Wings Over Scotland

We’ve noticed, and perhaps you have too, that things have been very quiet on the “positive case for the Union” front recently. (Partly, we suspect, because the constant hooting of nationalists over its continued absence was starting to become so loud and embarrassing that even the Unionist media couldn’t keep ignoring it.)

Ever since David Cameron visited Scotland in February and mumbled some vague platitudes about maybe getting more powers someday if we voted No in 2014, Unionists seem to have given up on even promising a “positive” case and have concentrated more doggedly than ever on the blood-curdling scare tactics that they’re much more familiar and comfortable with.

(Recent weeks have delivered a particularly fine crop, which can be concisely and accurately summed up by the sentence “Vote Yes and Scotland will be blown up by terrorists and bombed by England, then everyone left will die of cancer.”)

We’ve spotted a couple of stray mentions – neither of which, it probably goes without saying, go on to actually offer the positive case they cite – but nothing very significant:

“Although Unionists seem to find it difficult to articulate a positive argument for union, Scottish nationalists are not afflicted by the same inhibitions.”
(Colin Kidd, The Scotsman, 15 May 2012)

“It’s our job to drown out [Alex Salmond’s] separatist rhetoric with a positive case for keeping the Union intact.”
(Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Conservative Party chairman, 23 March 2012)

That was until today, however. Our regular bout of hope-over-expectation Googling threw up a site called “Free Advice For Unionists”, in which someone by the name of Rob Marrs who lays claim to no fewer than THREE nationalities (Scottish, English and British) boldly attempted to go where no Unionist had gone before.

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The sheer speed and barely-concealed enthusiasm with which Scottish Labour has reverted to its true neo-liberal type given even the slightest sniff of any kind of electoral success has been startling. Having gained a few dozen seats, almost all from the Lib Dems, in the council elections, the party has lurched back to the centre-right positions it occupied before the 2011 Holyrood parliamentary election, having abandoned several of them in the run-up to that vote in a desperate attempt to avert defeat.

We’ve already seen Johann Lamont doggedly refuse to oppose the renewal of Trident, and Glagow council leader Gordon Matheson prepare to backtrack on years of anti-sectarian progress by allowing the Orange Order to greatly increase its toxic presence on the city’s streets (a prime example of the Bain Principle at work, in the wake of the SNP’s controversial Offensive Behaviour At Football Act – if the SNP are taking steps to tackle sectarianism, Labour must take steps to encourage it, however insane that is or whatever their previous policy might have been).

And last week we saw a party whose 2011 manifesto opened with the dire warning “Now that the Tories are back” take every possible opportunity to jump into bed with the Tories in councils all over the country, giving the lie to the constantly-pushed official media narrative that the SNP and Labour are two near-identical centre-left social-democratic parties separated only by their disagreement over independence.

(Since the constitution is outwith the remit of councils, you might therefore imagine that Labour-SNP coalitions would be the norm all over the country, aimed at fighting savage Tory cuts together while Holyrood argues about the referendum, but Labour seems far more concerned with battling the nationalists rather than the right-wing Coalition and its increasingly discredited austerity programme.)

So perhaps nobody ought to be surprised that at the weekend Johann Lamont decided to test public opinion by suggesting that Scottish Labour – which is currently strangely at odds with the UK party on the subject – might once again abandon its opposition to university tuition fees.

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We don’t know if anyone still reads the BBC’s “Blether With Brian” column since the Corporation banned Scottish readers – uniquely in these islands – from posting comments on it, nor can we normally think of a reason why anyone would. It’s generally the blandest-possible summary of events people have already seen for themselves, with no effort to impart any sort of insight or analysis.

However, once in a while the understated approach yields a more profoundly powerful result than screeds of polemic, and we can think of no way to better illustrate the bizarreness of Johann Lamont’s chosen line of attack at yesterday’s First Minister’s Questions than to simply relate the events as they transpired, in the most neutral and factual manner, as the national broadcaster’s Scottish political editor does today.

“How to decide who has won an election? The customary method is to count the ballot papers – and to award victory to the one with the most votes. Now the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies adds a degree of sophistication to that. But, still, the spoils tend to go to those with evident popular support.

This, apparently, is an old-fashioned outlook. Just so Twentieth Century. At Holyrood, Labour’s Johann Lamont suggested another test might be used instead. The SNP, she said, might have won the council elections “on the arithmetic”. But “on the politics” they “got stuffed.”

It is difficult to be entirely certain, but I suspect that most political leaders would probably settle, on balance, for winning “on the arithmetic”.“

Stranger still was Brian’s citation of Fat Les in support of his assertion, but other than to wistfully dwell for a moment on our long-held dream of Scottish fans repurposing the song in question with the words “Irn Bru” replacing the title, we’ll let that one pass.

