Wings Over Scotland

We don’t need it in Scotland. Look at the state of reality:

“THE pro-union Better Together campaign has refused to work with UKIP to persuade Scots to vote against ­independence. A Better Together ­spokesman said: “UKIP have asked to join us and we have said no. If they ask again, we will say no again. They are not a Scottish party and this is a Scottish debate.””

We assume this means that the No camp will be giving Ian Taylor his non-Scottish £500,000 back at last, and roundly condemning the interventions of the thoroughly non-Scottish Carwyn Jones in the debate, yes?

Are we doomed to decline if Scotland separates? I can think of lots of good reasons why Scotland might want to vote to remain part of the United Kingdom. But the Commons’ Foreign Affairs Select Committee report this week is not one of them.

According to the report, if Scotland votes for independence, it would mean the UK was “a world power in irreversible decline”. Setting aside the question of whether we should expect folk to vote in the interests of geopolitical greatness, does being small mean you’re doomed to be weak? Not at all. The assumption that in geopolitics strength comes from scale is simply not true.

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One of the weirdest things about UKIP’s spectacular success in the English local elections yesterday – up from EIGHT seats to 147 – was watching everyone in the unholy “Better Together” alliance desperately trying to downplay it.

From the Labour side came the traditional cry of “It’s ridiculous to separate Scotland from England just because you don’t like who England votes for (and therefore imposes on Scotland)!”, while Tories pointed out that they’d still retained almost 80% of their seats and that anyway it didn’t really matter, because UKIP had no chance of winning a general election and indeed still didn’t have a single MP.

Of course, as we’ve noted already today, they don’t actually need one.

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This shouldn’t take long. Since 1997, and particularly since 2001, what passes for the political ideology of the Labour Party in Britain could be accurately summed up in one short phrase: be the smallest possible single step to the left of the Tories.

Protected by the grossly undemocratic First Past The Post electoral system – which discriminates massively against third parties and ensures that Labour or the Tories can secure huge, unassailable majorities on barely more than a third of the vote – Tony Blair’s brilliant, ruinous flash of political inspiration was the willingness to fully grasp the implication of that fact: that Labour could effectively all but become the Tories and still capture the left-wing vote, because that vote had nowhere else to go.

A bit like when there’s someone breathing right down your neck on a crowded train, that sent the Tories shuffling ever further along the political spectrum in an attempt to put some distance between them and their opponents, only to be confounded as Labour doggedly matched them step for step, constantly pressing their manifesto-groins into the Tories’ rear like some sort of hideous nerdy sex pest.

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Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones yesterday:

Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones today:

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Wait, what now? From BBC News:

Several weeks on, we still await answers from the No camp to several serious questions about their biggest donor, Ian Taylor of Vitol. But the ongoing furore (we’re really not sure issuing the Herald with a legal threat worked out the way Mr Taylor hoped it would) over his £500,000 donation has kept attention away from the other substantial contributors to the “Better Together” campaign fund.

Aberdeen local paper the Evening Express has decided to put that right, though.

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This is Labour leader Ed Miliband on Radio 4’s “World At One” yesterday:

(From 16m 12s on iPlayer.)

“I think people are asking this very very important question about the country, which is, y’know, are our problems so deep that NOBODY can actually make a difference to them? My emphatic answer is yes.”

Ours is too, though to a slightly different question.

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We had to be out most of yesterday, so we didn’t have time to cover a story which broke in the morning in several UK papers. 24 hours later, though, we can still find no mention of it in the Scottish media, which remains fully occupied in filling its pages with recycled wittering drivel about the pound.

This is a worrying state of affairs, because yesterday’s story is of direct concern to an awful lot more Scots than a hypothetical scaremongering fantasy about currency.

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The BBC’s flagship satirical programme “Have I Got News For You” is, of course, comedy. The tone of the opening minutes of last night’s episode was a little uglier and nastier than the usual friendly inter-regional jibes (normally delivered by the likes of Jeremy Clarkson and accompanied by rebukes from the rest of the panel), but it really wasn’t anything to get overly worked up about. Comedy isn’t always cuddly.

It must have been a little uncomfortable for the No camp, though.

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We’re indebted to an alert reader (as previously noted, we default to not naming people who send us tip-offs and the like so as not to get them in trouble at work or anything, but will happily credit you if you ask) for an excellent piece of initiative today.

“16 April 2013

Dear Ministry of Defence,

A couple of weeks ago the PM told us we were at threat of nuclear attack by North Korea. Living in Glasgow, what is the procedure if they do launch, where do I go? How do the MOD protect us – can they shoot the missile down? How will I know we are under attack? If they do launch, Trident isn’t much use, is it? Can Trident shoot down a missile? The South Koreans have Patriot missiles, do we? Are they any good? What are you doing to protect Glasgow?

Yours faithfully and very concerned,
[alert WingsLand reader]”

You can read the MoD’s reply below. Our emphases, as always.

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