Still better together 218
Posted on
November 13, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Trojan Horse 429
Posted on
November 12, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
One of the stranger criticisms regularly levelled at this site is that we don’t attack the SNP/Scottish Government enough.
That’s weird firstly because it’s not like there’s currently a shortage of hostile media scrutiny of Nicola Sturgeon and her colleagues, and secondly because we’ve never in our four-year life claimed for a moment to be neutral.
But the reality is far more nuanced than that.
From man to pig and pig to man 630
Posted on
November 10, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Below is an article taken from the UK media today about the Scotland Bill.
Give it a read through, and pay attention. There’ll be a very short quiz at the end.
Not-so-special delivery 140
Posted on
November 10, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Scottish Labour were unambiguous: VOW DELIVERED IN FULL!
And who could disagree?
The stitch-up 199
Posted on
November 09, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
What Unionists insisted was the biggest and most important parliamentary transfer of powers to a devolved government anywhere in the world was squeezed into five and a half hours of debate time in the House Of Commons tonight, approximately two hours of which were taken up by Westminster’s farcical voting system.
Of the remaining three and a bit hours, a third of the time was taken up by the three MPs you can see video of at the bottom of this post. We know it’s a lot to ask to watch an hour of politicians deliberately trolling Scotland, but if you didn’t see the debate live it’s about the minimum you need to get an accurate sense of the tone.
At the end of it all, a small number of things had been decided.
A matter of rights 125
Posted on
November 09, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The tiny number of people who watch the BBC Parliament channel is undoubtedly a blessing to the parties of the Union. We’ll be bringing you some eye-opening excerpts from today’s Scotland Bill debate later, but as a taster here’s one brief exchange.
Alberto Costa, the Scottish-born Conservative MP for South Leicestershire (of whom we’ll be seeing much more in a bit), is heard loudly expressing his satisfaction that not a single Scottish MP of any party (nor indeed any from Wales or Northern Ireland) has been permitted to sit on the Joint Committee discussing the government’s plan to scrap the Human Rights Act, although six unelected peers do get places.
When challenged, Costa explains that he’s happy about it because it’s a matter reserved to the “United Kingdom Parliament”. The fact that he apparently doesn’t consider any Scottish members elected to that parliament to have any business with its affairs is perhaps rather more revealing than Mr Costa intended it to be.
Fighting in the War Room 228
Posted on
November 09, 2015 by
Lindsay Bruce
Last Friday’s article on the limitations of GERS caused quite a stir among the stout defenders of the Union, as social-media users may have noticed over the weekend.
Amidst the wildly-flailing fury-storm of shouty, abusive responses which pathologically evaded addressing the article’s point, the one vaguely factual argument raised was the notion that an independent Scotland wouldn’t be able to make significant savings on its current (notional) £3bn defence budget because NATO supposedly requires all member states to spend 2% of their GDP on defence.
So we thought we’d see if it was true.
It’s that headline thing again 232
Posted on
November 08, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We saw this tweet from Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson yesterday:
And we were quite confused.
When two and two make anything you like 182
Posted on
November 07, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
When it comes to Scottish Labour’s great brainwave about “restoring” Tory tax-credit cuts, the madness just won’t stop. Here’s Magnus Gardham, formerly political editor of Scotland’s staunchest Labour paper the Daily Record, in the Herald today:
Read that one over a few times.
We are four 236
Posted on
November 07, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
So, it’s our birthday. It was exactly four years ago today, on the 7th of November 2011, that Wings Over Scotland published the first post of what was supposed to be a pretty insignificant spare-time blog picking out interesting politics stories in the day’s Scottish media and challenging any inaccuracies in them.
It got a bit out of control, frankly.
Big girl’s shoes 112
Posted on
November 07, 2015 by
Chris Cairns
Order “Welcome To Cairnstoon”, Chris’ compilation of Wings cartoons and more, here.
Through the fresh looking glass 76
Posted on
November 06, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s been such an exciting, action-packed week for Scottish Labour since a dynamic and thrusting PPB launched the 2015 branch-office conference that we worried there might be a danger people had forgotten it already. So we’ve brought it back for a curtain call, in a version a bit more appropriate for what remains of their core vote.
Never mind the zeitgeist, feel the width.