A&E departments all over Scotland were reportedly swamped by spinal-injury cases yesterday, resulting from the nation collectively falling off its seat in surprise as the Scottish Affairs Committee of Westminster MPs concluded that the SNP’s proposed referendum question (“Do you agree that Scotland should become an independent country?”) was biased. The committee, headed by delightful Labour MP Ian “I only meant I’d assault you physically, not sexually“ Davidson, decided after consulting a carefully-chosen panel of “experts” that a question posed by an SNP government might just be designed to increase support for independence.

We jest, obviously. In fact it’s not entirely unexpected that such a conclusion would be reached by an all-Unionist committee of Westminster MPs who would all lose their £200,000-a-year jobs in the event of a Yes vote and who are currently engaged in producing a document called “The Referendum on Separation for Scotland“. (No, we’re not kidding – it’s really called that, and therefore clearly an entirely neutral and impartial investigation.) But there’s an interesting angle to the committee’s findings that inexplicably doesn’t get a lot of media analysis.

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It’s been interesting to watch how the mainstream media position on last week’s council elections has shifted over the last couple of days. The instant narrative was that of a huge victory for Labour and disappointment for the SNP, as noticed by Mark MacLachlan over on The Universality Of Cheese. All the papers proclaimed Labour’s holding of Glasgow as the key story of the day (reducing the rest of Scotland to the catch-all “elsewhere“), and contrasted it with the SNP’s underachievement, despite that even on Friday it was apparent that the nationalists had won majorities in two councils and increased its total number of councillors significantly.

Most of the media chose to run with a set of misleading figures first produced (we think) by the BBC, which showed that Labour had made the most gains, and by Saturday that spin had turned into outright lying. A fascinating piece on Newsnet Scotland revealed that the BBC’s figures ran contrary to the Corporation’s own official guidelines on how election results should be reported.

Over the weekend, angry nationalists kicked up a loud fuss over such chicanery (though in fact, this blog had called it around Friday teatime), and as a result subsequent coverage of the elections has adopted a markedly different tone. Even the Scotsman was forced to admit, albeit extremely grudgingly and piling on caveats, that in fact the SNP had won the popular vote for the first time ever. Over in the Herald, meanwhile, Iain Macwhirter performed a remarkable 24-hour “reverse ferret”. First the commentator penned a Friday column headlined “SNP in a spin” and talking of Alex Salmond’s party suffering “a huge psychological blow”. The very next day, though, another Macwhirter column, headed “The SNP won it“, included this line:

“the local elections were in no way a disaster, or even a setback for the SNP”

The second column explicitly (if grumpily) noted the angry nationalist reaction to the previous day’s print and broadcast coverage. For all the opprobrium so often directed at the “cybernats”, it’s hard to dispute their influence in keeping an unwilling and hostile media at least partly honest. By swiftly disseminating accurate counterpoints to Unionist spin, they make it far harder for that spin to maintain traction.

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If you’re pushed for time, we’ll give you the answer up front: when it’s in the Scottish media. But a closer analysis of yesterday’s and this morning’s press and broadcasting provides a full and and illuminating picture of the reality. The fact is, the nationalists aren’t paranoid – their own country’s media really is out to get them.

Those of us watching events unfold yesterday afternoon were a little bemused when various sources started tweeting summarised results, which showed Labour as the biggest winners. To anyone comparing the results to those of the last election, those gain/loss figures were perplexing. Set against 2007, the SNP had gained 61 seats, not 57, and Labour just 46 rather than 58. (In both cases almost entirely at the expense of the Lib Dems, who lost nearly 100 seats. Hardly any seats anywhere in the country changed hands directly from Labour to SNP or vice versa.)

We couldn’t at the time, and we still can’t now, find any published record of where the numbers for the second interpretation derive from.

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A quick analysis of the Scottish council election results, then (with Dunoon still to vote and the Cromarty Firth ward in Highlands still to declare, the two areas between them being likely to return 2-3 SNP and 3-4 independents, no Labour or Tories).

The SNP started with 15 more seats nationwide than Labour and will end up with 30-32 more, at least doubling their lead. The nationalists and Labour both gained overall control of two new councils. It looks likely that the SNP will have won the popular vote, which they didn’t manage in 2007.

That would seem remarkably good progress for a government that’s been in power for five years during a recession, is having to implement hefty budget cuts passed down from London, and has endured a large amount of recent bad press. Compare and contrast with the thrashing delivered to the UK’s governing coalition on the same day, and the SNP managing to not only hold what it had but extend its advantage and capture outright control of two councils appears a striking success.

The media narrative, however, is focusing on what the SNP didn’t win, and (not unreasonably) concentrating on the country’s most important councils, so let’s take a look at Labour’s three much-trumpeted big results, in Scotland’s largest cities.

