Readers of this site will be well aware of the many failings and limitations of GERS, aka Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland – the document which serves as the informal accounts of a devolved Scotland but tells us next to nothing about the finances of an independent Scotland, as noted just a few weeks ago by the impartial multinational auditors Deloitte.
An article I produced this week for the Common Weal White Paper Project – Beyond GERS – has generated much critical response from Unionists, though some of it has at least been constructive.
Spurred on by the mention of the article by David Torrance in Monday’s Herald, in a column containing several serious inaccuracies, I’ve seen various misunderstandings and misconceptions about it which ought to be addressed.
We haven’t dignified the current media-imagined “crisis” in Scotland’s railways with coverage thus far, for obvious reasons, but it seemed worth briefly letting someone much better qualified to comment than us bring some perspective to the issue.
(From today’s Herald. Click to enlarge.)
Readers might well feel justified in wondering why it wasn’t until someone took it upon themselves to go to the trouble of writing to a newspaper, after days of sustained press hysteria, that some sane and balanced commentary on the situation appeared. But then again, if Mr Docherty’s expert opinion had been sought in the first place, we wouldn’t have been able to have a solid week of “SNP BAD” all over the airwaves.
One of the videos below is a genuine “Better Together” campaign broadcast, pulled from TV at the last minute (despite costing £50,000 to make) and today revealed by Buzzfeed. The other is a spoof we made in June 2014.
Good luck figuring out which is the real one, folks.
As alert readers will know, one of the primary purposes of this website isn’t just to tell people when the Scottish and UK media is lying to them, but to teach readers how to spot that for themselves. And one of the keys to learning that is to ask yourself what a story in the press is leaving out as well as what it’s telling you.
So last week, when several newspapers went on an orgy of shock-horror reporting about SNP MPs’ expenses – focusing mostly on aeroplane flights and only quoting figures for a small handful of MPs who’d allegedly been claiming far more taxpayers’ money than their Unionist predecessors – alarm bells started ringing everywhere.
And just as we’ve taught them to, Wings readers leapt into action to do the hard work that Scotland’s professional journalists don’t want to do, in order to provide Scots with the facts that the media doesn’t want them to know.
This article by US writer Emily Robinson is probably more instructive than anything we could post today (the Sunday papers are a news desert again, frankly). It doesn’t take a very great feat of imagination to transpose the American terms to Scottish ones – for “Berniebros” read “cybernats”, etc. Phantom news, it seems, is universal.
Nobody could ever accuse the Scottish press of underpromoting its grievances – alert readers will still recall, for example, the long procession of articles with near-identical content in the Daily Mail last year about SNP MPs and their “second jobs”. For 2016, though, the media’s obsessive repeating of the exact same story every few weeks has manifested itself over Nat members’ expenses.
There’s been a running theme recently on Unionist social media.
It’s the claim that the No vote in 2014 was an anomaly – a rare victory of progressive, internationalist, inclusive politics over the anti-establishment, isolationist, separatist tone that won out in the EU referendum and now the election of Donald Trump.
Of course, the alternative view is rather simpler – that perhaps the forces that won the EU referendum and 2016 presidency also won the independence referendum.
