Wings Over Scotland

One of the main strengths of the No campaign in the independence referendum was that it had an efficient production line for “truthiness”. Best known as a concept from the US satirical TV show The Colbert Report, the term means things that SOUND as if they’re true, and which people will therefore be inclined to believe, even though they fall apart under any factual scrutiny.

One good example is shown above. The facts on the graphic are individually true, and convey – without ever actually saying so explicitly – the message that Scotland is subsidised by the UK to the tune of £7.6bn a year.

But that message, despite being implied through exclusively true facts, ISN’T true, because the extra “spending” on Scotland is actually borrowing, which Scotland has to pay back. The real truth is that the figures on the left are accurate, and that Scotland heavily subsidises the rest of the UK.

But to walk someone through even the basic explanation of that is quite complicated and involved, whereas the original message is punchy and SOUNDS true. The simpler something is the more people want to believe it, so the implicit lie on the graphic is difficult to dislodge from their minds once it’s in there.

(It works especially well if the media is overwhelmingly on the side of those creating the misleading impression, because they can count on the fact that the mainstream press won’t run any analysis pointing out the flaws in the argument, and the only people who’ll ever encounter the explanation are those who actively seek it out.)

Truthiness, then, is a very powerful tool.

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Do you remember the old days, readers? We’re talking about the far-off era of ancient history when Labour insisted that the worst, most evil, most right-wing thing that any government could do was to cut Corporation Tax, and that it was vital Scotland didn’t become independent in case that catastrophe occurred:

Obviously that means 2013 and 2014, rather than the prehistoric days of 2008, when Labour was frantically slashing the tax at every chance it got, and promising more cuts as soon as possible. And it couldn’t possibly be the current policy, because backflipping on it yet AGAIN would just be absurd, right?

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We’re feeling a bit stupid right now, readers. Earlier on today we sarcastically dubbed Scottish Labour “geniuses” over their plans to reintroduce alcohol (and sectarian singing) back to Scottish football at exactly the point when Scotland seemed to have finally turned the corner in its dysfunctional relationship with alcohol.

And this week vile cybernats had also been enjoying mocking a pair of hapless Labour members who’d posed outside a Fife health centre bemoaning the “clear” shortage of staffing, when in fact it had no staff at all, because it was an old closed-down facility, located right next to a brand shiny new £6m one built by the Scottish Government.

Indeed, for days now Labour have been carrying out a two-pronged stunt-photocall strategy, touring the country standing outside hospital casualty departments looking concerned about an almost entirely imaginary “A&E crisis”, while also leafleting every major football ground promising to let fans get smashed at games again.

Seeking a cheap laugh, we tweeted that we hoped they didn’t get confused and start handing out their “MOAR BOOZE!” literature outside the A&E wards, but then an alert reader pointed out that we were idiots and Jim Murphy was in fact an evil mastermind.

And they were right.

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Good news:

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In September 2011, a group of US state employees took a man called Troy Davis from his prison cell in Atlanta, Georgia to a small room and strapped him to a gurney. They inserted a needle into one of his veins, hooked it up to some tubes connected to a machine and pressed a button on the machine, knowing that it would cause lethal chemicals to be pumped into his bloodstream until he died of asphyxiation.

These people – every one of whom doubtless considered themselves an ordinary, decent, caring member of society – participated willingly in the killing despite knowing that there was an enormous degree of doubt as to whether Davis was in any way responsible for the death of the man in whose name he was being executed.

Bafflingly, very few people found this behaviour at all odd.

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One of the compensations of living in England (from the perspective of editing a website about Scottish politics) is that you get a much clearer picture of how English people – who make up 85% of the UK electorate, and as such in practice determine who the government is – see the country’s political leaders.

For those of you who don’t, here’s Charlie Brooker – a man who’s no fan of the Tories by any stretch of the imagination – casting a weary and exasperated eye over Ed “these strikes are wrong” Miliband on last night’s Weekly Wipe.

In our experience it’s a pretty accurate snapshot of how the hapless Labour leader is regarded by most left-leaning people down on this side of the border. You’ll need to have seen the rest of the episode to get the “Schofield!” joke.

There’s a very strange article on the front page of the Herald website this morning. It’s an interview with Nigel Farage in which the UKIP leader insists that his party, not the SNP, will hold the balance of power in the UK parliament after May’s election.

It’s a bold assertion given that current projections put the SNP on anywhere from 30 to 56 seats with UKIP expected to struggle to get 5 to 10. But Farage’s rationale for the statement is an interesting one.

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The abusive Facebook comments recently directed at Labour MP Margaret Curran and highlighted in a piece on the STV website today make us sigh. Not only are they horrible but they’re counter-productive, in every sense of the term – they’re not going to change Curran’s mind about anything by yelling at her, and they feed a narrative about “vile cybernats” that the media is all too eager to gleefully perpetuate.

So let’s make something clear from the off: shut up, idiots. You’re not helping.

But then let’s tell the rest of the story.

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The Daily Mash, 12 February 2015:

Because a good satirist can sometimes make a point better in seven sentences than idiots like us can in a 1000-word article, and make it funny at the same time.

The very few readers who don’t immediately just snort and turn the page when they see the words “George Foulkes” may have noticed in yesterday’s Herald that the thirsty peer could be found gloating gleefully that had Scotland voted for independence last September it would now be “bankrupt” due to the decline in oil prices.

We can’t be bothered pointing out for the 500th time that a Yes vote wouldn’t have seen Scotland actually independent until March 2016, and that the oil price NOW is therefore about as relevant to anything as, well, Baron Foulkes himself.

But we couldn’t help noticing a couple of small arithmetical details.

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There really isn’t very much of a news story in this morning’s Sun “exclusive” that some Labour MPs say they’d quit the party rather than work with the SNP should the electorate deliver such a result in May. One told the paper:

“I would quit the party — there’s no way I would sit alongside them.

We’ve just spent three years knocking lumps out of each other in the independence referendum, how could we then share power?”

Those of us who remember the parade of furious Scottish Labour figures going on TV and openly threatening to scupper any “rainbow coalition” involving the Nats in 2010, thereby ensuring that David Cameron and George Osborne came to power, won’t be the least bit surprised at the sheer depth of hatred and jealous rage that consumes Labour’s branch office in North Britain when the SNP are mentioned.

And there’s nothing eyebrow-raisingly new in Scottish Labour’s spiteful determination that if Scots vote against the Conservatives – but not for Labour – they should be punished with Tory governments. It’s the standard policy of electoral blackmail that the party has deployed against the rise of rivals from the left for years, and which it’s now also turning against the Greens south of the border.

But there is a telling phrase in that short quote.

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