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Wings Over Scotland


They think it’s all over 162

Posted on December 27, 2014 by

boxingday

Diversification strategy 137

Posted on December 26, 2014 by

Wait, what?

scottories1

We know there’s a lot of talk of the other Unionist parties stepping aside in order to give Scottish Labour a clear run in 2015, in a desperate attempt to stop the SNP from picking up too many seats, but this is surely taking it a bit far.

War, hide yourself 219

Posted on December 25, 2014 by

Merry Christmas, readers. Have a good one and we’ll see you soon.

ddp1

Granny’s at the gin again 220

Posted on December 24, 2014 by

We missed this on Sunday, because it was 17 minutes into on the short-lived and unlamented “Crossfire” (now binned for a Sunday edition of “Good Morning Scotland”) and therefore pretty much everyone in Scotland missed it. It’s former Labour minister Helen Liddell, or as we should properly address her, Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke.

[audio http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/liddell-crossfire-21dec2014.mp3 ]

We’ve spared you her subsequent painful bleating about a general election 35 years ago that she doesn’t seem to have quite gotten over, but we couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at her curious assessment of the referendum result, which we suspect fellow guest Andrew “Lallands Peat Worrier” Tickell was simply too stunned to react to.

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Asymmetric warfare 68

Posted on December 24, 2014 by

From last night’s actually rather good “2014 – The Rory Review”:

BBC Scotland has 1,250 staff and an annual budget of just over £100 million. Yikes. We’re going to need a bigger fundraiser.

Would you like to play a game? 17

Posted on December 23, 2014 by

Since the demise of the Nintendo DS, I've done almost all of my videogaming on smartphones and tablets. A confluence of circumstances made traditional console formats less attractive for a variety of reasons, but also saw me spend more money on gaming than I had done in years. iOS and Android games offer a huge range of incredibly good titles at mindbogglingly tiny prices, almost all of them capable of fitting into whatever free time you have available.

redline

(And not just because they're short, snappy arcade twitch games like Super Hexagon or Impossible Road. Classics like Civilisation and Shadowrun have been revived brilliantly to suit the format, and traditional genres such as scrolling shooters have actually been improved by touchscreen controls, with the likes of Dodonpachi and Raiden rendered far more player-friendly without reducing their fearsome difficulty one iota. Pinball games and others can finally get the aspect ratio they've always wanted.)

More to the point, it almost never takes 47 days to download one.

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God loves an optimist 264

Posted on December 23, 2014 by

The Independent, 22 December 2014:

“Labour’s newly-elected Scottish leader, Jim Murphy, has told his party’s major donors and fundraisers that he needs to find £1m to combat the rising fortunes of the SNP.

The call to arms ahead of next year’s general election is Mr Murphy’s first acknowledgement that Labour will struggle to hold on to their former heartland unless they mount a forceful  campaign against the nationalists.

Although UK Labour can expect trade unions to underwrite any campaign funding gap, the majority of the affiliated unions in Scotland chose to back Mr Murphy’s left-leaning opponent, MSP Neil Findlay, in the leadership contest.”

We can only admire Mr Murphy’s ambition.

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The dangers of skimming 78

Posted on December 22, 2014 by

Libby Brooks in today’s Guardian:

“The recently elected leader of Scottish Labour, Jim Murphy, faces a daunting challenge to lift his party’s fortunes before next May’s general election as a poll shows support for Labour in Scotland is now half of that for the SNP.

A Survation poll for Monday’s Daily Record, the first to be released since Murphy’s election on 13 December, found that 48% of Scottish voters plan to support the SNP in May, and 24% Labour.

The swing implied by the figures suggests that as many 10 Labour seats [sic] could fall to the SNP.”

But that’s not what the figures suggest at all.

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The alpha ned 219

Posted on December 22, 2014 by

Fans of the bewildering in Scottish politics don’t look set to be disappointed in 2015.

murphyfootball

Jim Murphy’s only been the Scottish Labour “leader” for a week, but already he seems hell-bent on hurling the party’s North British branch into the padded walls of its cell with more vigour than ever before, heroically ignoring the open door.

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The Legacy 234

Posted on December 21, 2014 by

Iain Macwhirter in “Disunited Kingdom” (Cargo Publishing, 8 December 2014):

“It seems clear that the newspapers allowed their editorial agendas to get in the way of their communication with their readers. And this has had very serious consequences.

There is now a very large body of people in Scotland who are deeply disillusioned with the press, to such an extent that they simply no longer believe what is written there.

Look at any of the internet sites related to the Yes campaign and you will now find, not just criticism of mainstream media but a complete rejection of it, as if it were the propaganda arm of a foreign power.

This degree of alienation from the press, shared by hundreds of thousands of Scottish voters, is unprecedented and should be causing alarm, not just in editorial offices, but in the political parties which are also losing their ability to communicate. “

It’s a difficult assessment to dispute.

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Behind the magic 158

Posted on December 20, 2014 by

We thought you might like a wee glimpse into the machinery.

Batteries not included 75

Posted on December 20, 2014 by

xmastoon

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