GLASGOW
Labour lead over SNP in 2007: 23 seats
Labour lead over SNP in 2012: 17 seats

EDINBURGH
Labour lead over SNP in 2007: 2 seats
Labour lead over SNP in 2012: 2 seats

ABERDEEN
SNP lead over Labour in 2007: 2 seats
Labour lead over SNP in 2012: 2 seats

So a net gain for Labour of 4 seats in Aberdeen, no change in Edinburgh, and a net gain of 6 seats for the SNP in Glasgow. That means that in Scotland’s three biggest cities, where Labour’s performance was most spectacular, the net result when all the dust has settled is still a 2-seat improvement for the SNP over Labour.

(It remains to be seen, of course, what deals are done and who ends up in the ruling groups in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The SNP have easily enough seats in each city to lead a coalition with other parties and freeze Labour out.)

With the nationalists suffering in Glasgow from the anti-sectarianism bill and the Rangers crisis, and in Aberdeen over the Union City Gardens controversy and the ongoing Donald Trump fiasco, we suspect the party will regard a 2-seat net gain across those cities, accompanied by a raft of substantial and significant gains elsewhere, as the kind of “defeat” it can live with pretty happily.

This article’s about the council elections, but allow us to first digress for a moment. One of the odder little quirks of the online independence movement is that, of those who express a preference when it comes to the subject of Scotland’s national sport, a disproportionately high percentage seem to be Aberdeen supporters. (Possibly partly explained by the North-East, as the First Minister’s political stomping ground and centre of the oil industry, having always been fertile ground for nationalism.)

This blog is among that number, and so for those of us currently living in England and seeking to maintain an interest in the people’s game Manchester United is the logical choice of club to follow, at least for as long as Sir Alex Ferguson is at the helm. (Even if the daft old fool himself has been out of Scotland for so long he still thinks Labour are socialists, and dutifully trots out every time they need a celebrity backer.)

So when we saw the team United put out for the crucial Premiership derby against Manchester City last week, we were concerned. A midfield of Carrick (the English Barry Ferguson, we’ve always thought), the recently un-retired Scholes and the rusty Park (making his first start since January) clearly wasn’t designed to provide a pacy attacking threat, and before the game started we tweeted “That’s an old, slow Man U side lining up tonight. Looks like a chokehold.”

And sure enough, as the match progressed Ferguson’s team showed beyond any reasonable doubt that it had been sent out with the intention of smothering City’s menacing attack and securing the 0-0 draw that would have all but sealed the league for the Old Trafford club. Sluggish and toothless, with Wayne Rooney a lonely and frustrated figure up front, United failed – for the first time in three years, said the statisticians afterwards – to register a single shot on the opposition’s goal, and when a wobbly defence that’s been badly missing Nemanja Vidic all season offered Vincent Kompany a free header from eight yards out, there never looked like being any way back for a side that just a month ago had a commanding eight-point lead at the top of the table and appeared to be a shoo-in for a record-breaking 20th title.

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We’re not sure how to feel about the continuing prospect/threat (depending on your perspective) of a British Olympic football team with Scottish players in it. Sepp Blatter, the immovable president of FIFA and a man who enjoys the patronage of a great many smaller footballing nations who jealously eye the UK’s anachronistic presence in the game, has made the position on the matter about as clear as he ever makes anything.

“If you start to put together a combined team for the Olympic Games, the question will automatically come up that there are four different associations so how can they play in one team? If this is the case then why the hell do they have four associations and four votes and their own vice-presidency?

“This will put into question all the privileges that the British associations were given by the Congress in 1946.“

In other words, picking players from all four UK nations DOES represent a threat to their continued separate status. There has never been more pressure on qualifying places for the World Cup and European Championship, and Blatter would not find it hard to mobilise enough votes to change the status quo if he thought it might be in any way to his advantage.

Clearly, then, having players like Stephen Fletcher and Barry Bannan conspicuously announcing their willingness to play for such a team places the very existence of the Scottish national side in peril, and as such the reaction of all patriotic Scots would logically be one of horror and anger. We can’t imagine that any but the most fervent diehard Unionist in Scotland wants to see the Scottish team wiped out of existence, and any player prepared to risk that possibility – and it IS a possibility, as Blatter’s words make plain – for the sake of their own tiny personal gain as a second-string player in a third-rate competition ought to expect nothing but justified contempt.

But from a nationalist perspective, perhaps we all ought instead to be urging Barry Bannan and his pals to do everything in their power to pull on the Team GB shirt this summer. Maybe we should all write heartfelt letters to the SFA pleading with them to withdraw their objections to the principle. Because we can think of no single event that would be more likely to push support for a Yes vote in the 2014 referendum past critical mass than for FIFA to forcibly eject Scotland from world football.

