davidson’s U-turn. But what we haven’t seen in a single one is any sort of actual examination of the content of Ms Davidson’s speech to a micro-audience of literally several people in what appeared to be the corridor of an Edinburgh hotel yesterday.
We suspect that’s because anyone who did would be very hard-pressed indeed to credibly describe the measures she proposes as representing “more powers” for anything. In fact, they’re the opposite.
Confused Unionist Of The Morning 244
What you’re paying for 86
Running total (updated daily): £28,920 of £29,796 (97.1%).
Donations in last 24 hours: £886.
Air traffic control 78
We don’t know about you, viewers, but when we tune into a two-hour TV programme called “Scottish National Party Spring Conference 2013”, we sort of expect the large bulk of that show to be, well, the Scottish National Party Spring Conference 2013.
With the UK’s state broadcaster, though, that isn’t necessarily the case.
Late to the party 154
The BBC’s coverage of the SNP spring conference has finally started. You can watch it on BBC2 Scotland or on this live web stream, and discuss developments below.
The choices we make 27
We suspect that for the vast majority of our readers, it’ll be quite hard to get to grips with the fact that the Scottish Daily Mail intends this headline as a criticism.
In 18 months’ time, Scots will have the chance to decide whether they’d rather spend their money on pay rises for public-sector workers or on tax cuts for the rich and bribes for them to buy second homes and inflate another housing bubble with. We must admit to being quite surprised that there’s a debate about it.
The Abstainers 88
We already know that Labour, particularly in Scotland, have no policies on just about anything. But in the light of the past week’s glut of abstentions, we decided to see if we could find out if the party had any remaining principles either. The results were startling, by which we mean not startling in the slightest.
Below are just a few of the votes that Labour has abstained on, at both Westminster and Holyrood, in recent memory. What, we ponder rhetorically, is the point of having an Opposition that doesn’t ever actually oppose anything?
Lamont: shock revelation 67
We must admit that we didn’t see this one coming. Johann Lamont made a rather surprising admission 3m 16s into last night’s Newsnight Scotland special.
“There’ll be many people who voted SNP but don’t believe in independence who will breathe a sigh of relief, like me.”
Well, that goes some way to explaining the size of the SNP’s majority, at least.
Fair and balanced #2 104
The way I feel today 57
Predict the referendum 121
Just for fun, then, let’s have our guesses. I’d love to see Alex Salmond stand up in Holyrood this afternoon and announce that the historic first chance for Scots to choose their own destiny will take place on Saturday 25th October 2014, because that means the result would arrive on my birthday the following Monday. But I don’t think he will.
The official Wings Over Scotland prediction is Thursday 2nd October 2014.
























