Wings Over Scotland

We were feeling a bit gloomy earlier on today at the realisation that we’d wasted two irreplaceable minutes of our life reading a load of vacuous waffle that Labour MP Douglas Alexander is apparently going to deliver today at what the Daily Record described as a “Better Together rally” somewhere in Glasgow.

(It must be one of those sorts of “rallies” that are kept secret until the last possible moment so that too many people don’t show up – it isn’t mentioned on the “Better Together” website and there’s nothing listed in their “Events” section within 50 miles of Glasgow until a bit of leafleting in a car park in East Kilbride on 22 February.)

So we thought if we could at least get a feature out of it the time wouldn’t be such a total write-off, plus it’s always fun to have a wander through one of Wee Dougie’s barnstorming, rabble-rousing addresses. Let’s go!

“THIS week, we caught a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror.”

Come on, readers, you’re better than that.

“The newly published Scottish Social Attitudes Survey revealed the thinking and attitudes that make up modern Scotland. The headline findings confirmed the importance of the economy in the independence debate and highlighted that support for independence is still below historic levels.”

Which is important, because the referendum is taking place in the past.

“This latest survey follows many votes ahead of the referendum in schools, colleges and university campuses across the nation.

We’ve seen 11,000 school pupils taking part in Aberdeenshire, a campus referendum at Glasgow University and a huge survey of 14 to 17-year-olds by Edinburgh University.

Aberdeenshire kids. Glasgow students. Paisley pupils. The results are the same. Most young Scots simply don’t want separation.”

Why were Edinburgh University doing a survey of pupils in Paisley? But yes, surveys, polls and debates at educational establishments do suggest that young Scots are opposed to independence.

Unless they’re at Abertay Univerity in Dundee, that is.

Or Ayrshire College.

Or Edinburgh Napier University.

Or Prestwick Academy.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Nationalist strategists have long believed that giving votes to 16-year-olds was a masterstroke that could tip the balance and ensure a separatist victory.

Why did they get it so wrong? Was it just a case of believing their own hype? In fact, I think they’ve misunderstood something deeper about our young people.”

Or, um, someone’s only been feeding you half the news.

“The Scottish Government assumed that today’s young Scots are the “Nationalist Generation”. It turns out that today’s young Scots are the “Network Generation”. Those Scottish Millenials – born in the years just before 2000 – are children of the digital age.”

Buzzwords! Buzzy buzzy buzzwords! Buzz buzz buzz!

“This Network Generation have grown up in a connected world. With Skype, Facebook, Twitter and the internet, the world is at their fingertips via their smart phone. They find the idea of watching TV programmes at a time to suit the broadcaster quaint and old-fashioned.”

I’m not like your grandad! I’m hip and cool and in-touch! Those Arctic Monkfish, eh?

“Control, connection and cooperation are the Network Generation’s watchwords. They believe they can, and should, have it all. Indeed, the science of networks teaches us that the more connected you are, the more powerful you are. Our young people get that. It’s how they live their lives.”

Sounds like they’ve been enjoying all that Glasgow City Council free wifi!

“The Network Generation are secure in, and proud of, their Scottishness. Unlike my generation that grew up in the 80s, they don’t see our sense of identity as under threat.”

We don’t think we follow this one. Why did Douglas Alexander see his sense of identity under threat in the 1980s? What happened? Did he think Argentina was going to win the Falklands War, invade the mainland and make us all speak Spanish?

“Margaret Thatcher is, for them, only another name from history. A 16-year-old voting for the first time on September 18 will have lived three-quarters of their life with a UK Labour government.”

And look what a state the country’s in. Haven’t thought that one through, have you?

“They have only ever known Scotland with a parliament in its capital. The Network Generation have grown up watching Barcelona and Manchester United as much as Rangers or Celtic.”

Um, we’re not convinced that citing Barcelona, the quasi-official football team of the Catalan independence movement, is the smartest call if you’re saying young people hate “separatists”, Dougie. Couldn’t you just have said Real Madrid?

“They’ll support Europe in the Ryder Cup and Scotland in the Commonwealth Games this summer as ardently as they supported Team GB in 2012.”

Kids love golf, right?

“As times change, so do the way each generation see the world. It is rather like the way our generation came to see our grandparents’ views on the Empire and colonies as outdated.”

Not sure why we’ve skipped a whole generation.

“If you’re part of the Network Generation, you don’t have to belong just to one nation. Dual identities come easily to these dual screeners.”

Slick!

