The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


The Too Wee Club Redux 157

Posted on May 30, 2018 by

Returning to a theme.

(Original series here.)

The incredible sulks 157

Posted on May 29, 2018 by

This is from one of the first ever articles we wrote on Wings, just a couple of weeks after the site’s launch way back in November 2011:

Depressingly, some people still don’t get it.

Read the rest of this entry →

The frying pan and the fire 111

Posted on May 28, 2018 by

We’ll keep this one brief, because it’s a bank holiday. We asked our Panelbase poll of English voters this month who they thought – regardless of respondents’ own politics – was doing the best job of leading their party. These were the results, in descending order of perceived competence:

1. Nicola Sturgeon (SNP)
Net rating: -5
(32% good, 37% bad, 31% don’t know)

2. Arlene Foster (DUP)
Net rating: -5
(13% good, 18% bad, 69% don’t know)

3. Vince Cable (Lib Dem)
Net rating: -7
(21% good, 28% bad, 51% don’t know)

4. Theresa May (Con)
Net rating: -18
(34% well, 52% badly, 14% don’t know)

5. Jeremy Corbyn (Lab)
Net rating: -19
(32% well, 51% badly, 17% don’t know)

Not a single net positive, and it seems particularly telling (and grim) that the two at the very bottom of the list are the only ones with any chance of actually becoming Prime Minister – pending, Lord have mercy on us all, the arrival of Jacob Rees-Mogg – while the top two don’t even sit in the UK Parliament.

(Foster, in fact, doesn’t currently sit in ANY parliament.)

To be honest, readers, it’s a miracle British people bother to vote at all any more.

Read the rest of this entry →

Ruth Davidson Lie Watch 376

Posted on May 26, 2018 by

So it appears that Ruth Davidson has been lying again.

And as is so often the case, the lie is easy to expose.

Read the rest of this entry →

Islands in the stream 79

Posted on May 26, 2018 by

The alternative to growth 249

Posted on May 25, 2018 by

Like most Scottish politics nerds we’re going to be spending the morning absorbing the report of the Sustainable Growth Commission. But while we do that, we’ve got more data from our Panelbase poll of English voters earlier this month, on what Scotland could expect in the future if it stays in the UK.

We told them: “Under a system known as the Barnett Formula, the government spends more money per head on people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than it does on people in England, because their populations are more thinly spread so it costs more money to provide the same services.”

And this was how they felt about that:

Read the rest of this entry →

The Bank Of The Clyde 192

Posted on May 24, 2018 by

Of all the dishonest memes regularly put around by the Unionist side in the Scottish constitutional debate, the most bare-faced is the notion of the “fiscal transfer”. Part-time pretend economists harp on endlessly about how the UK “transfers” money (the current popular figure is £9bn) to Scotland to balance the books every year, as if it was a munificent gift out of the sheer kindness of Westminster’s heart.

The reality, of course, is that it’s a loan, which Scotland has to pay back with interest. If an independent Scotland ran a deficit – like almost every country on Earth – it could take that loan out from any number of possible lenders and carry on as normal.

It is in no sense whatsoever an argument for Scotland staying in the Union, because it’s completely irrelevant to the Union, except in so far as that the only reason Scotland needs to borrow money at all is because it’s been part of the UK for the last 40 years and has been left impoverished as a result while a very similar neighbouring country has become wealthy beyond imagination.

But still, let’s indulge them for a moment and assume there really is a £9bn hole in Scotland’s finances. Is there anything we could do to reduce the size of it significantly? Well, since you ask, we have some poll data on that.

Read the rest of this entry →

Girls And Boys 257

Posted on May 23, 2018 by

The phrase “the Labour Party has gotten itself into a catastrophic mess on [X]” is a sentence you can complete with almost any subject these days, whether it’s Brexit or anti-Semitism or anti-Asian racism or factionalism or Venezuela or just about anything else under the sun, so it should be no surprise that its gender policy is no different.

The party’s stance regarding all-women shortlists is now that men can be on them, so long as they say they’re women, with no questions asked, except when Labour decide arbitrarily that they aren’t really women at all because they’re obviously really men, except for all the other occasions when they’re obviously really men.

Which seemed like a timely moment for some more new poll data.

Read the rest of this entry →

Guess who’s coming to dinner? 250

Posted on May 22, 2018 by

Last week we revealed that English voters would happily see Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the UK if it was the price of securing Brexit. But one of the odder things was that those figures included a sizeable number of Remain voters, who don’t want Brexit to happen at all.

We were a little perplexed, so we did a follow-up question asking those people if they’d elaborate a bit and got some interesting replies. One person, for example, answered “The Scottish people are very arrogant and although they want to be separate from the rest of the UK they are happy to take money from England”. Charming.

But there was also another stream of opinion on the subject, and it was revealed in the responses to another question in the original poll.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tomorrow’s man today 108

Posted on May 21, 2018 by

Michael Gove has been saying some words today, to the general astonishment of all.

Which seems like a good time to bring up some more data from our latest poll.

Read the rest of this entry →

The news you didn’t hear about 67

Posted on May 21, 2018 by

It’s been a very sluggish few months in Scottish politics news, with only the significant but rather dry matter of the Brexit power grab to talk about, so you’d imagine that the publication earlier this month of some important new statistics concerning the Scottish economy would have raised some media attention.

Yet fully three weeks after the figures were released we can’t locate a single word of coverage from any newspapers or broadcasters, and that’s odd.

