Wings Over Scotland

Time has an interview with Alex Salmond today. The US-based magazine has a commendable stab at covering a fairly alien subject, but drops a number of clangers of varying bizarreness. They initially claimed the SNP had formed a coalition with Labour in 2007, but have since (semi-)corrected that to the slightly less-wrong but nonsensical assertion that "the SNP formed a minority government with Labour". In the next sentence they note that "The party's growth has spiked, from six seats in 2005 to an outright majority of 69 seats after a landslide victory earlier this year", rather misleadingly neglecting to point out – or perhaps to know – that they're comparing Westminster election results to Holyrood ones.

There's a real cracker a couple of paragraphs further on, though, when the magazine suggests that "A Sunday Mirror poll out in mid-October found that 49% of Scots and 39% of Britons overall support independence, up from 11% and 6%, respectively, five months ago". Blimey, we knew there was an upwards trend, but 11% to 49% in five months is a little much. (Even if you assume it's just a rogue extra "from" that's snuck in, we're not sure there's been a poll with 38% support for independence recently. Also, the 49% figure is presumably the poll that was built from a tiny Scottish sub-sample, and therefore pretty much meaningless anyway.)

Next up we get "Salmond plans to hold a referendum on independence before the end of his term in 2015", but we'll forgive them that one because countless UK and even Scottish media outlets have made the same careless error – the current Holyrood term ends in 2016, not 2015. Less forgivable (though also perpetrated repeatedly by the UK media) is the bald statement that "The referendum will have two questions", since that has never been the official position of the SNP or anyone else, and is looking less likely to be the reality with every passing day.

But, y'know, otherwise bang on the money, guys.

David Maddox in the Scotsman livens up a previously-slow news day with a report that Labour are preparing to team up with the Conservatives in the UK Parliament to force a Westminster-led referendum on Scottish independence. The article is short on solid quotes to contradict David Cameron's repeatedly-stated position that the referendum is a matter for the Scottish Parliament, relying instead on unnamed "sources", but if true it would be an astonishing development. None of the UK parties stood on a platform of holding a referendum – indeed, all three explicitly opposed the idea – so where they'd be conjuring a mandate to do such a thing from would be anyone's guess, whereas the SNP have an extremely clear one from the Scottish people to conduct the vote in the second half of the Holyrood parliamentary term.

Most observers on both sides of the debate agree that a Westminster-imposed referendum would be an enormously risky gamble for the Unionists, as Scottish voters are unlikely to take kindly to such a democratic trampling. But it may be that the three London-based parties sense a growing trend of support for a Yes vote – reflected in recent polls – and consider it less of a risk than waiting for three more years of brutal cuts to take effect and persuade Scots that they're better off away from Tory-led UK governments. Labour especially, though, would be dicing with death were they to collude in such a scheme. We shall see.

A fairly in-depth lead piece on the "devo max" conundrum, including an interview with referendum expert Dr Matt Qvortrup who, under very determined and persistent questioning from an unhappy Glenn Campbell, offered the professional opinion that a notional two-question poll where Q1 was "Do you want more powers for the Scottish Parliament?" and Q2 was "Do you also want full independence?" would be both legitimate and fair, and also that in his view, a vote of 51% for independence in such a scenario would mean independence for Scotland, regardless of whether the "devo max" question received a higher vote.

The unambiguous clarification of Dr Qvortrup's position was welcome given the strenuous attempts by the Unionist parties to misrepresent it last week, after the First Minister gave what turned out to be an entirely accurate summary of Dr Qvortrup's views, but one based on an erroneous source. Dr Qvortrup confirmed that he'd spoken to the First Minister and accepted his "misquote" was an honest error rather than an attempt to portray his views inaccurately.

The episode also featured a piece on whether the Scottish Conservatives can recover from the divisions caused by their leadership contest, in which party donor John McGlynn called for a change in direction.

Not a great deal going on in the papers today. The Herald and Scotsman both cover a mildly interesting story about prospective Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont acknowledging – unusually for the party – that the Scottish people might vote Yes in the referendum, and talking of Labour's role in a post-independence Scotland.

Meanwhile, back on the party's more traditional ultra-Unionist wing, veteran Nat-basher Brian Wilson pontificates at length in the Scotsman on another variant of the "too wee, too poor, too stupid" line, this time focusing on issues relating to Scottish Power and whether its renewable energy would find an export market post-independence. The piece appears to concentrate mostly on the cost of transmitting electricity from the furthest extremes of the country – Orkney and Shetland – and makes no mention of that which would be generated on or closer to the mainland. It also plays heavily on the idea that England might prefer to import energy from Russia than Scotland, which seems a bit of a stretch.

