Wings Over Scotland

The message is beginning to get through. I sense a real change happening slowly and I am sure there are informed people in the Labour Party who feel it as well. 
As I have said before when those who see the bandwagon getting ready to leave start  thinking seriously about whether to clamber onto it we will know we are winning.
I now have politically unaligned people saying to me  “Do you think we can do it next year?” The “we” is a significant use of words. I suspect a sizeable proportion of those presently being counted against us in polls only require confidence that we will achieve independence clearly next September to come onside.
The default position may be changing.Independence is starting to look safer and more sensible

@ Vronsky,
 
My sentiments exactly, why go now, he could announce his resignation and go at the summer recess. All seems a bit Glasgow Labour to me.

@Dave McEwan Hill says:   

“The message is beginning to get through. I sense a real change happening slowly and I am sure there are informed people in the Labour Party who feel it as well.”
I have been thinking the same for a while. I attended a YES Q&A meeting tonight in Aboyne.  Blair Jenkins was the speaker. Blair was excellent and dealt with the few naysayers in the audience in a very polite, professional manner, while at the same time destroying their argument. However, what really struck me was the lack of naysayers.  Remember this is Aboyne, ‘Royal Deeside’, we are talking about.  If ‘Royal Deeside’ votes YES, Scotland votes YES! 
P.S. I am a republican who lives on Deeside and I am no longer an endangered species!  

NNS is fine with me.

Glad to hear the Blair Jenkins Q&A went well – I had intended to go but ended up having to stay at home instead. I hope he does one in Aberdeen soon – I suspect it was a bit too close to the Donside by-election to do it just now.
 
Jiggsbro – I was going to say the exact same thing about the mirrored body language. It’s quite extraordinary actually. 
 
Labour and Tory: two cheeks of the same arse with the Lib Dems as the anus. All three squeezing together tightly to try and stop the shit getting out (that’ll be UKIP.)

Re., Tom Harris’ resignation from the Shadow Labour Front Bench. Looking at his record of posts held over quite a number of years and under different party leaders, it looks like he was well regarded as a safe pair of hands, but to resign in mid-stream for family reasons seems also to suggest some lack of ease and if the NNS editor feels the need to clamp down on wild speculation, it could point to something that’s disturbing the water.
 
No doubt TH will soon clarify matters through his fairly prolific website and put everyone’s mind at rest. Labour certainly need more agro landing on their doorstep like a hole in the head.

Milliband & Alexander are wearing blue ties. Remember when Labour politicos always wore a red tie?

Is that the same song sheet Ed and Dave are sitting with?

Another London Dividend says:
Typical BBC disregard for balance on Scottish political coverage.
A spokesperson for the BBC said that the 4 to 1 pro union bias is in line with the recent (dubious) poll of 14 year olds and the programme audience of 16 and 17 year olds will reflect this balance.

Prior to this you can watch Rory Bremner compare Alex Salmond to North Korean dictator in his “satirical” take on independence.

O/T: I see Scottish labour Donside campaign is starting via their pals at the BBC thanks to Eleanor Bradford again link to bbc.co.uk I think will we will see a BBC Labour campaign until next Thursday. Funny how BBC labour never investigated the years of PFI waste thanks to Scottish labour.

Not that it matters, but was I not correct last night when I suggested 5 to 1 in favour of the union on QT? Four unionist panelists and Dimbelby. Or am I still missing a joke? Sorry, too dim to have checked TV listings.

I like the notion George blocking hundreds of people on Twitter because they would deny him his right to speak.
 
No George it was your Twitter no one could stop you speaking you blocked them because you want to deny them the right to criticise what you said
 
Your Twitter your choice but there is a wee difference.
 
The picture above is just plain disturbing. Why the fark did he choose a blue tie if he knew he would be sitting beside Cameron?

Dee
 
There is an issue regarding care at home vs care facilities. The former is free and is the preferred option. This has been an issue for years and yes it does pre-date the SNP administration. However, it does look as if individual cases have a strong argument for mis-application of the rules and it would be wise for the Scottish Government to review the NHS decisions. What is is missing from the England/Scotland comparison are the numbers receiving care and the total number of cases where there is contention.   

Tattie
 
Highly likely, I would imagine Johanne will actually pull an old person out her Tesco bag during the proceedings. However, as it has already broken I expect that aides are pulling together the statistics to arm the FM with what has been done and what has been secured. Johanne wouldn’t give free care to old people if they had assets anyway…that would be something for nothing.

😉

Ed: I’m a bigger Tory than you

DC: No you’re not

Ed Yes I am!

DC: NO…You’re not

Ed: Yes I am, Yes I am, YES I AM!

How to the tell the difference? You can’t – Blair’s strategy of moving labour to the right probably made sense at the time. He knew he could drag the left with him, as there really was no alternative. But the problem with trying to triangulate votes in such a way, is that you ultimately become the thing you once stood against. Stare into the abyss and have it stare in to you as Nietzche sort of once said.

Now the ultimate irony is that they go to the voter pretty much sounding like the other guy. One of the reasons we had a hung parliament, is in my opinion, down to that unacknowledged identity crisis. I still remember Will Self on QT saying right before the leader debates that “They agree on so many things, that you would struggle to fit a playing card between them, they are that close together”

Wind the clock back to 2007: Scots realised that there actually was an alternative to labour in Holyrood and voted in the SNP. Despite every attempt to undermine the SNP administration, it won again in 2011. Going by past events Lab/lib/cons are not really doing anything to capture the imaginations of Scots voters.

In England it appears to be UKIP that is profiting from this dilemma. What is odd is that the MSM seems hellbent on trying to convince Scots that UKIP is a serious contender here. Well…perhaps not that odd. If you are trying to enforce an illusion of conformity in politics, to stress how England & Scotland are really one and the same, then this is how you would do it. The issue for them is that UKIP is just another flavour of Tory, and since Tory is four letter word up here, and they regarded as shit on the heel of Scotlands shoe…Enter Darling and co with one panic bomb after another.

So basically, Tom Harris, champion of “Labour – party for the worker”, isnt working!

Looking at G Campbell’s comment at 8.50 it’s a clear signal the UK Establishment is stirring the political pot trying to force UKIP into the system. Here we have a party being given mammoth BBC airtime over the past 4 years, while they are still MP-less in Parliament and only have a presence in the HOL and NI Assembly through characters who’ve either been kicked out of their former parties or are HOL carpet-baggers who see greener grass possibilities.
From Feb 09 to the present, UKIP have been foisted into the public awareness by the BBC on 19 occasions, 14 with Farage. They have a membership of around 28k, which by my reckoning is a miniscule 0.043% of the UK population.
 
Now it seems the recent choreographed media publicity visit by Farage to Edinburgh was just another move on the grand scheme monoply board.
 
By God, we better vote YES!