In Sealand today 84
Posted on
February 03, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Archive for the ‘uk politics’
Unleashing a firestorm 394
Posted on
February 03, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s not as if the Financial Times doesn’t have history with dropping great big payloads of high explosive into the middle of the independence debate late on a Sunday night. But a piece coming up in Monday’s edition (and online tonight) is going to choke a few breakfasts in London tomorrow morning.
An impressive feat 218
Posted on
February 02, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It takes some doing to make even BBC News presenters look a little uncomfortable at the sheer depth of your ignorance when it comes to Scottish independence, so we probably ought to offer some sort of commendation to this guy:
Cybernat of the week 137
Posted on
February 01, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Poor Anas Sarwar. He just can’t get anything right.
Doing his best to join in with the Daily Mail’s month-long witch-hunt, Labour’s “deputy” leader in Scotland leaps on an abusive and disturbingly racist-looking comment aimed at him. It’s nasty all right. It could well qualify as “hate”. But who’s it from?
A hot tip 84
Posted on
January 30, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
So we’ll just leave this here:
And then we’re off to bed.
[EDIT: Story confirmed with Jessica Bridges at Ladbrokes press office.]
Quoted for sense 161
Posted on
January 29, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The media is positively jumping with analyses of Mark Carney’s much-anticipated speech about currency unions, with thousands of words being expended to discuss something we’ve already summed up accurately in eleven. It’s almost comical to watch the amount of anti- (and very occasionally pro-) independence spin being put on a text which went pathologically out of its way not to make any kind of judgement whatsoever on the subject.
(Something Carney continued to do at the post-speech Q&A with journalists, at which he frequently looked bemused as a series of political hacks asked him massively leading questions along the lines of “So, you said X…” which he then had to wearily but firmly point out he hadn’t actually said at all. If you click the image below you can listen to an audio recording of the session.)
However much of an awful grump he is, the best, most sensible and balanced analysis (okay, the second-best after ours) is probably David Torrance’s.
Carney speech: definitive analysis 148
Posted on
January 29, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Future tense 87
Posted on
January 28, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Yesterday’s Telegraph contained another example of something we’ve noticed becoming increasingly common in newspapers recently where Scottish independence is concerned – the incredible vanishing story. Check out these first two paragraphs from a piece about investment in the oil industry:
Just hold on a second, there, tiger. In the first sentence we’re apparently talking quite explicitly about something that IS ALREADY happening, but by the second sentence it’s immediately been downgraded to a “risk” and a “fear” that it “will be” happening in the future. We’re used to drastic and frequent revisions of UK government forecasts, but they usually take more than a single breath to collapse.
We’re endlessly told that the oil business is “volatile”, but that’s ridiculous.
From beyond the grave 45
Posted on
January 27, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Switch the phrase “a Scottish Assembly” in the speech below for “an independent Scotland” and Alistair Darling could pretty much have made it word-for-word yesterday.
But can you tell which leader of the opposition actually did?
Leopard remains spotted 58
Posted on
January 26, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
There was much hilarity on BBC Radio Scotland’s “Headlines” this morning (from 39m), as the studio guests discussed right-wing Scottish Labour MP Jim Murphy’s Daily Mail-assisted attempts this week to silence dastardly so-called “cybernats” by preventing them from attending debates or appearing on TV.
But an alert Wings reader had already noticed that Mr Murphy isn’t exactly new to the notion of attempting to muzzle those whose opinions are not at one with his own.
The Day After 125
Posted on
January 24, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Something annoyed us a great deal this week, and for once it wasn’t some fatuous statement from Alistair Darling or Alistair Carmichael or Ruth Davidson (though all of those were in plentiful supply too). Rather, it was a comment from a distinguished academic and professional in what was otherwise a good-news story.
The chap in question was Patrick Layden QC, former Deputy Solicitor to the Scottish Executive (as was), prior to giving evidence to Holyrood’s European and External Relations Committee, and the quote published in several papers was a troubling one.
Walls come tumbling down 193
Posted on
January 23, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
“Better Together” must be nearly out of green bottles by now. 2014 has seen a bonfire of the scare stories. First to go was the terror of debt, which also all but guaranteed that there WILL be a Sterling currency union after independence (because the last thing the UK government needs is to have whatever amount Scotland takes as a share of UK liabilities being denoted in a fluctuating foreign currency).
Then the warnings about EU membership crumbled from several directions at once, culminating in today’s rather low-key story in which respected expert (and Unionist) Sir David Edward dismissed the idea of Scotland being thrown out of Europe as being nonsensical and impractical, having made similar comments last week.
The latest pillar of the No campaign’s case to collapse in the blink of an eye is the much-pushed line that independence means forcing Scots to choose between being Scottish and British. But who says so?