The same publication offers some balance in the form of a rather rambling diatribe from SNP MSP Joan McAlpine, which is constructed mostly from suggestion and innuendo but does contain a small nugget or two for analysts to chew over with regard to the Scotland Bill, not least the writer's assertion – heavily qualified with "personal opinion" disclaimers – that given a choice between accepting the entire Scotland Bill as it stands or rejecting it outright at Holyrood, she'd opt for the latter.

And that's pretty much your lot.

A very welcome piece in the New Statesman on the much-propagated lie that Scotland is subsidised by England. Could do with linking some of its sources, but still a worthwhile non-partisan reference. Also features a comment debunking another myth, namely the one that Labour need Scottish MPs to form a majority at Westminster. (Details appended below the jump.)

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The impact of Scottish independence on the whole UK; the Lib Dems struggle to define "Home Rule" for a third time; new Scottish Tory leader claims that a question on devo max would represent a "rigged referendum" and require the UK Government to step in; First Minister clarifies referendum status once again; terrifying graphic morphs Annabel Goldie into Ruth Davidson. And more!

The most interesting moment, perhaps, is at 23m 39s, where Scottish Labour leadership candidate and Westminster MP Tom Harris asks, with regard to the prospect of the Scottish people voting unilaterally for devo max, "Can you imagine the outcry in Scotland if the English people wanted to impose a form of government on Scotland against our wishes?" What might that look like, Tom? A Westminster coalition between the two parties most comprehensively rejected by the Scottish electorate twice in the space of a year, say?

"McBride told the Sunday Herald he had resigned over the party’s hostility to the SNP’s bill on tackling sectarianism in football."

The resignation of the leading QC is the first sign of a crack in the Unionist parties' united front in opposition to the Scottish Government's anti-sectarianism bill, which is likely to pass without any cross-party support. Oddly, neither Labour, the Lib Dems or the Tories have as yet offered any amendments to the bill, despite variously criticising it as rushed, impractical and dangerous. But with what could be a fight to the wire coming up for control of Labour-held Glasgow City Council next May, it's hardly surprising that nobody wants to frighten the large number of Old Firm voters in the city when they can instead blame the SNP for a bill which sections of both the Rangers and Celtic supporters have attacked, for fear it might criminalise the singing of their favourite traditional ballads of Irish history.

The Scotsman presents a deeply twisted spin on the latest Scottish constitutional poll today as their headline story. Under the headline "SNP under pressure as Scots back change", they report the TNS poll for the BBC which shows the results of a three-option either-or question asking voters to pick their favourite from the status quo, devo max and independence. The poll essentially shows a three-way tie, but the paper reports it highly misleadingly, particularly in this passage:

"…independence, support for which, according to the poll, has fallen 11 percentage points from the 39 per cent backing in a survey published in September."

The September poll being referenced, however, asked a radically different question – it offered respondents just two options, independence or the status quo, with no devo-max. It's hardly surprising that independence scored higher in a two-option poll than a three-option one (the status quo did too), and as such the Scotsman's interpretation borders on an outright lie. Even by their normal standards, it's an unusually clumsy and blatant effort at misrepresenting the reality.

In fact, as quietly noted by the Herald in the middle of a piece on new Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, "The nearest comparison with the latest poll was a three question one by Ipsos-Mori a year ago which had 22% for independence, 44% for more powers and 32% for no change." In other words, the BBC survey represented support for independence growing significantly, at the expense of both devo max and the status quo – the exact opposite of the Scotsman's spin.

It's also interesting that a poll showing devo max as – albeit narrowly – the most popular option is described by the paper as putting the SNP under pressure. The SNP have repeatedly expressed their willingness to include a question on devo max in the forthcoming referendum, while all the opposition Unionist parties oppose one. It is they, not the SNP, who are refusing to countenance offering the people the thing they continue to favour the most, and one might imagine that it would be they rather than the nats who would therefore be placed under pressure by this poll.

Iain Macwhirter in the Herald with a much-needed skewering of the "cybernat myth" that Labour have doggedly been trying to make stick for a few years now, and which was escalated dramatically with Iain Gray's vitriolic and bitter farewell speech to the Scottish Labour conference. There is, of course, poison aplenty on both sides of the SNP-Labour divide, but the most immediately noticeable difference is that nationalist bile and trolling comes from a few anonymous nutjobs on messageboards, whereas in Labour's case it comes from elected members and official representatives. We don't recall any SNP MSP comparing the Labour leader to Hitler, Mussolini or Mugabe, nor calling the entire party "neo-fascists", yet those insults and more have all been made in full public view by taxpayer-funded Labour politicians. Gray and Labour's attempt to claim the moral high ground is an extraordinary piece of brass neck, and it's good to see a grown-up journalist calling it out.

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Start from this premise: all things are possible.

You have an advantage over me, English viewers. The chances are that most of you pay very little attention to Scottish politics, so your heads probably aren't spinning like mine still is at the staggering, incomprehensible magnitude of what's just been achieved. But I'll do my best to paint you a picture.

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