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Wings Over Scotland


So, yeah, this happened 274

Posted on March 14, 2015 by

ig2015

More than two weeks still to go. We don’t really know what to say, readers.

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The missing monkeys 163

Posted on March 14, 2015 by

Alert readers will have noticed that this week we’ve been fascinated by the differences between the mostly-identical Scottish and English editions of The Sun. For example, the editorial below from today’s English edition doesn’t make it across the border.

suncrazy

But that’s not the most interesting discrepancy.

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Calling the tune 129

Posted on March 14, 2015 by

hamishpiper

The Huffing Post 242

Posted on March 13, 2015 by

Last night: yes.

glasgowguardianglue

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A terrorist organisation 221

Posted on March 13, 2015 by

Here’s a clip from last night’s Question Time from Leeds, in which Anna Soubry MP for the Conservatives, Lucy Powell MP for Labour, Charles Kennedy MP for the Lib Dems, ardent Unionist Ian Hislop from Private Eye and various audience members spent 20 minutes attacking the SNP, with no SNP representative present.

(The closest thing was Natalie Bennett, leader of the Greens in England and Wales, who was relentlessly mocked, derided and harangued from all sides for most of the programme’s duration, including by the “anti-establishment” Hislop.)

It seems to us that the solution to the problem is simple.

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The REAL reason Labour fear the SNP 399

Posted on March 12, 2015 by

For some time, readers, we’ve been puzzling to ourselves about quite why the idea of having to work with the SNP in the UK parliament enrages the Labour Party quite so much. Because it doesn’t make any rational sense.

snpmps

Indeed, on any intelligent analysis the arrangement currently suggested by opinion polls is a dream outcome for the party. Think about it logically for a moment. Minority government lifts the burden of responsibility from your shoulders – there’s always someone else to blame if you bail on a manifesto promise, because you can say “We didn’t have a majority to push it through”.

(The SNP, it should of course be recorded, took advantage of this benefit of minority government more than once at Holyrood between 2007 and 2011)

But in Labour’s specific case in 2015, there’s what seems an even bigger boon.

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GERS 2013/14 For Dummies 197

Posted on March 11, 2015 by

Unionist politicians, journalists and trolls have barely been able to contain themselves with glee at today’s figures suggesting that Scotland’s economy was weaker in the last fiscal year than in previous years (though still healthy). We’ll keep this short.

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We’ll get to the bottom of this yet 136

Posted on March 11, 2015 by

Is the Scottish NHS protected by devolution, or is it in mortal danger?

murphynhs

We’re expecting that answer any minute now, honestly.

Ten bad reasons 181

Posted on March 11, 2015 by

With apologies to Jason Donovan, we felt we should probably have a look at the latest election leaflet Scottish Labour are putting through people’s doors.

tenbad

We wouldn’t want voters to have too many broken hearts.

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To break your walls 257

Posted on March 10, 2015 by

We’ve only just recently begun checking out the English edition of the Sun to see what appears in it that’s mysteriously excised from the Scottish one, readers.

photo (63t)

Perhaps we should have started sooner.

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Jim Murphy is a liar 131

Posted on March 10, 2015 by

For some unknown reason the BBC still hasn’t managed to get its coverage of the Scottish Labour conference from last Saturday onto the iPlayer yet. Fortunately an alert reader captured the second of its two-hour broadcasts and has helpfully put the whole thing on YouTube. Here’s a short clip.

We know that claim is a flat-out lie. We know that Jim Murphy knows it’s a flat-out lie. We’re pretty sure that Brian Taylor – who Murphy sneakily implicates in the falsehood by saying “You know this”, which Taylor fails to contest – knows it’s a flat-out lie. And we know that Jim Murphy knows that everyone knows that he knows it’s a flat-out lie.

So why, more than a month after it was comprehensively and unarguably disproven, is Scottish Labour still knowingly, deliberately, publicly lying to the people of Scotland?

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Is there no end to this separatist evil? 86

Posted on March 10, 2015 by

The Financial Times has a gardening section. No, really, it does.

horticulture

We have not made that quote up. (Gigha, incidentally, was in fact bought out by the community in 2002, over five years before the SNP came to power.)