Naturally, independence would see the national side restored, this time as of right rather than by a special bending of the rules resented by the rest of the world. Rather than being shunned, despised and booed every time he kicks a ball for the rest of his life, Barry Bannan would become a Scottish national hero on a par with William Wallace, Robert The Bruce and Wee Archie Gemmill. There would be statues of him in every city, and stirring folk songs in his honour would be sung every year on Barry Bannan Day. His money would be no good in any pub in the land.

In an age of cynicism, Scotland is crying out for modern-day heroes. Will Barry Bannan be the man to hear the call and lead a nation to its destiny? (Possibly by way of the nation taking a detour across some fields while running away from a car crash smashed off its nut, in true Scottish style.) Only time will tell.

Apologies for the tinny sound, but this clip from English-language channel Russia Today is worth a watch, particularly the middle section:

News stations, of course, have their own agendas, but it’s always interesting to see an outsider’s viewpoint on how Britain’s national broadcaster handles certain issues. We’re huge fans of the BBC on a UK-wide level, and have no problem with the idea or level of the licence fee, but we find it a little surprising that anyone would even expect it to be impartial on the subject of Scottish independence.

Far from being a neutral observer, the BBC has a direct and entirely tangible vested interest when it comes to the matter of whether Scotland stays in the UK or not. Scottish licence fees provide the Corporation with around £300m a year in revenue (about 9% of the total), but it only spends around 6% of its money in Scotland.

Even that proportion is a result of some substantial recent increases – just a few years ago the figure was as low as 3.7%, or considerably less than half what Scotland contributed to the BBC coffers, so the accumulated net “profit” the Corporation has made from Scottish viewers and listeners over the years is measured in billions.

Of that £300m, approximately a third is actually spent on BBC Scotland to make programmes of specifically Scottish interest and another third on Scotland-based production of UK-wide shows, with the final third used to subsidise the BBC’s UK-wide operations. With the Corporation’s funding under attack from the coalition government (leading to a planned reduction in BBC Scotland’s budget to £86m by 2016/17), the potential loss of approximately £100m of net revenue every year from Scottish licence-fee payers should the country vote for independence is one it can ill afford.

So regardless of the bias or otherwise of individual journalists, the bigger picture is in pin-sharp high definition: Scottish independence is directly, measurably and substantially contrary to the interests of the BBC. It’s a fact worth keeping in mind.

Impressively we’ve managed to sneeze so powerfully and manfully today that we blew a filling out, so while we go off to the dentist to have it nailed back in here are a few of the better pieces from the Scottish political media and blogosphere over the last few days, in case any of them passed you by.

Alex Massie’s been in a fine vein of form recently on the Spectator, and this analysis of Ed Miliband’s comments on Scotland was particularly insightful. We were also pleased to stumble across this archive piece from a year ago echoing almost exactly our own recent question on the same theme, which remains unanswered.

Stephen Noon blogs much less frequently than Mr Massie, but when he does it’s usually a cracker, and this related piece is no exception, while Kate Higgins shows what she can do when she’s not randomly calling people misogynists with this excellent study of the topic. And finally on Murdochgate, Newsnet Scotland makes an interesting and telling observation that went unnoticed by anyone else.

Away from the Murdoch issue, we don’t often find much to commend in the Telegraph – and less still from Fraser Nelson – but we couldn’t fault this look at “tricolour Britain”. And the increasingly impressive A Sair Fecht enlightened us with an illuminating history of Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, founder of the Scottish Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party and the National Party of Scotland, one of the forerunners of the SNP.

That should take you through lunch. We’re off to the bone-driller.

There is, as we’ve previously noted, very little actual news to be found in the Alex Salmond/Rupert Murdoch story that’s got the Scottish media on a full-scale SHOCK HORROR! war footing this week. These are the only actual facts in the furore:

1. Murdoch’s papers, having (in Murdoch’s words) “declared war” on Labour, switched their backing to the parties most likely to defeat them north and south of the border in the general elections of 2010 and 2011. Both parties concerned, the SNP and the Conservatives, duly won their respective elections.

2. The Scottish Government decided to back News International’s bid for control of BSkyB, on the grounds that the company was a major employer in Scotland and that such a move may well bring a significant number of jobs to Scotland. It signalled its willingness to express this support to the UK Government, though having no leverage or influence over the matter. In the event, the support was never expressed, as the UK Government decided to clear the bid anyway.

3. James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch and Alex Salmond all unequivocally and categorically deny that any connection between the two matters was ever raised or discussed by either of the parties involved, and nobody has produced or even suggested the existence of any evidence contradicting these denials.

And that’s it. The Scottish Government took a position entirely within its normal and proper powers with regard to a business matter, and News International’s publications exercised their free democratic right to endorse whichever political party they chose to, just as they’d done within the space of the previous three years for both the Conservatives and Labour. It’s not exactly “hold the front page” stuff.

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