The one great pillar of the argument against Scottish independence – greater than not being allowed into the EU, greater than being forced to barter with beads and potatoes because we wouldn’t have a currency, greater than losing Doctor Who or having the Chinese take their pandas back – is the economy.
Scotland is far too wee and too poor to be independent, they say – while indignantly denying that they’re saying it – because we only survive now thanks to a vast bailout every year from the rest of the UK, by which they in fact mean England. (Because it’s sure as heck not coming from Wales or Northern Ireland, which by any measure you care to choose are far poorer than Scotland.)
The name and size of this bailout vary wildly. Sometimes it’s a “deficit”, sometimes it’s a “black hole”, sometimes it’s a “fiscal transfer”, and it can be £8bn, £9bn, £10bn, £15bn, £28bn, £32bn or any other figure up to a hundred and eleventy thousand million bajillion squillion depending on who you’re talking to.
(The last one’s probably either David Coburn or Jackie Baillie.)
And while there are a dozen separate and compelling reasons why that argument is complete rubbish, none of them have any traction with diehard Unionists determined to believe that one of the richest and most blessed nations on Earth couldn’t possibly manage its own affairs like, say, Latvia or Ireland or Kuwait or Slovakia can.
But it turns out there IS a – surprisingly simple – way to get Unionists to categorically deny that England subsidises Scotland. You just have to ask them.
The votes for “God Save The Queen” being driven by Tories, English-born residents and supporters of a particular football club probably won’t come as the biggest shock in the world to anyone.
(Alert viewers will of course have noticed that due to MI5 INTERFERENCE in the poll, there were actually two votes for Hoots Mon, which have been suspiciously rounded down to one. We are conducting an investigation, by which we mean brutal purge.)
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson managed to make a bit of a balloon of herself earlier this month when she contrived to get THREE fairly key facts wrong in a single tweet about a poll on a second independence referendum.
(We’re not sure who the guy in the picture with her is. Probably a colleague.)
We suspected the reason she’d so badly misunderstood the data was that there were two options for “have another indyref in the next two years” and only one for “don’t have another indyref”, so when we were putting our latest poll together we thought we’d try to make it easier for her by having an equal number on both sides.
There were no surprises in our latest Panelbase poll with regard to the independence question, at least not in terms of the headline figures – in line with a flurry of recent polls they came out at Yes 46% No 54%, with 2016’s Brexit vote seemingly having caused almost equal numbers of people to change sides since 2014.
But as readers will know, we usually like to probe a little bit deeper into the thoughts of our respondents than other media do, so we asked a few more questions on the subject. And the results of that were just plain weird.
You very rarely get useful stats about online newspaper readership, so we were quite intrigued by this snippet on tonight’s BBC2 Scotland documentary “Paper Thistle”, about the 200th anniversary of The Scotsman.
We don’t know what the numbers are or how brief the period was, but Wings’ average traffic is higher now than it was in 2014, while we suspect The Scotsman is moving in the opposite direction. For a single-issue website to be anywhere even in the same ballpark as a two-centuries-old broadsheet news brand with scores of full-time writers and production staff and a daily newsstand presence is a remarkable thing indeed.
We might start doing classifieds and sport just to see what happens.
Fear and lies work. Over many decades (and really for centuries) the Unionist parties and the media have succeeded in persuading a large percentage of Scots that they’re beggars, scroungers, vagrants and “subsidy junkies” dependent on the ever-generous charity of England to keep them from starvation.
And in terms of the facts, that hasn’t always been an easy sell.
We rarely do stat posts now, because readership has settled to a pretty steady level (generally bobbing between around 250,000 and 300,000 users a month) and we’ve run out of ways to blow our own trumpet. But we’re making an exception this month.
The snide, arrogant, pompous and casually factually-inaccurate comment above was made by a founder/editor of a rather less popular Scottish political website. And in the (statistically unlikely) event that you happened to read it and became concerned, we thought you’d like a little more information about our “ever-decreasing readership”.
We’ll be honest, readers, we’re actually quite happy that the Tories are now the lead Unionist party in Scotland. Because after four and a half years, we’ve pretty much run out of things to say about the epic, unquenchable stupidity of Scottish Labour.
