Wings Over Scotland

We had a rather surprising conversation with Alan Trench of the “Devolution Matters” blog yesterday, and it inspired us to get on with something we’ve been meaning to do for ages anyway: compiling evidence regarding the future of the Barnett Formula for UK public spending should Scotland vote No to independence.

Quotes in no particular order. (Click for sources and dates.) More as we find them.

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As David Cameron came out of the closet this week to proclaim his great love for Scotland (a love most commonly demonstrated by forcing policies on it that its people despise and its elected representatives vote overwhelmingly against), we found ourselves pondering what could have provoked such a drastic step.

After all, it’s hardly a revelation that Etonian English Tory Prime Ministers are not necessarily a demographic Scots are inclined to hear sympathetically. As noted by the esteemed Lallands Peat Worrier earlier this week, until now the operation of the “Better Together” campaign has been clear – Tory money paying for Labour activists, because the latter are a lot more likely to command the hearts of those (mainly the working-class poor) on whose vote the referendum hinges.

So why has Cameron thrown all that away to take a gamble?

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Commentator and writer Lesley Riddoch (whose acclaimed recent book Blossom is a comically absurd bargain at £1.09 on Kindle this month) asked earlier this afternoon for her appearance on today’s Good Morning Scotland along with English journalist David Aaronovitch to be put online, and we’re happy to oblige.

Readers unusually sensitive to condescending, patronising metropolitan hacks talking down to far better-informed debating opponents, and who have any easily-breakable items nearby, are advised not to listen. We were chewing our knuckles all the way through recording it, and it wasn’t even us he was doing it to.

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[Tristan: this is my first draft. Give it a once-over, there’s a chap. DC.]

People of England, Wales and Northern Ireland!

Scotland! Stop pulling that face. This is about you, but it’s not for you. Daddy’s speaking to the other children now. Don’t interrupt. Why? Because it’s rude. Look, I don’t care if that IS what Evan Davis does on the Today programme. Evan is a big boy, so he knows when he needs to step in to stop you embarrassing yourself.

Sorry, everyone, I’m afraid Scotland is a bit tired and crabby this morning. Must have had a little too much Irn Bru last night. [Pause here for laughter.] Anyway, we have lots to talk about, so let’s ignore their high-pitched whining and get on.

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Today, the Prime Minister of the UK, who wants Scotland to stay in the UK but won’t go there and make the case for it, asked the non-Scottish citizens of the rest of the UK to tell Scots how they felt about Scottish independence.

This is what some of them said.

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This afternoon we reluctantly watched some of the House Of Commons debate entitled “Scotland’s Place In The UK”, because it’s our job. It was as dispiriting as its arrogant and presumptuous title suggests, and we could bear no more by about a third of the way through and went off to do something less annoying, like thread a muddy needle under a stroboscope while wearing boxing gloves and listening to One Direction.

Nevertheless, we managed to pick out a few choice lines at the time, and a few more from Hansard this evening, with our blood pressure soothed by merely having to read, not watch, Labour, Lib Dem and Tory MPs alike braying and hooting throughout, behaving with a lack of dignity and class that would have shamed a chimp’s tea party.

(Or as Labour’s Willie Bain put it, “the best of the House of Commons”.)

The winner is below.

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There’s a remarkable piece in today’s Scotsman that we had to share with you:

And if you think that magnificent headline’s good, wait until you hear the rest.

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Peter Arnott in The Global Dispatches, 29 January 2014:

“We have been tempted to believe in Scotland that our tactical pattern of voting one way in a Westminster elections and another in Holyrood elections would continue to shelter us from the worst neo-liberal excesses of Westminster – our parliament after all came into existence as a retroactive shelter from what was inflicted on us (and everyone else in non-Tory Britain) the last time the Conservatives were in power. 

We are still behaving as if this is the case even while history is whisking that carpet from underneath our feet.”

And that, readers, is why it matters that I live in England.

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On the eve of Wings Over Scotland’s 2000th post, we thought we’d celebrate.

Because today we learned something strange.

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It seems that today marked the official start of the much-vaunted “lovebombing” campaign aimed at persuading Scots to stay in the UK by showing them how much they’re loved by the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The opening salvo did some unfortunate and costly collateral damage, but luckily the Union had a white knight following close behind to smooth over any injured feelings.

Would you like to meet him, readers?

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The Sun’s editions on both sides of the border today go in heavy with the results of a YouGov poll showing a dramatic turnaround in the percentage of English (and Welsh) people who want Scotland to leave the UK.

Or at least, SOME of the results.

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From this morning’s Independent:

“‘Poll tax mark II’ pushes Britain’s poorest into debt

Up to 70,000 low earners, single parents, and disabled people are being pursued by bailiffs over their failure to pay the ‘new poll tax’, according to figures revealed for the first time.

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