One of our favourite things to remember is what Scottish Labour regional manager Kezia Dugdale said when she was elected to the head-of-branch post 15 months ago:
Aidan on The Gulf War: “Are you telling us that English people living in Scotland should not be entitled to vote in any future independence…” Jan 2, 15:16
lothianlad on The Gulf War: “The SNP are infiltrated to the hilt by careerists, unionist sympathisers and brit state collaborators.” Jan 2, 15:12
lothianlad on List Voting For Cretins: “Great post again Stu! I have a half wit cowardly SNP list supporting friend who still believes both votes SNP…” Jan 2, 15:05
Alf Baird on List Voting For Cretins: ““what happens if unionist voters decide to vote tactically in the constituencies” This is already evident for some years in…” Jan 2, 14:58
Joan Edington on List Voting For Cretins: “Unfortunately, I’ve come to the conclusion that the vast majority of the Scottish voting population still do not understand the…” Jan 2, 14:53
Dave Hansell on List Voting For Cretins: ““Voting for them on the list, however, is a vote to actively and knowingly usher dozens of Reform, Labour, Conservative…” Jan 2, 14:43
Andy Ellis on List Voting For Cretins: “In principal there’s nothing (apart from any trace of political nowse..?) to stop Scottish voter from “doing an IPP” to…” Jan 2, 14:22
James Cheyne on List Voting For Cretins: “Colin Dawson, Get independence on the go and Scotland will will get rid of the union parties like the SNP…” Jan 2, 14:21
James Cheyne on List Voting For Cretins: “Being fully aware of the SNP though innate wickedness and falsehoods does not indicate that the grass roots should make…” Jan 2, 13:59
James Cheyne on List Voting For Cretins: “Same here, vote for anyone that only has and only runs on independence for Scotland, If you are not going…” Jan 2, 13:51
Colin Dawson on List Voting For Cretins: “Playing Devil’s advocate, what happens if unionist voters decide to vote tactically in the constituencies for whoever is most likely…” Jan 2, 13:50
James Cheyne on List Voting For Cretins: “The Scottish independence grass roots know full well not to vote for the false union SNP and federation after being…” Jan 2, 13:44
Alf Baird on The Gulf War: “Westminster uses a ‘national’ franchise for national elections, not a local government farnchise. Westminster excluded EU citizens living here from…” Jan 2, 13:38
Northcode on List Voting For Cretins: “Aye, us Scots (wha are really aw that’s left o the Picts) are doomed, richt eneuch. Done in – efter…” Jan 2, 13:37
Aidan on The Gulf War: “Re: some analysis on ISP/Liberate etc. on the current trajectory a good outcome would be to come in alongside all…” Jan 2, 13:34
Wulls on List Voting For Cretins: “I have been saying for decades ( and got shouted down at a CA meeting for saying it) is the…” Jan 2, 13:34
Captain Caveman on List Voting For Cretins: “Ah yes, the Metropolitan Left, Guardianistas being the epitome, spitting their dummies out because the rest of the UK (and…” Jan 2, 13:22
Aidan on The Gulf War: “Of course though the example you give isn’t human hallucination, it is an accurate statement of the UK’s constitutional structure…” Jan 2, 13:20
Alf Baird on List Voting For Cretins: ““I would vote for anyone who is sincere about indy” Yer wiss haes bin gied tae aw Scots fowk. ‘Liberate…” Jan 2, 13:19
Aidan on The Gulf War: “Will you once again decline to offer us a suggestion as to how this ethnicity-based voting franchise would be defined…” Jan 2, 13:10
Confused on List Voting For Cretins: “SNP = devolutionist grifter paedo advocacy woke nutter pension and caravan afficionados Green = life hating death cult which wants…” Jan 2, 12:55
Al-Stuart on List Voting For Cretins: “. Dear Stuart, What are the odds that Jimmy-The-Holiday-Grifter over at Midden Mansions in Crowdfunder Street by ScotPhut Town’s head…” Jan 2, 12:54
Confused on List Voting For Cretins: “a good point : the weasel wording of “populism” is right out of the oxbridge school of sophistry. While “democracy”…” Jan 2, 12:45
Alf Baird on List Voting For Cretins: “We also have to remember that the UK devolved assemblies (unlike Westminster) are required to use ‘local government’ electoral franchises,…” Jan 2, 12:44
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on List Voting For Cretins: “Yes. Swinney of course. But he is just the current stooge. We can assume that since 2014 the comprehensive re-emasculation…” Jan 2, 12:24
Andy Wiltshire on List Voting For Cretins: “Swinney wants to win this time and next time – he’s said as much. So there will still be a…” Jan 2, 12:05
Vivian O’Blivion on List Voting For Cretins: “A front page article in The Guardian this morning reads like Swiftian satire. An exercise in projection, and inversion. “Populists…” Jan 2, 11:54
Alf Baird on The Gulf War: ““In the final analysis, the only ones to blame for that are Scottish independence supporters themselves.” That’s not even a…” Jan 2, 11:50
100%Yes on List Voting For Cretins: “Of course they know, that’s the point. The SNP DOES NOT WANT INDEPENDENCE and it certainly doesn’t want a majority…” Jan 2, 11:20
100%Yes on List Voting For Cretins: “The SNP stopped working for Scotland the day Salmond stood down. John Swinney is holding a full deck of cards…” Jan 2, 11:15
