Wings Over Scotland

In truth, the “Better Together” campaign jumped the shark a long time ago. Whether it was #500questions, or the mobile-phone roaming charges story (the moment when even a supportive media started saying “Oh, come on”), or any of literally dozens of others, the fact of the matter is that it’s been engaged for at least a year now in some sort of 110m Shark Hurdling event.

Or perhaps some sort of Shark Pentathlon, starting with a Shark Long Jump, followed by the Shark Hurdles, Shark High Jump, Shark Triple Jump and culminating in a Shark Pole Vault. Frankly, on current form the only way the No campaign could get any more clearance over the shark is with a nuclear-powered pogo stick.

But still, you have to admire the way they keep trying for a new record.

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Can’t wait to read these two stories in the morning.

Goodnight, readers.

We’re not sure which of The Scotsman and Murdo Fraser of the Scottish Conservatives was most confused this morning. Reporting on the second half of its intriguing ICM poll (which put the gap between Yes and No votes as low as six points), the paper publishes some data about the attitude of Scots to the EU.

Excluding don’t knows, the results provide a clear 16-point margin for Scotland remaining in Europe, at 58% to 42%. (The raw numbers put it only slightly lower, at 46 to 33.) But for some odd reason the newspaper chooses to reveal this vote of confidence under the bafflingly negative headline “A third of Scots would back exit from EU”, without even an “only” in there to reflect the implication of the stats.

Weirder still is Murdo Fraser’s reaction, though.

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(Source here.)

When we started the week with news of the UK government’s statement on debt, we wondered aloud whether it would be a game-changing moment. Judging by the No camp’s reaction since then, shrieking and flailing and lashing out blindly in all directions simultaneously, our question’s been answered.

It’s been hard to keep track of it all, but we’ll have a go.

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This is hereditary Westminster Labour MP Anas Sarwar in yesterday’s Evening Times:

“Now, it’s been said by some that there is no passion in the case that we are better together as part of the United Kingdom.

Well, the people saying that obviously haven’t been at any of the rallies I have been at across Scotland, and where I spoke about an idea much bigger than independence; the pooling and sharing of resources across the UK for the benefit of everyone in the UK.”

Hang on – “rallies”? Were we watching the wrong channel when we missed the tens of thousands of people packing the streets for the Great Rally Of The Union? Were we passed out in a cupboard for the whole time when the Anas Sarwar Evangelical Roadshow filled football stadia in every corner of the land with crazed disciples waving Union Jacks and chanting “POOL AND SHARE! POOL AND SHARE!”?

Rallies? What on Earth is the truth-averse wee twerp talking about? We need a doctor.

It’s our own fault for reading a Brian Monteith column in the Scotsman, but:

“Am I the only person that finds it rather rich that Alex Salmond is so keen on debating the views of David Cameron, an Englishman with an English constituency, when he consciously arranged for the views of tens of thousands of people on the Scottish electoral register to be excluded from taking part in the referendum? Why did he not wish to hear their views?”

Hang on – Alex Salmond did what now? As far as we know, if you’re on the Scottish electoral register you get a vote in the referendum. What happened? Which “tens of thousands of people” are we talking about here? Shouldn’t this have been in the news or something? We hate trying to catch up after the holidays.

We got a letter from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office today. We opened it, read it, and – if we might paraphrase for a moment – it said we were suckers.

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If we’re being honest, Irish Times, it’s not the phrase we’d have chosen:

And this one might just take the entire cake stand and banana hanger.

It’s former Tory MP and junior minister Edwina Currie, speaking about someone called “Alex Salmon” on Radio 5’s Stephen Nolan show on Saturday. (From 2h 16m on that iPlayer link.) We do recommend listening to all six-and-a-half minutes. It sets a very high standard from the off, but somehow maintains it the whole way through. Enjoy.

We’ve noted a few times recently that the increasingly bitter, angry and even violent tone of the “Better Together” campaign isn’t the sort of thing you’d normally expect from a movement confident and relaxed about its chances of victory.

But over the space of just the last few days – perhaps enraged by the positivity of the SNP conference – the defenders of the Union have been descending into madness even more precipitously than usual.

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We forget who, but someone we read this week – in the Herald, we think – referenced a line spoken by Jennifer Aniston’s character in an old episode of Friends (which we’ve managed to identify as S02E01, “The One With Ross’s New Girlfriend”):

“When I saw him get off that plane with her, I really thought I just hit rock bottom. But today, it’s like there’s rock bottom, then 50 feet of crap, then me.”

We were put in mind of it by something in this afternoon’s Guardian.

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