Today’s papers are full of a report from right-wing thinktank the Institute for Fiscal Studies proclaiming that an independent Scotland would be even more unaffordable than the last time it was completely unaffordable, tax increases, public spending cuts, plagues of frogs, yada yada yada.
(We’re paraphrasing the Executive Summary there somewhat, but that’s the gist.)
We’re just not sure everyone’s got their sums right.
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: arithmetic fail
Category
analysis, scottish politics, wtf
We’ve been toasting in the sun with the Wings Emergency Kitten most of today, readers, celebrating the fact that Wings Over Scotland now has more unique readers per month than the sales of any Scottish newspaper.
(As of May we’re reaching 253,000 people monthly, whereas the best-selling paper, the Scottish Sun, shifts 248,000 copies. It is, of course, a ridiculously unfair comparison for all sorts of reasons, but it’s still nice as a purely symbolic milestone.)
Even so, when an alert reader sent us a picture of today’s Scottish Sunday Express we wondered if we might have baked our brains a bit too much, because it carried a feature about something that we didn’t remember doing at all.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, media, scottish politics, wtf
We have not made this story up. It’s not the work of BBC Scotlandshire.
Just casually, there, beneath an unassuming, innocuous headline. No big deal.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
apocalypse, scottish politics, wtf
Because some of you won’t have seen it yet. This is NOT a spoof.
That’s what they think will persuade people to vote No, readers.
Category
comment, culture, scottish politics, wtf
This clip comes from yesterday’s “Good Morning Scotland”, around 2h 35m in.
It features Professor Paul Collier, who is apparently the Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University and therefore an obvious choice for the BBC as a go-to guy on the subject of Scottish politics.
We think you’ll find it a stimulating and thought-provoking opinion.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
audio, comment, scottish politics, world, wtf
Remember, readers, how last year “Better Together” tried to ridicule the fact that we’d put a satirical line about “space monsters” into one of the questions in our first Panelbase poll? Remember how it was the most absurd, stupid thing imaginable?
That was the UK Secretary of State for Defence, yesterday.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, scottish politics, wtf
We honestly don’t understand how anyone with electricity in their house or a newsagent anywhere within a 30-mile radius can possibly come to say things like this:
“[Independence] is a view not shared by IT teacher Elaine Coates, originally from Glasgow but now in Tettenhall. The mother of three has lived in England for 30 years but has no strong views on independence.
‘I just don’t see how it will work, I think Scotland would be crazy to do this,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t have any oil so how is it going to get its income? Whisky and tourism, probably, but that’s it.'”
Firstly, Elaine, we’d have to say that “it would be crazy” DOES actually sound like quite a strong view on independence to us. But in all seriousness, leaving all snark and sarcasm aside, how on Earth does a human being living in the UK in 2014, seemingly not inside any sort of secure institution, come to believe something like that?
Ms Coates isn’t some lone madwoman. Other people, also not resident in mental hospitals, say the same thing. And we get that lots of people aren’t into politics. But when it comes to ignorance about your own nation, being unaware that Scotland has oil is somewhere on a par with not knowing that Great Britain is an island. How in the world do you go through decades of adult life without ever picking up on that fact?
It’s not a rhetorical question. Can someone actually explain it to us?
Tags: unionist of the day
Category
comment, investigation, scottish politics, wtf
One of the great things about this site’s sky-high viewing figures is that on the rare occasions when we might be, for example, out having a walk in the park to get over the crushing disappointment of somehow losing yet another Scottish Cup semi-final, our ever-vigilant readers will remain alert.
Otherwise, we might have missed this.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, disturbing, scottish politics, uk politics, video, wtf
It’s late, but we couldn’t let this one pass.
Heavens, where do we start?
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: and finally
Category
comment, reference, scottish politics, wtf
Our email inbox this week has been packed with people sending in their Labour MP’s or MSP’s responses to our questions about the party’s proposals for the devolution of taxation (aka “Devo Nano”) in the event of a No vote.
With the exception of the very first reply – an arrogant, rude, dismissive effort from Tom Harris – until this evening all of them have been the exact same text except for minor variations in the introductory sentences, with some members choosing to insert little digs at this site but others being more polite to their constituents.
But tonight everything changed.
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: Devo Nanovote no get nothing
Category
analysis, scottish politics, wtf