Of course, that Lamont should choose to blame the SNP for cuts coming down the line from the Tory government at Westminster (that only controls Scotland’s budget at all because Lamont and her colleagues campaigned for Scotland to remain in the UK) is no surprise.
But it’s the sheer jaw-dropping lack of self-awareness in that last line which lays bare the incredible inability of her pseudo-party to learn a single lesson from the revolution in Scottish politics that’s been going on for most of the last decade.
Over the past few days, readers, we haven’t been able to avoid noticing a recurring theme among Unionist types on social media – namely that the Holyrood election results are proof that support for independence is declining.
But it’s not until you ask them to explain that it gets completely mental.
Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “In 1941, Goebbels wrote: “The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to…” Mar 28, 08:55
Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Joe Goebbels’ ‘Big Boss’, *Adalwolf, had already written about the ‘Big Lie’ in his best seller (only rivalled in sales…” Mar 28, 08:32
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@Geri I was going to lend you my first edition copy of 1984 but it would be like giving a…” Mar 28, 01:18
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “That’s an aye then & even I spotted that in two seconds flat. PS, you do know yer ballot is…” Mar 27, 23:03
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “That’s like asking a pedophile to take charge of the day care centre.” Mar 27, 21:23
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” Vladimir Lenin.” Mar 27, 21:06
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““The price we pay for freedom is the right to disagree.” Benjamin Franklin.” Mar 27, 21:00
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Are you scared James? Because if the Fascists get power in England and Wales it’s good night woo woo land.” Mar 27, 20:54
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Maybe Ayes an maybe Naws. Like the Indy election you’ll never know. That’s the beauty of the ballot box.” Mar 27, 20:49
Alf Baird on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “One wonders whose rights public inquiries undertaken within colonial societies would seek to defend, the colonizer or the colonized?” Mar 27, 20:41
agentx on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Captain Caveman says: I’m a Reform voter and I’m still here. _______________________________________________- thanks – you could have said that the…” Mar 27, 19:40
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Have you heard what ex Tory MP Andrew Bridgen says about these gangs? Go watch him whistleblow what is really…” Mar 27, 19:35
Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “You asked were there any Reform voters left on here and I said “Hi!” Not really sure how ambiguous that…” Mar 27, 19:12
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Was there any to begin with? They’re just disgruntled Tories. Same shit, different party. Do we know what it is…” Mar 27, 19:12
agentx on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““On February 25, 2026, the Scottish Government ordered a public inquiry into grooming gangs, marking a significant shift in position…” Mar 27, 19:10
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “BLOG PÀRLAMAID NA h-ALBA Fiosrachadh is naidheachd bho Phàrlamaid na h-Alba Tha an seisean pàrlamaideach a-nis air tighinn gu crìch…” Mar 27, 19:07
Mo on In Your Name: “They all need punted asap! #WomenAndChildrensSafetyMatters” Mar 27, 18:47
Young Lochinvar on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Thanks Lorncal I’m sick of “demeaning and discriminatory” whining ie because it’ll find you out. I don’t know if it’s…” Mar 27, 18:45
Mo on In Your Name: “They all need punted asap! #WomenAndChildrensSafetyMatters” Mar 27, 18:45
Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Hi! 🙂 In a similar vein, are there any SNP, Labour, Green or Lib Dumb voters left on here? ‘Cause…” Mar 27, 18:27
twathater on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “WOW!!!! every word true and all it takes is for people to realise THIS is what has been happening for…” Mar 27, 18:18
Young Lochinvar on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Yes indeed Geri But the “upset” gays present at the time must have been Tories who were prepared to haud…” Mar 27, 18:13
twathater on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The COWARDICE of Swinney should highlight to the brain dead voters of the Scum Nonce Party that this baldy arsehole…” Mar 27, 17:59
twathater on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I remember the snp used to BOAST that HR was the gayest wee parliament in the world , now they…” Mar 27, 17:50
Lorncal on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Minorities are usually backed by people who have another agenda altogether and would dispense with the minority as soon as…” Mar 27, 17:25
