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Wings Over Scotland


The Stoned Roses 578

Posted on December 08, 2018 by

The Great British Bin Fire 385

Posted on December 06, 2018 by

Brexit isn’t really this site’s remit, which is why we’ve been relatively quiet in recent weeks as the UK’s shambolic exit from the EU hogs all the news and Scottish politics has been relegated to a largely-dormant backwater in the press.

Yes supporters don’t speak with one voice on the EU, and while we’re in favour of it we’ve long said that the indy movement can’t really move on until the fog clears and we know for sure what Brexit’s going to look like. Deciding whether to be part of the EU should be a decision for an independent Scotland to make, not a precondition.

But dear lord, this is such a mess it needs to be examined.

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The internationalist brigade 89

Posted on December 06, 2018 by

We all knew this already, of course. Last year we commissioned a poll from Panelbase which found an enormous 41-point gap between Yes and No voters on immigration. But it was still nice to have it both confirmed and laid out so clearly by Sir John Curtice on Good Morning Scotland earlier today.

(About 1h 55m in. We’re having some trouble recording sound on our new PC at the moment, we’ll get you a proper audio link as soon as we’ve figured it out.)

“Support for the Yes movement is associated with being more likely [around 50% more likely, in fact] to have a positive view about immigration.

So we’re certainly confirming that Scotland does have this rather unusually civic nationalist movement. It’s not a movement that says you have to be born in Scotland for us to value you, it is something that does seem to be relatively open-minded.

On the other side of the coin what we’re discovering – and the reason why in the end Scotland why doesn’t look any more liberal than England and Wales – is that when you look at those who vote for the Conservatives or for the Labour Party, for the Unionist parties, they emerge as being less favourable towards immigration than are Conservative and Labour voters south of the border.”

It’s worth keeping to hand the next time some witless Scottish Labour goon tries to tell you that independence is bad because it’s “separatist” and that voting for the Union is the international-solidarity option. Because that’s a flat-out lie.

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In England’s Dreaming 181

Posted on December 05, 2018 by

We now have the verdicts on Brexit from three of the UK’s four nations. The Scottish Parliament, speaking for the Scottish nation, voted overwhelmingly this afternoon to reject both Theresa May’s draft agreement and leaving the EU without a deal.

And it wasn’t alone.

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An excellent question 45

Posted on December 05, 2018 by

Posed by Kezia Dugdale in the Holyrood chamber today:

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In different times 430

Posted on December 04, 2018 by

If there’s one thing you can say for the Tories, it’s that right or wrong, they always stick to their principles.

Oh, not YOU, Scotland.

Taking the strain 284

Posted on December 03, 2018 by

We’re on about Day 79 of NoScottishPoliticsNewsGate (today’s big “EXCLUSIVE!” in the Herald is something we told you about last Friday, and was also an “exclusive” in yesterday’s Scottish Sun), so we found ourselves getting diverted by something else in the papers this morning.

The Scottish Daily Mail had a piece on the cost of train journeys from Scotland, and living in Bath you don’t need to tell us how scandalously expensive British railways are compared to almost any other country in the Northern Hemisphere.

But the Mail is the Mail, and it couldn’t help distorting even an open-goal of a story like that until it had almost no relation to reality. And it’s a very useful illustration, should anybody need yet another one, of how this country’s newspapers vastly mislead their readers without actually technically lying.

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Articles without faith 397

Posted on December 01, 2018 by

At a time of unprecedented political chaos and uncertainty, just about the only thing you can still count on is that for any given situation, senior Labour figures will issue proclamations both firmly in favour of it and stoutly opposed to it, usually the same day.

So the stories below, which are respectively from today’s Scotsman and today’s Times, won’t come as much of a shock to anyone.

But against the odds, we think we’ve made some sense of it.

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All show, no game 68

Posted on December 01, 2018 by

Quick context check 174

Posted on November 30, 2018 by

The front page lead of today’s Scottish Daily Mail:

As alert readers of this site will know, the Mail has a particular fondness for presenting statistics bereft of any context so that people have no idea how big or small they really are. So is 1,600 passengers a week receiving compensation for delays a lot or a little? Let’s find out.

