An alert reader directed us to this document this morning:
It’s a 2011 study by the non-political Glasgow Centre for Population Health, which attempts to discern why Scotland, and particularly Glasgow, has such appalling life expectancies compared to the rest of the UK. And its findings are startling.
The deeply dodgy fake-grassroots “Vote No Borders” group of wealthy London-based PR people has been rolling out its “unpolished” voters (their term, not ours) again, this time in a series of what must have been fairly pricey adverts in the Daily Record.
The simplistic, often dreadfully-misinformed quotes in the ads have been causing some irritation and anger among Yes supporters on social media, which is understandable but not constructive. After all, many of us have relied on the press for our information about one thing or another in the past too, and learned a bitter lesson.
So let’s see if we can’t actually be polite and helpful instead.
We can do this in one picture, folks. Remember barely a fortnight ago, when the Tories were wailing about how there wasn’t enough immigration into Scotland to sustain its economy in the coming decades? Here’s a little snippet of data from a Survation poll for the Daily Mirror earlier this week.
Well, there’s a dilemma, eh? Scotland need more immigrants, but the rest of the UK is absolutely desperate to have fewer – so much so that it’s 67% more important than the cost of living, twice as important as the state of the economy, over three times as important as unemployment or debt, and FIVE times as important as the NHS.
Immigration policy is reserved to Westminster. Which way do you see that going?
If you’ve ever been ill, or might ever get ill, or know anyone who might ever get ill.
“In five years England will not have an NHS as you understand it, and if we vote No, in ten years neither will we.”
One of the most insidious aspects of the Unionist and media attack on independence is the constant refrain of “Scotland will be poorer after independence, so there will have to be cuts to services or tax increases. Cuts or tax rises. Cuts or tax rises. If you vote Yes, do you want CUTS OR TAX RISES?”
Of late, it’s often been used as a corollary of a new plea: “Oh, it’s not that we’re against independence, but why won’t Alex Salmond admit that there will be downsides? Why won’t he be honest about the risks and challenges? If only he’d admit that it won’t be a land of milk and honey we might listen.”
While its prevalence is new, the actual line is a tired old straw man – neither the First Minister nor the wider Yes campaign has EVER pretended Scotland would suddenly enter a fairytale utopia where everything was perfect and cash flowed from taps.
But for the avoidance of doubt, as advocates of a Yes vote, let’s put something on the record in black and white: There Will Be Cuts.
Respectable author Allan Massie (father of Spectator columnist Alex) rather shames himself in today’s Scottish Mail On Sunday, with a particularly grim piece of what we assume is supposed to be comical crystal ball-gazing, painting a melodramatic picture of an apocalyptic post-independence Scotland as seen by Project Fear.
Over 2500 words long, it ticks all the boxes – no currency union, a mass exodus of business, Spain vetoing Scotland’s EU membership, economic Armageddon forcing the return of tuition fees and prescription charges, Trident staying on the Clyde permanently, Orkney and Shetland voting to stay with the UK and somehow taking the oil with them in direct contravention of all international law, and so on.
Which would all be a super piece of knockabout fun, were it not for the fact that we’ve already almost lost count of the number of times the right-wing English media, and in particular the Mail itself, has already trotted out this same dystopian drivel.
We don’t exactly have high expectations when it comes to the Daily Mail.
But a piece in today’s edition is despicable even for them.
The top five most-read stories on Wings Over Scotland in the last seven days.
1. Playing with fire
The No campaign turns ugly. Okay, more ugly.
2. Neither national nor collective
Some particularly audacious “Better Together” lies about the NHS.
3. People are strange
The most curious results from our third Panelbase poll.
4. Fine-tuning the news
The Scotsman edits itself into a bit of a pickle.
5. The mushroom farm
The story of the Queen’s Scottish coronation that never was.
This week’s theme: rewriting history.
It’s late, but we couldn’t let this one pass.
Heavens, where do we start?
We’ll be honest with you, readers, we just couldn’t face transcribing Johann Lamont’s latest traffic-accident of an interview, this time 12 unforgettable minutes on Sunday Politics Scotland. But we did have a sudden flash of inspiration.
Above you can watch the interview for yourself. But although Johann’s mangled syntax and non-sequitur approach to answering questions is just too much pain for our poor tortured brain to endure twice in one week, we realised that what’s a lot quicker and easier to do is write down the gist of proceedings.
Earlier this week we noticed the curious lack of media coverage of the “Devo Nano” report. As the document spelling out Labour’s “more powers” offer to Scotland in the event of a No vote, its release was ostensibly the most important milestone so far in the independence debate, so we found it very strange to see it get such a muted reception, particularly from the Daily Record.
Two days later the explanation arrived, in the form of the so-called “Red Paper”. Described by some journalists as a “mini-manifesto”, it was a 64-page uncosted wishlist of vague feelgood notions like reducing child poverty. (A brave, daring and controversial step there to be sure.) And this time the papers were all over it.
At this week’s First Minister’s Questions, Johann Lamont banged repeatedly on a drum that the Unionist parties never tire of thrashing like an Orangeman in marching season – the notion that an independent Scotland couldn’t afford to live as it does now and would have to raise taxes or cut public spending.
Over and over again Lamont demanded the First Minister say which he would do if Scotland voted Yes, implying the choice wouldn’t have to be made inside the Union:
Ms Lamont’s colleague Gordon Brown, meanwhile, is about to embark on a tour of Scotland, flitting from city to town to village like some demonic ghostly apparation out of “Tam O’Shanter”, frightening Scots with blood-chilling tales of “black holes” and, most especially, unaffordable pensions.
Sounds like we better stay in the safety and security of the UK, then.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
