Remember how the No camp is conducting a positive campaign, and definitely NOT saying that Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid to thrive as an independent country, and that only evil cybernats ever suggest that they’re saying that?
Here’s Danny Alexander on Sky News this morning. We’re not sure he got the memo.
If we were you, we’d skip ahead to about 18 minutes in this video of a debate hosted by the Cupar Business Network at the start of the month. John Swinney’s oratorial skills aren’t his strongest suit, and Murdo Fraser is reading from the same “Better Together” script you’ve heard a hundred times before.
But the following hour shows Swinney where he IS at his very best. A superb debater with facts at his fingertips and a razor-sharp focus, he takes Fraser apart methodically and comprehensively, with impeccable politeness and clarity.
We’ve been tweeting a few of the most noteworthy bits throughout the day, but if you’ll forgive us for asking you to sit through two hour-long bits of media in succession, we think you’ll find this one worth it.
Here’s Johann Lamont at FMQs yesterday:
And here’s the UK’s Defence Secretary Philip Hammond speaking on Channel 4 News the previous night. See how clear you think he makes that.
Blair McDougall, director of “Better Together”, Dundee University, 30 October 2013:
You heard it straight from the horse’s – well, let’s be kind and say “mouth”, folks.
If you’ve been waiting (as we have), here are all six episodes of Jack Foster’s superb overview of the Scottish political scene, collected into one punchy 34-minute film.
Adam Curtis would, we hope, be proud.
If you’re one of our non-Luddite readers and possess a Twitter account, you’ll probably have noticed a flurry of comment a couple of weeks back about a debate at Abertay University in Dundee (the UK’s centre of educational excellence for the videogames industry, among other things), in which the SNP’s Stewart Hosie – debating Labour’s Lord Robertson – turned round a large pre-debate majority of 59% to 21% for the Union and converted it into a clear majority of 51-38 for Yes. (A stunning 25% swing.)
Splendidly, the whole thing is now available on video. Enjoy and learn.
Okay, one last thing. This is the best footage of Saturday we’ve seen:
(Oh, and the Scottish Police Federation are now tweeting a crowd figure of 20,000.)
As we’ve already noted today, Wings Over Scotland has the internet’s most excellent readers. Two of them have been working together over the last week or so, after we put them in touch, to share some fascinating Scottish history with the rest of us.
Click the two images in this post for an intriguing hour-and-three-quarters.
We’re not impartial witnesses, of course, but we suspect even the most unbiased observer would struggle to dispute that the last 12 hours have seen Scottish Labour’s most spectacular on-air implosion since Iain Gray’s infamous Hindenberg disaster in the wake of Wendy Alexander’s “bring it on” brainfail of 2008.
For openers, a pained and ghostly-looking Johann Lamont on Scotland Tonight. (Starts at 0:51, continues for about six toe-curling, slow-motion minutes. Audio-only recording here for when the video is no longer available on the STV website.)
Then some desperate stalling from Anas Sarwar on Newsnight Scotland. (We’ve linked to a bit four minutes in, which lasts until the end about eight minutes later.)
But the glorious piece de resistance is unquestionably Johann Lamont being speared, skinned and filletted by David Miller on Good Morning Scotland. (The first two minutes or so are a bit slow, but you really need to hear all of the 10 minutes following them.)
And if you don’t have the time to watch/listen to the whole 24 minutes of those right now, here’s all three appearances compressed into just nine seconds.
To be honest, further commentary from us seems superfluous.
Long-time WoSblog viewers will already be aware that I’ve embraced my gay side when it comes to Eurovision now, thanks to the simple expedient of entering into the spirit and watching it with other people. (If everyone else is even briefly out of the room for some reason I get very twitchy.)
But for those of you still struggling, here are this year’s highlights, with the minimum of campness and the maximum of ROCK!
(NB “Maximum” does not necessarily mean “a lot”.)
“…put out the streamers/It’s gonna be a good day for the dreamers.”
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