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Something smells fishy 275

Posted on November 29, 2018 by

From today’s Daily Mail:

The headline is, of course, a lie.

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Braveheart or something 258

Posted on November 28, 2018 by

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    • charlie on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Time to start kicking the can down the road, slowly and judicially with only the public paying.” Sep 30, 22:38
    • Hatey McHateface on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “@ am firinn says:30 September, 2026 at 8:58 pm “Exactly what legislature do you think passed the Scotland Act 1998?”…” Sep 30, 21:32
    • am firinn on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Exactly what legislature do you think passed the Scotland Act 1998?” Sep 30, 20:58
    • am firinn on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Remind me what institutions “Scotland” had to raise against these sections in 1998?” Sep 30, 20:57
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    • agentx on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Adopting Alternative International Frameworks The review is explicitly tasked with examining alternative Law Officer models used in other jurisdictions. The…” Sep 30, 19:57
    • Hatey McHateface on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “And he’s back. And he’s put the cracked record on again. Readers new to this saga might not know that…” Sep 30, 19:37
    • Ross on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Playing devil’s advocate… Who will the Lord Advocate be accountable to if not the Govt? The Parliament?” Sep 30, 19:34
    • Hatey McHateface on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “When required to register for the daily attendance allowance. Just like in the HoL.” Sep 30, 19:07
    • Hatey McHateface on Whatever Can Have Happened?: ““This really is a “made in England” problem” Of course it is. How many times must we be told? Scotland…” Sep 30, 19:05
    • Alf Baird on Whatever Can Have Happened?: ““which is what puts the Lord Advocate above the law” Indeed, which also tells us that it is not the…” Sep 30, 19:04
    • agentx on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “No major institutional or governmental objection was raised by Scotland against section 44(1)(c) of the Scotland Act 1998, which makes…” Sep 30, 18:36
    • am firinn on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “It’s all very well the Scottish Government consulting on this. However, s44(1)(c) of the Scotland Act 1998, which establishes that…” Sep 30, 18:01
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “« They will attend meetings of the Scottish Government cabinet only when required. »” Sep 30, 17:39
    • Mark Beggan on Whatever Can Have Happened?: ““…only when required..” Required for what? Not that we don’t trust a word they say.” Sep 30, 17:37
    • Spartan 117 on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Hmm. To quote Mr. Spock, “Fascinating”. Entirely disconnected to certain recent going on, I’m sure.” Sep 30, 17:18
    • agentx on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Coincides with Murrell having legal aid withdrawn.” Sep 30, 16:40
    • robertkknight on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Must be an election in a couple of days and our rancid SNP Government needs to appear, I stress appear,…” Sep 30, 16:18
    • Hatey McHateface on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “As a matter of fact, Andy, Memmi predicted exactly this in one of his publications. But I’m not telling you…” Sep 30, 15:45
    • Hatey McHateface on Whatever Can Have Happened?: ““the former judge leading the review is himself a former Lord Advocate” I see. Everybody else must have been already…” Sep 30, 15:37
    • Sean Duffy on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “There will be no meaningful change. The politicians have the police and the judiciary firmly within their grasp. They won’t…” Sep 30, 15:34
    • Willie on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Interesting nugget Colin Dawson about arrangemnts not so long ago being considered as ” appropriate “. Well according to Big…” Sep 30, 15:28
    • Stuart MacKay on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Sadly no. You forgot a pithy quote from a prominent intellectual who was working with the CIA.” Sep 30, 15:16
    • Andy Wiltshire on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “It’s colonialism! Am I the winner?” Sep 30, 14:50
    • Colin Dawson on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “In March 2026, just two months ahead of the last Holyrood election, the Scottish Government published an initial internal report…” Sep 30, 14:30
    • Willie on Whatever Can Have Happened?: “Cannot for the life of me guess why this has arisen Rev. Maybe Big John of the Independent minds she’s…” Sep 30, 14:15
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