Wings Over Scotland

We’ve been delving around in the innards of some poorly-documented WordPress plugins recently, and we think we’ve finally worked out how to include polls in the body of a post rather than cramming them awkwardly into a sidebar. (You live and learn.) So as much as an equipment test as anything else, and in the light of the First Minister committing the SNP to a written constitution in an independent Scotland, we thought we’d conduct a wee snap survey.

The first thing to note is that not all of the issues below are actually matters for a constitution at all – some of them are properly party manifesto issues, to be decided regularly at elections rather than enshrined into the country’s founding principles. But since the FM’s speech specifically raised the possibility of things like free university education being made constitutional, we’ve taken a wide-ranging view and picked a dozen of the most common pressing topics of debate.

Secondly, as this site is predominantly read by those of a nationalist persuasion, any results will of course likely be skewed in that direction, and should not necessarily be taken as a representative cross-section of Scottish public opinion. But supporters of Unionist parties are encouraged to take part anyway – it’s just a bit of fun. What sort of Scotland would you like to live in?

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We don’t make a habit of printing press releases at Wings Over Scotland – in fact if our memory serves us correctly, as it rather intermittently does, we’ve never done so. But we’re going to make a partial exception here by printing half of one.

It’s from a speech given by the First Minister on the occasion of yesterday’s unopposed passing of the Section 30 order by the House of Commons, enshrining the right of the Scottish Parliament to hold the independence referendum. We’ve left out all the stuff about that, though, in favour of the much more interesting matter of the FM’s comments on a written constitution for an independent Scotland. It’s an incredibly important commitment, and we welcome it unreservedly.

We’ll let him take it from there.

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Ten days ago, Scottish Labour “deputy” leader Anas Sarwar issued a press release in his capacity as head of Labour’s referendum campaign, noting that “[Nicola Sturgeon] is right to say there has been a lot of negative campaigning. We will be raising the level of debate and ensuring that Scotland gets the level of debate it deserves.”

Here are some extracts from Sarwar and his independence-fearing colleagues’ contributions to yesterday’s epic House of Commons “debate” (in which one side got a little over 10 times as long to put its case as the other) on the motion giving the Scottish Parliament the power to conduct the independence referendum.

Make your own judgement as to how they did, and the level of debate they apparently consider Scotland deserves.

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The papers this week have been full of stories about the SNP’s plans for foreign aid from an independent Scotland. The Herald led with a story entitled “Yousaf plans £1.5 billion foreign aid budget”, while the Scotsman went for the slightly more inflammatory headline ‘Scottish independence: International aid budget would soar to hundreds of millions’ with the clear implication that this compared to the modest £9 million the devolved Scottish Government currently spends directly on foreign aid.

The headlines were designed to make people think that under independence the Scottish government would be diverting hundreds of millions of pounds away from Scots, increasing our foreign aid over 100-fold. Opposition MSPs claimed such move would mean spending cuts at home or tax rises in order to fund the increased international aid budget.

You need to delve a little deeper into the articles to find the truth.

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In the news business, there are some advantages to being second to a story. So when Scotsman journalists were digesting the contents of an exclusive splash in their rival at the opposite end of the M8 this morning, they at least had the opportunity to learn from its mistakes with the benefit of a little distance and time.

By simply avoiding the amateurish, widely-mocked spin of the Herald’s reporting of its own poll, the ailing Johnston Press paper could have scored itself an easy open goal by presenting the facts more truthfully and even-handedly, enabling it to at a stroke look like the more fair and balanced voice in the Scottish “quality” media.

Or, of course, it could shank the golden opportunity hideously and embarrassingly wide. Do we even need to finish this article, or can we go and have a sandwich?

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Scotland on Sunday today carries an interview with Michael Moore, in which the Scottish Secretary rather undermines the No campaign’s constant demands for “detail” about an independent Scotland by admitting that the Westminster government will refuse to discuss matters like Scotland’s possible share of UK debt in advance of the referendum. There’s an even stranger passage shortly afterwards, though:

“Moore also signalled that his government would play hard-ball if Scotland did vote for independence – a scenario that would force the UK administration to negotiate an independence settlement with the Scottish administration. In the event of a Yes vote, Moore said the UK government would have to “prioritise” the interests of the English, Welsh and Northern Irish and would be unable to give the Scottish Government everything that it wanted.”

Well, duh. If Scotland votes for independence, then any UK government minister will by definition be acting on the sole behalf of “the English, Welsh and Northern Irish”. Their ONLY responsibility will be to try to get the best possible deal for those people, in a negotiation in which Scotland is on the opposite side of the table. Anything else would plainly be a gross dereliction of duty.

It’s a bit like Ally McCoist saying that if The Rangers were to be drawn against Celtic in the Scottish Cup, he would “have to prioritise the interests of Rangers fans and would be unable to give Neil Lennon everything he wanted” – true, for sure, but as much of a big fat waste of time and newsprint as leading with the front-page headline that the Sun is hot and the sea is wet.

Scotland on Sunday’s circulation fell by almost 20% in the last year.

Two ostensibly-unrelated stories from today’s Scottish press leap out at each other with such force you fear the collision could almost create an actual thunderstorm.

“Benefits reform ‘to force 1 in 4 into poverty'”, roars Scotland On Sunday’s second-top story above a curiously makeover-ish picture of Margaret Curran and news of a report by the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations which predicts that hundreds of thousands of children and vulnerable women (in particular) will be pushed into financial catastrophe by the Westminster government’s benefit cuts.

Curran is then quoted as attacking the UK coalition because it’s “prepared to cut the incomes of hard-working Scottish families at a time when people are already struggling to make ends meet”, and demanding “welfare reform that works”. Which makes a story in this morning’s Sunday Herald all the more bewildering.

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The final aspect of the independence debate touched on by Alistair Darling’s interview on Newsnight Scotland last night brought some more much-needed clarity to the situation. In this segment of the programme the issue being pursued by Gordon Brewer was what the Unionist parties were going to offer the Scottish electorate in the way of greater devolution in the event of a No vote.

Uncharacteristically, Darling was a little evasive when Brewer first raised the issue, but thankfully some hard facts were soon forthcoming.

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While we welcomed the definitive answer on the question of an independent Scotland’s relationship to the United Kingdom, we were a little disturbed by something Alistair Darling said about Europe in his Newsnight Scotland interview last night.

It happened at 13m 42s. See what you think. (Emphasis Darling’s own this time.)

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For goodness’ sake. Despite believing we’d laid the issue to rest once and for all, we’re STILL getting comments and tweets from readers who haven’t grasped Alistair Darling’s simple, straightforward explanation of whether Scotland’s decision in the independence referendum would be irreversible and forever, or whether we would instead quickly and inevitably find ourselves back in the Union.

Since you clearly found our previous quotes from the “Better Together” chairman inexplicably ambiguous, we’ve gone back and found a couple more from the same interview that should DEFINITELY clear things up.

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Readers might be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja vu on watching last night's Newsnight Scotland, which featured a rather animated interview with Alistair Darling. Because not for the first time, the No campaign chief seemed to be experiencing a considerable amount of difficulty in getting his story straight.

Let's examine a couple of intriguing snippets.

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Wait, sorry. We got confused. As far as we can establish from some recent official statements by the UK Government, the No campaign and the media, Mars is in fact the only place that the Trident weapons system definitely WON’T be going if Scotland votes for independence. Let’s have a quick recap on where we’re up to.

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