“They fear a separate Scotland would be a narrowing, not a broadening, experience. And they see the forced binary choice of Scotland or the UK as last-century, not this-century, thinking.”

Try to keep up with the news, Doug. Nobody has to choose. The Scottish and UK governments both agreed this week that Scots would be able to retain dual citizenship should they choose.

“This Network Generation are much less interested in past grievances than future possibilities. The Network Generation understand that what’s at stake is not just 300 years of shared history…

So they don’t care about past grievances, but they do care about 300 years ago?

“…but a quintessentially modern idea that on these small, rainy islands we can succeed as a multi-ethnic, multicultural, multinational country together.”

Dear God. People have different political views, but if there’s one thing that can surely be agreed across the board it’s that the current direction of the UK is NOT towards more multi-ethnic multiculturalism.

The current government is proposing banning anyone who doesn’t speak adequate English from claiming benefits. They’ve already sent vans round telling immigrants to go home. UKIP is soaring in the polls, and widely expected to come either second or first in the European elections in the spring. The Tories want to have a referendum on leaving the EU (Labour refuse to reject the idea), and opinion polls suggest the British public is desperate to get out.

Scotland, meanwhile, wants to encourage more immigration, but is actively PREVENTED from doing so by UK government policy. Westminster is so terrified of other ethnicities and other cultures that it’s even threatening to put up border controls between Scotland and England to keep immigrants out if Scotland votes Yes.

“Like so many, they may feel there’s nowhere better than Scotland but they understand there’s something bigger. And they want the opportunities which come from being connected to something bigger.”

Yeah, like the rest of Europe, which the UK wants to cut itself off from.

“The polls show consistently that the Network Generation recognise that they and future generations have the most to gain from remaining part of the UK and the most to lose from walking away.”

That seems an almost diametrically inaccurate use of the word “consistently”. Four out of seven studies of young people (see above) found majorities for independence. The latest, from ICM, shows a dramatic increase in backing for a Yes vote among the 16-24 age group, up to a startling 57%. The previous figure was 24%, and has grown by an incredible 137% in four months. That’s a very queer sort of consistency.

“They have grown up in a world of instant connection and communication where the old polarities of the politicians just seem dated. I believe that’s good news for Scotland’s future.

We have heard and will hear a lot about the “historic choice” Scotland faces on September 18. What these young people remind us is that what’s at stake is not our history but our future – and how Scotland succeeds in this changing world. It’s the Network Generation showing us the way.

Their outlook matters because how we engage with difference is one of the most vital questions our nation and our world faces.

In today and tomorrow’s connected, crowded and interconnected world, we can’t escape each other. So we need to learn better ways to live together.”

Good news! We’ve thought of a better way! So why do you want us to vote No to it and stick with the old one, that’s seen catastrophic youth unemployment and a relentless attack on young people, with some benefits already taken away from under-25s and others under threat, from both main parties?

“Whether we treat difference with empathy and respect or view the ‘other’ as outsiders to be regarded with incomprehension or fear really matters.”

Says the party that won’t shut up about how awful foreigners are.

“It matters because, far beyond Scotland, the world is getting ever more interconnected. Driven by networks, communication in the 21st century doesn’t know any borders. Neither does trade.

Neither of those things are even remotely true. Try accessing the internet freely in Beijing or Pyongyang, or importing Irn Bru into Canada, or haggis into the USA. But perhaps more to the point, if trade and communication already ignore borders, why would it matter whether there’s one between Scotland and England or not?

“Neither does terrorism.”

Um, pretty sure terrorism is all about borders. Al-Qaeda didn’t attack Mexico.

“Neither does the atmosphere.”

Perhaps why an independent Scotland is so keen on building up a renewable-energy industry, while the UK government has just handed out more or less unlimited fracking licences to explode pretty much anywhere it thinks might yield the odd seam of gas, even if it makes fire come out of your kitchen taps.

“It’s becoming clearer that all of our main problems can only be tackled, and our opportunities realised, by people broadening rather than narrowing their perspective and then working together, not walking away.”

Hmm, better not risk finding ourselves dragged out of the EU by the English, then?

“It was almost 50 years ago that Robert F Kennedy challenged an audience of students in apartheid South Africa with these words: ‘This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.’

That challenge endures today. And with their global perspective, I believe Scotland’s Network Generation stand ready to help answer that call.

That’s good news for Scotland, for the UK and for our global community.”

“Waffle blah padding padding padding is that 1000 words yet?”

We think we might be beginning to understand why BT keep their “rallies” such a closely-guarded secret, readers. It’s so nobody can plan their escape route.