After all, whenever some economic figures pop up showing Scotland in a bad light – especially when some financial thinktank has also passed comment – the press isn’t usually slow to jump all over them, so oh wait we see what’s happened here.

Perhaps go and take a look for yourself. Because you’ll grow very old waiting for the Scottish press to tell you about it.

Burning bridge extinguished 2

Posted on May 21, 2018 by

I came by a little snippet of games-magazine history this week – via an unlikely route that needn't concern us here – and I just thought I'd share it for the historical record.

Atari ST Review was a magazine published by EMAP  in 1992 and 1993, when after just 12 issues it was suddenly sold to Europress, leading to this editorial column in a suspiciously large typeface:

But alert readers might have noticed (from the slightly off alignment of the red border) that the column actually took the form of a hastily-applied sticker. Because that wasn't the editor's original leader.

Read the rest of this entry →

  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.

    Stats: 6,787 Posts, 1,222,033 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Northcode on According As We Need Them: “Thanks, James. Here’s another: mirkie watter Rever stanes smuithed roond; shaped by watter no thair ain; drouned in silence, worn…Jul 15, 19:17
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Thanks for the info, Aidan. On the face of it then, it sounds like just another ruse by which the…Jul 15, 19:11
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Fair enough, sarah, I stand corrected. How about a link so we can all see what it’s about?Jul 15, 18:58
    • Captain Caveman on According As We Need Them: “@TwatByName You know what they say, “there’s no fool like an old fool”. Silly old sod. Take up bowls or…Jul 15, 18:56
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Sure, TH. I have little doubt that the humous boys will be hunted down to the ends of the earth…Jul 15, 18:54
    • Aidan on According As We Need Them: “I’ll save you the trouble, it’s another cunning plan which says that if the Scottish Government implemented the ICCPR, because…Jul 15, 18:34
    • sarah on According As We Need Them: ““clearly a good thing because Angus R…oppose it.” This is an example of humour.Jul 15, 18:32
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Guid Gowd, sarah, but you’re a dunderheid. Things are intrinsically good or intrinsically bad. Their goodness or otherwise is not…Jul 15, 18:17
    • twathater on According As We Need Them: “Ewen used to be a regular contributor BTL on Yours For Scotland and was asked by Iain Lawson to do…Jul 15, 18:16
    • twathater on According As We Need Them: “There’s Chas focusing his inner franchise fanny and CLAIMING that he knows what the MAJORITY of visitors to WOS are…Jul 15, 18:10
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Writing of drunk arses …Jul 15, 18:08
    • twathater on According As We Need Them: “The problem wi that is the humous boys have probably witnessed what is currently being done to innocent women and…Jul 15, 18:03
    • twathater on According As We Need Them: “And as if any proof were required about the relationship of yoons and lunacy, immediately up pops Bastard Tax MOAN…Jul 15, 17:50
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Ah come oan noo, sarah. We need to all focus on supporting the good news you report above to a…Jul 15, 17:50
    • sarah on According As We Need Them: “O/T Ewen Kennedy [retired lawyer and an independence supporter] has made a submission to Holyrood’s petitions committee in support of…Jul 15, 17:45
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “There is much truth in what you write here, James. A phrase I read a little while back sticks with…Jul 15, 17:38
    • James Cheyne on According As We Need Them: “Sven. Indeed it appears that Labour are finishing and finalising what the Tories Started, with considerable help from the greens…Jul 15, 17:27
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Seriously, Alf? You’re now getting info from the scatological ravings of Confused? ‘as the saying goes : “a drunk arse…Jul 15, 17:26
    • sarah on According As We Need Them: “Rev, have you a proposal for the campaign over the next 9 months? It would be useful to hear which…Jul 15, 17:22
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “That is good news, sarah. I expect they’ll agree a stern resolution calling for the humous boys to come out…Jul 15, 17:14
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “@DaveL says: 15 July, 2025 at 2:20 am “Can you explain why or how?” I think you’re new here, Dave.…Jul 15, 17:09
    • Chas on According As We Need Them: “Congratulations Sven. You must be one of the very few people who actually read any of the repetive gibberish produced…Jul 15, 16:30
    • Sven on According As We Need Them: “James Cheyne @15.29. Dear Lord, “James”, how I wish I wasn’t in complete agreement with so many of those points.Jul 15, 15:55
    • James Cheyne on According As We Need Them: “The social engineering experiments on the populations is an ideology effecting all governances from enforced migrations across borders being encouraged…Jul 15, 15:29
    • Captain Caveman on According As We Need Them: “‘… hence also that “the moon is made of cheese” (Cesaire)’ I’m sorry, but you just have to laugh, right?…Jul 15, 15:21
    • sarah on According As We Need Them: “O/T Good news today – Republic of Ireland, Spain, China, Brazil, South Africa and 15 other countries are meeting today…Jul 15, 15:19
    • Alf Baird on According As We Need Them: “Thanks for the info, Confused. In particular, “Fanon’s theory of “disalienation” — the idea that for the colonized to escape…Jul 15, 12:53
    • Ben on According As We Need Them: “There was a young fella from gosham, who took out his b****cks tae washem. his wife said hey, put them…Jul 15, 12:43
    • sam on According As We Need Them: “The auld men o the sea Wi their daberlack hair Hae dackered the coasts O the country fell sair. They…Jul 15, 12:25
    • Mark Beggan on According As We Need Them: “Boo hoo. What a shame. Nevermind.Jul 15, 12:19
  • A tall tale



↑ Top