Wings Over Scotland

This was the front page of yesterday’s Scotsman:

As is often the case with Scottish newspapers these days, the story was based entirely on a fantasy – IF a certain number of people did a certain thing (flee to England to escape a 1p income tax rise), which the story doesn’t provide a shred of evidence to suggest they’re going to do, then a bad thing would happen.

But that wasn’t the weird bit.

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So, yeah, this happened:

The new crowdfunding platform we used this year is a curious and arcane beast, and as a result the honest truth is that we’re still not quite 100% certain what the precise final total (including “offsite” donations and a few that squeezed in after the technical deadline) is. But as best as we can make out, including everything, it’s this:

£153,215

And, y’know, good heavens.

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With 14 hours to go:

Like, wow, readers 🙂

…is all you have to put up with before we stop nagging you for cash again for another year. The 2018 Wings fundraiser ends tomorrow morning, so this is your last chance to put a little of your money where our mouth is.

(Fundraiser page here, or click here to donate directly.)
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The current total stands at a phenomenal £128,600 – already the second-highest ever by a five-figure margin, and just £11,447 short of the all-time record.

So one last time, we’re going to remind you:

– the average Wings reader gives the BBC £72 a year, and Wings just 43p.

– the Unionist “grassroots” organisations who we also have to fight are funded by Lords, Dukes, Earls, Countesses, Sirs and billionaires.

– we use your money to produce stuff that actually makes a difference, rather than just lecturing an internet audience that already agrees with us.

– we’re the only pro-indy site the Unionist/media establishment fears enough to constantly attack, smear and try to silence.

If any of that is worth anything to you, now’s the time to show it, folks.

The Scottish Daily Mail’s never-ending quest to find the very bottom of the SNP BAD barrel reached a new record depth today, somehow managing to blame the Scottish Government for… whiplash injuries.

But as ever, it turned out the Mail’s story was missing some key data.

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You’ve got to give them credit for audaciously shameless timing.

3 April 1989

3 April 2018

Still, though 29 years (and counting) is quite a while, it’s not even nearly a record.

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“There now follows a party election broadcast by the…”

[click]

The political broadcasts at election time are a time-worn tradition in the UK (as is our reaction to them) but not too many people really understand why political campaign broadcasts take this form, nor why it’s actually quite important that they do.

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Stuck for any actual news at the tail of the Easter weekend, today’s Scottish Daily Mail reaches once again into the bag marked “Emergency Barrel Scrapings” and comes up with that old faithful beloved of all newspapers, a shock-horror “OMG LOOK HOW EXPENSIVE THE TRAINS ARE!” story.

It’s always an easy hit – partly because since a shambolic, fragmented privatisation the UK does have pretty much the most expensive railways per mile in the civilised world, but also because regular train users tend to mainly travel in the same area all the time, and are easily persuaded that they have it worse than people anywhere else.

So let’s ignore all the Mail’s ridiculous cobblers blaming the SNP – who have very limited control over the fare policies of Abellio (the Dutch state-owned company who run ScotRail) and who have been prevented by successive UK governments from nationalising the network – and just see if that’s true.

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A large and imposing statue built in 1974 still stands today on Clyde Street in Glasgow. It depicts a woman called Dolores Ibarruri, known as “La Pasionaria”, who was one of the heroes of the anti-fascist resistance in Spain in the 1930s.

The statue was funded by “the British Labour Movement”, but Conservative councillors in the city protested angrily when it was erected and vowed to tear it down if they ever controlled the council (which cynical readers might consider an empty threat).

How times change. Read the rest of this entry →

There’s an interesting article on the Holyrood Magazine website today with some fascinating background details about how Scottish (and Welsh) devolution came into being almost 20 years ago, so we thought you might like to see this piece from the time, not least because we suspect it might also be the first recorded citation of the nonsensical concept of the “UK single market”.

(Click for readable size.)

It’s remarkable how seamlessly much of it, especially the last section (from the giant “D”) would still work today with the word “devolution” replaced with the word “independence”. But we find it hard to disagree with Sir John’s conclusion:

“Nor would devolution truly give more powers to the Scottish people. Only independence would do that.”

Preach, brother.