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Wings Over Scotland


If you want another, say you need another 67

Posted on August 15, 2015 by

slablead

The people, the idiots 315

Posted on August 14, 2015 by

There’s another rather bizarre Kenny Farquharson column in today’s Times. Under the headline “Holyrood wasn’t built for a one-party state”, it asserts that “the Scottish Parliament is no longer fit for purpose” on the grounds that the opposition parties are useless, as if that were the fault of the electoral system rather than their leaders.

farqtimes1

After that, though, it just gets flat-out insulting.

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Beyond endurance 179

Posted on August 13, 2015 by

The papers these days are full of horrendous stories. For some reason this one just tripped a nerve, and we wanted to do something. Click here for details.

This is what Scottish business looks like 113

Posted on August 13, 2015 by

According to the Telegraph.

scotbiz

We’re not sure which one’s Michelle Mone.

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Sticks and stones 198

Posted on August 12, 2015 by

This debate between John “Mental Mad” McTernan and Owen Jones from the BBC News channel this morning doesn’t need a lot of commentary from us, to be honest.

It’s like watching someone try to reason with voicemail.

Looking back with less anger 131

Posted on August 12, 2015 by

Here’s Michelle Mone on last night’s Channel 4 News:

When presenter Matt Frei sympathetically puts to her that she left Scotland because she was being “given a very very hard time” by Yes/SNP supporters, Mone denies it, saying “I didn’t actually leave, that wasn’t the main reason to have left Scotland”.

So where could Frei have come by such a misapprehension?

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We have taken this out of context 61

Posted on August 11, 2015 by

But you have to admit it has a ring of truth about it.

(From tonight’s Scotland 2015.)

The apprentice 249

Posted on August 11, 2015 by

You can’t move for Michelle Mone in the media today, which is just the way she likes it. Almost every newspaper and broadcaster has been running lengthy stories and interviews about the publicity-craving ex-Labour supporter being commissioned by Iain Duncan Smith to produce a report on starting up businesses in disadvantaged areas.

apprentice

(So excited was Mone – who now backs the Conservatives and is widely expected to be given a peerage in the next honours list by David Cameron for campaigning against Scottish independence – to be working for IDS that she just couldn’t keep the news in until the midnight embargo on the press release, tweeting it at 11pm last night.)

Nationalists have in the main reacted to Mone’s apparent imminent ennoblement as an unelected lawmaker in the manner you’d expect, but they’re not the only people to question her credentials as an expert business adviser and employment guru. So we thought we’d do a little digging and compiling.

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Running away with it 214

Posted on August 10, 2015 by

Social media is alight today with the latest extraordinary opinion poll for next May’s Holyrood election, which puts the SNP on a record-breaking 62% to Labour’s 20%.

(The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats trail in with miserable stats of 12% and 3% respectively, which means that within the standard margin of polling error it’s possible that NOBODY in Scotland is still planning on voting Lib Dem.)

Pollsters TNS report the findings under what might in the circumstances be seen as the slightly negative headline “SNP holds poll lead in spite of mixed views on record in government”, which relates to figures concerning the Nats’ performance in power.

tnsaug2

But there’s an interesting quirk in those numbers.

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UDI is the answer 374

Posted on August 09, 2015 by

Alert social-media users will have noticed that it’s hard to avoid a constant low-level buzzing from a faction of the Yes movement, calling on the next Scottish Government (in the event, as currently seems likely, that it’s another SNP majority) to issue a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, or UDI for short.

udirhodesia

And in the context of achieving Scottish independence UDI is indeed the answer, if we assume that the question is “What’s the stupidest thing the SNP could possibly do?”

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A failure of principle 82

Posted on August 09, 2015 by

There’s a comment piece by Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson in today’s Sunday Times, comprising 846 words which could be condensed into two: “SNP BAD”.

As such it could have been easily turned into a speech by any Scottish Labour leader of the last five years with nothing more than a quick search-and-replace of the words “Conservative” and “Labour”. It puts forward nothing remotely resembling a policy, just paragraphs of boilerplate waffle and a call for a debate.

ruthdavidsonplatform

Davidson professes to offer “a practical and pro-UK alternative to the SNP”, a programme which she boils down to two key components. It seems to have entirely escaped her notice that they contradict each other on the most fundamental level.

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The Tory who voted Yes 211

Posted on August 08, 2015 by

“In an independent Scotland, we’ll never have to worry about Tory governments again”, said the man on my doorstep, his YES badge gleaming in the sunshine.

“I am a Tory,” said I, watching with some amusement as the man’s jaw dropped.

toryballoons

“But I’ll still be voting Yes,” I added.

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