Wings Over Scotland

George Osborne on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning:

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There’s some interesting footage circulating today of a referendum debate for women that took place last week. Many people have focused on No-campaign representative Cat Headley admitting that a “Better Together” leaflet made some highly misleading claims about an independent Scotland’s ranking among the world’s wealthiest countries, but we covered that back in May so we won’t go over it again.

The bit of the meeting that caught our eye is at 1m 36 in the clip above.

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Alert readers will be aware that even in a campaign characterised by dishonesty, the ever-smirking Labour MSP Jackie Baillie has carved a reputation for especially notable creativity with the truth. With our hands on our hearts, we don’t think we’ve ever heard her say anything that wasn’t a lie. However, on last night’s The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4, we believe she reached a spectacular personal best. Have a listen.

If you can’t quite believe your ears, we’ll transcribe that for you.

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Alert readers may have spotted that the “Vote No Borders” cinema advert featured on this much-viewed Wings article from a few days ago can no longer be played from the campaign group’s YouTube page, returning a “Private” error.

An even more alert reader, however, had already made a copy.

And while the entire series of ads has now been effectively banned by all of Scotland’s cinema chains, all the other ones are still present on the website while the NHS one (described as “a light-hearted sketch”) has vanished. And now we’ve found out why.

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If you were by any chance wondering what all the hysterical media coverage today of some innocuous comments by Alex Salmond about Vladimir Putin in GQ magazine was trying to distract attention from, it was this.

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The transcript below is taken from a public meeting hosted by the Scottish Office at Murrayfield in Edinburgh last Thursday (24 April), featuring Alistair Carmichael.

You can listen for yourself by clicking the above image.

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There’s a wonderful opening paragraph in today’s Courier that we’ll quote in full:

“The UK’S Energy Secretary has accused the SNP of employing ‘negative politics of fear and bullying’ as he warned bills could rocket by as much as £189 a year in the event of independence.”

That virtuoso display of Olympic-class irony from Mr Davey was part of the latest fearbomb from the No camp – Nick Clegg’s plea for a “Sunshine Strategy” apparently having been a casualty of Lord Robertson’s “cataclysm” – in the shape of yet another “Scotland Analysis” report from the UK government insisting that every single aspect of Scottish independence would be comprehensively and unequivocally disastrous.

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Every time today that we’ve re-watched Johann Lamont’s multi-vehicular pile-up of an interview on last night’s Newsnight Scotland, we’ve seen something new in it that we missed previously and which makes us pull this face:

So (hngh) we’re going to have to get these down for posterity.

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A couple of interesting passages from Hansard in January 2012:

“The Government’s decision in March 2011 to increase tax rates on the industry, which increased the top tax rate to 81% and the corporation tax rate to 62%, is inevitably and regrettably having a chilling effect on the leading indicators of investment.

The signs of lower investment in the future are already apparent. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will see from the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s latest energy trends analysis a significant impact on drilling activity, with exploration wells down 50% in 2011.

It is from that exploration drilling that the future large capital investments will flow. The March 2011 tax increase reduced the value of future projects by 25% overnight.“

(Our emphasis.) The words of some dastardly separatist panicking about the value of Scottish oil? Not so much. The lines quoted above were addressed to Parliament by the Rt. Hon. Nicholas Soames, Conservative MP for Mid Sussex.

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Johann Lamont attracts a considerable amount of criticism – largely, it ought to be conceded, from SNP and Yes supporters, but also from the media – for her inability to deviate from her prepared text at First Minister’s Questions when the FM’s answer isn’t what she was expecting it to be.

But she’s not the only one in her party with that problem.

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Alert readers may recall a piece from earlier today in which we mused on the curious and perhaps unique unwillingness of the people of Scotland to seek more powers over their own lives. It was in part triggered by a curious moment from last night’s BBC Scotland independence debate from Kelso in the Borders.

A gentleman in the audience had asked the assembled panel of politicians “what they understand by the word ‘nation’, and which nation or nations do you belong to?”, and Labour MSP Jenny Marra’s reply was illuminating and perplexing in equal measures.

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Because if you don’t, your brain sort of refuses to acknowledge that certain things happened, and won’t let you dwell on them lest you lose your grip on reality.

So when we watched Douglas Alexander interviewed on Sunday Politics Scotland today, and heard an answer so bizarre and so spectacularly, flagrantly unrelated to the question he was asked that we briefly thought there might have been a slow-acting hallucinogenic in the cinnamon-and-vanilla cider we were drinking last night, we figured we better get it down in print so we could study it properly and check our sanity.

(Click the image to watch and listen for yourselves.) See what you think.

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