The reliably-wise Stephen Bush of The New Statesman said something perceptive yesterday on the subject of an EU referendum, although it applies much more widely.
It’s a view we’ve held for many years, most often in relation to UK governments ruling with huge majorities won on pretty tiddly pluralities of the vote (often in the mid-30%s), where the bulk of the electorate has no defence against a party it didn’t vote for.
Despite an electoral system that makes such events far rarer, the phenomenon crops up a lot in Scotland too, and both sides are guilty, often on the same subject. Scottish employment figures, for example, alternate with almost metronomic regularity between being higher/lower than those in the rest of the UK, and whichever it is in any given month one side or the other will trumpet it as conclusive and permanent proof that Scotland’s governance is better/worse than that of London.
(Even though Holyrood in fact has almost no power over the economy, so deserves little of either the blame or credit, whichever applies that month.)
The Scottish media has today leapt all over the front-page lead story from yesterday’s Sunday Times, in which “top economist” Douglas McWilliams of right-wing thinktank the Centre for Economics and Business Research made an apocalyptic prediction of a huge deficit turning an independent Scotland into “a Third World country”.
The Express’ customarily restrained coverage is pretty typical.
We wondered if Mr McWilliams used to have a more optimistic view.
The one great pillar of the argument against Scottish independence – greater than not being allowed into the EU, greater than being forced to barter with beads and potatoes because we wouldn’t have a currency, greater than losing Doctor Who or having the Chinese take their pandas back – is the economy.
Scotland is far too wee and too poor to be independent, they say – while indignantly denying that they’re saying it – because we only survive now thanks to a vast bailout every year from the rest of the UK, by which they in fact mean England. (Because it’s sure as heck not coming from Wales or Northern Ireland, which by any measure you care to choose are far poorer than Scotland.)
The name and size of this bailout vary wildly. Sometimes it’s a “deficit”, sometimes it’s a “black hole”, sometimes it’s a “fiscal transfer”, and it can be £8bn, £9bn, £10bn, £15bn, £28bn, £32bn or any other figure up to a hundred and eleventy thousand million bajillion squillion depending on who you’re talking to.
(The last one’s probably either David Coburn or Jackie Baillie.)
And while there are a dozen separate and compelling reasons why that argument is complete rubbish, none of them have any traction with diehard Unionists determined to believe that one of the richest and most blessed nations on Earth couldn’t possibly manage its own affairs like, say, Latvia or Ireland or Kuwait or Slovakia can.
But it turns out there IS a – surprisingly simple – way to get Unionists to categorically deny that England subsidises Scotland. You just have to ask them.
The votes for “God Save The Queen” being driven by Tories, English-born residents and supporters of a particular football club probably won’t come as the biggest shock in the world to anyone.
(Alert viewers will of course have noticed that due to MI5 INTERFERENCE in the poll, there were actually two votes for Hoots Mon, which have been suspiciously rounded down to one. We are conducting an investigation, by which we mean brutal purge.)
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson managed to make a bit of a balloon of herself earlier this month when she contrived to get THREE fairly key facts wrong in a single tweet about a poll on a second independence referendum.
(We’re not sure who the guy in the picture with her is. Probably a colleague.)
We suspected the reason she’d so badly misunderstood the data was that there were two options for “have another indyref in the next two years” and only one for “don’t have another indyref”, so when we were putting our latest poll together we thought we’d try to make it easier for her by having an equal number on both sides.
There’s a nice piece in today’s Scottish Sun about one of the findings of our newest Panelbase poll, on who was Scotland’s all-time best First Minister.
We thought you’d want a more detailed look at the data behind it.
There were no surprises in our latest Panelbase poll with regard to the independence question, at least not in terms of the headline figures – in line with a flurry of recent polls they came out at Yes 46% No 54%, with 2016’s Brexit vote seemingly having caused almost equal numbers of people to change sides since 2014.
But as readers will know, we usually like to probe a little bit deeper into the thoughts of our respondents than other media do, so we asked a few more questions on the subject. And the results of that were just plain weird.