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    • sarah on There May Be Justice: “@ sam at 8.18. GlobalScot sounds a great organisation. You are right – the Scottish diaspora will help. Every Canadian…” Oct 8, 22:29
    • sam on There May Be Justice: “The Scots diaspora is likely to be a big help to a newly independent Scotland just as the Irish diaspora…” Oct 8, 20:18
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““everything that happens in a colony is due to colonialism” I’m starting to come around to your way of thinking,…” Oct 8, 19:07
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““the North Sea no longer has any oil that is economic to produce” It’s a fact not widely understood that…” Oct 8, 18:54
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““you vote the useless shower out. We simply can’t do that to Westminster, the more alert of you may have…” Oct 8, 18:39
    • factchecker on There May Be Justice: “Fair comment, I think, Rob I can only see one way – vote the SNP out. Abstaining/spoiling a ballot paper…” Oct 8, 18:24
    • Alf Baird on There May Be Justice: ““You grab independence so you have all the levers to make things better” Indeed so. A colonized people have no…” Oct 8, 18:12
    • am firinn on There May Be Justice: “Sarah is right. The idea that you have to set up a perfect administration before you thrown off the shackles…” Oct 8, 17:44
    • Rob on There May Be Justice: “You would trust the current mob in any way at all, I think they make even Westminster look good and…” Oct 8, 17:40
    • Alan Austin on There May Be Justice: “The mines closed because the coal was not economic against oil so the miners lost thier jobs due to economics.…” Oct 8, 17:17
    • Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “@“James” – if you want some peace and quiet why don’t you log off the library computer and go and…” Oct 8, 16:50
    • factchecker on There May Be Justice: “sarah says: 8 October, 2026 at 2:44 pm Stay in the false union until we find better local administration? What…” Oct 8, 16:33
    • Aidan on There May Be Justice: “If you listen to Sam, insider, one of them could be our very own Alf Baird!” Oct 8, 15:58
    • Onlooker on There May Be Justice: “Thank you.” Oct 8, 15:48
    • Insider on There May Be Justice: “o.k. sarah! Spill the beans! Who are these honest,trustworthy,capable,inspiring leaders who will magically appear if Scotland becomes independent ? Where…” Oct 8, 15:12
    • sarah on There May Be Justice: “Stay in the false union until we find better local administration? What a very strange position to take.” Oct 8, 14:44
    • Aidan on There May Be Justice: “There are only two countries in the world with double or more GDP than the U.K. – USA 7.7x and…” Oct 8, 14:10
    • sam on There May Be Justice: “Source is BBC and UK government “England’s surface waters face significant chemical pollution challenges, with legacy substances like heavy metals…” Oct 8, 13:38
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Exactly, Rob. We’ve had a number of examples since 2014 when it’s the WM government and the UK Supreme Court…” Oct 8, 13:06
    • Rob on There May Be Justice: “So we have two bad governors, one in Westminster and one in Holyrood. Removing Westminster, which on balance does less…” Oct 8, 12:40
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““Things are even worse across the Channel” There’s the usual tensions between the “yoof” and the wealthy wrinklies. The French…” Oct 8, 11:44
    • Captain Caveman on There May Be Justice: “Ever heard of the expression “non sequitur?” Small NW European nations prosper (relatively) because of high productivity, low population density,…” Oct 8, 11:35
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““The obvious lesson is that colonized Scots need to ditch Anglo imperial rule here asap” Sadly, just saying “we’re colonised”…” Oct 8, 11:33
    • Alf Baird on There May Be Justice: “You Britnats dinna appear tae notice how its the larger former imperial countries that are aye in financial freefall and…” Oct 8, 10:54
    • James on The Love Of Big Brother: “Aw, Adrian, petal; put a sock in it gie’s a’ some peace.” Oct 8, 10:37
    • Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “James – imagine being a grown adult man and writing something like that in response to losing an argument. Juvenile…” Oct 8, 10:20
    • Captain Caveman on There May Be Justice: “To be fair to Confused, he’s right about the water privitisation shitshow and its aftermath, as yet unconcluded.” Oct 8, 09:51
    • Captain Caveman on There May Be Justice: “It’s hard to know where all this is going to end – but end it most certainly will, sadly. “We”…” Oct 8, 09:50
    • gm on There May Be Justice: “Summed up well, Confused.” Oct 8, 09:06
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““In the year to March 2026, central government spent nearly £100bn on debt interest alone, nearly 80% per cent of…” Oct 8, 08:20
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