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Seems like hardly any time since you were telling us it’s £200 billion a year. Whatever, what’s £50 billion between…” Sep 4, 18:52
Alf Baird on Anything But That: ““The court in The Hague reckons the Orcs owe $4.22 billion” Small beer, or the cost of one dodgy aircraft…” Sep 4, 16:34
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Respect to the Norwegians. They’re rediscovering their inner Viking and taking back control of the seas around their coastline. All…” Sep 4, 14:28
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Aye, James, breaths there as many as even ten True Sovereign Scots who have not, on reading your post, redoubled…” Sep 4, 13:42
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: ““highly valuable natural resources” Odd that nobody, either in Scotland or outside, knew we had any highly valuable natural resources…” Sep 4, 13:36
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Dear Slave, Shut up and eat your porridge or we will stop your privileges. Yours faithfully Sir Biggus ‘Fluffy’ Dickus…” Sep 4, 13:22
James Che on Anything But That: “There is ni UK parliament concerning Scotland, as the UK parliament has a start date of origin of 1800, When…” Sep 4, 12:03
James Che on Anything But That: “Willie, Jacob rees Mog was on his podcast yesterday praising that should the lights go out, not to worry as…” Sep 4, 11:58
Northcode on Anything But That: ““Plunder Scotland (UK) is a carpetbagging operation largely owned by non-Scottish, foreign ‘investors’ and overseen by Westminster who takes a…” Sep 4, 11:15
willie on Anything But That: “The issue of carbon emissions is a huge one and it certainly seems that the world climate is warming with…” Sep 4, 10:39
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “It is on. Stop Oil have glued their genitals to the tarmac. Expect more from the nutty putty brigade of…” Sep 4, 10:27
Lynn Fraser on This Other Earth: “My husband and I got refunds. We also contacted the Police using the crime reference number. We were both interviewed…” Sep 4, 10:20
James Che on Anything But That: “Well I am laughing an thise union minded people that cannot confirm there is a 1707 treaty of today, But…” Sep 4, 10:03
Marie on Anything But That: ““freedom of information battles”. Personally I wouldn’t eat the fish – but I’m only an ex-cancer nurse.” Sep 4, 09:53
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “MSM reporting Jackdaw and Rosebank to go ahead: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/jackdaw-gasfield-set-to-be-approved-by-ministers-this-month-sources-say Who knows, it may actually be true! If it is, Scotland…” Sep 4, 08:59
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “@GM “67% of all available housing must go to immigrants(not people seeking refuge or folk from abroad who have found…” Sep 4, 07:55
Hatey Mchateface on Anything But That: “Ach, c’moan, Mark. Long before Reform have taken power, the UN decolonisation committee will have gifted us our freedom. If…” Sep 4, 07:49
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “You’ll be fine, Wee Wally. Scotland still gets the top shelf mags.” Sep 4, 07:40
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Should have known you’d stick up for Northy, Wee Wally. What with Tourettes being the verbal equivalent of w@nking.” Sep 4, 07:35
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Food for thought. It is not a case of if but when will Reform take power and when they do…” Sep 4, 04:11
GM on Anything But That: “Well, you are a Pict? Probably.” Sep 4, 02:50
GM on Anything But That: “Unless of course they are actually lining us up for a vote we are in an utterly dire position to…” Sep 4, 02:08
GM on Anything But That: “By the way, the people I see on the street, actually sleeping on the street I have never seen drunk…” Sep 4, 01:27
GM on Anything But That: “67% of all available housing must go to immigrants(not people seeking refuge or folk from abroad who have found themselves…” Sep 4, 01:13
James on Anything But That: “Better a Pict than a “Prick” though eh, SP?” Sep 3, 22:33
James on Anything But That: “Hey everybodee… England gets the revenues. Scotland gets the nukes! Yaaaaaay! Rejoice!” Sep 3, 22:22
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “I asked Google: “how many countries or peoples can be described by specific English words by those who hate them”…” Sep 3, 21:29
agentx on Anything But That: “what is it in your Indigenous language?” Sep 3, 21:24
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Well, you are a Pict. A thousand year old, space traveling one at that. Whether in reality, or just self-identified,…” Sep 3, 21:12
