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Wings Over Scotland

The man who should know 117

Posted on December 15, 2014 by

The Times, 14 December 2014:

“Scottish Labour has an ‘intellectual deficit’ because it is filled with ‘time-servers’ given seats to keep them quiet, according to Paul Sinclair, who served alongside Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader, and at the heart of the ‘no’ campaign against Scottish independence.

In an excoriating attack on the moribund state of Labour north of the border, Mr Sinclair said that the party will pay the price in May.”

As someone who wrote Johann Lamont’s speeches for the last three years, on this occasion we’re going to defer to Mr Sinclair’s superior expertise.

Tags:
Category comment, scottish politics

Inching towards the truth 321

Posted on December 14, 2014 by

We remain perplexed, readers, by the apparent total lack of interest in the mainstream Scottish media about how many members the Scottish Labour “party” has.

Membership levels are a topical subject in the light of the extraordinary explosion in SNP and Green membership after the referendum, and with a general election just months away in which the make-up of Westminster’s 59-strong Scottish contingent could be crucial to the shape of UK politics for the next five years.

lableaders

The number of members the main Unionist party north of the border can call on to knock doors and deliver leaflets will therefore be a very significant factor in the outcome. Yet on this morning’s Sunday Politics, when presented with an ideal and pertinent opportunity to question new Scottish “leader” Jim Murphy on the subject, Gordon Brewer didn’t even try to ask. What’s with that?

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Category analysis, investigation, media, scottish politics, stats

But seriously 328

Posted on December 13, 2014 by

We suppose we should offer a few thoughts on this, then.

dastardlyandmuttley

And we don’t mean Kezia Dugdale’s freakishly gigantic hands.

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Category analysis, comment, scottish politics

Final destination 64

Posted on December 13, 2014 by

In an alternative universe, Keir Hardie reacts to news of the election of Jim Murphy.

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Category comment, culture, scottish politics, video

The whether report 104

Posted on December 13, 2014 by

murphytoon

Tags: ,
Category scottish politics

Open to question 154

Posted on December 12, 2014 by

Whatever happened to that show, eh?

As alert readers may have noticed from social media, there’s very little going on in the world of Scottish politics right now so we’re having a wee Q&A session on Ask.FM to while away the time until we see who’s won Labour’s poisoned chalice tomorrow. If there’s anything you ever wanted to know about Wings, or me personally, why not pop over there and join us?

(Rude or boring questions will of course be deleted unanswered. “Rude” in this case includes asking questions that have already been answered. There’s currently a big backlog, but I’m working through it, and the link will stay live for the forseeable future.)

Category admin, navel-gazing

English votes for Scottish laws 235

Posted on December 11, 2014 by

One of our ever-alert agents uncovered this for us today. Published quietly last week by the House Of Commons Library and completely unremarked-upon by the Scottish media, it’s a document whose introductory text makes the relevant point concisely and eloquently without any need for elaboration or explanation on our part.

“The impact of removing Scottish MPs from the records of historic Commons divisions is also estimated. Of approximately 3,600 divisions to occur between 26th June 2001 and 26 September 2014, 22 (0.6%) would have concluded differently had the votes of Scottish MPs not been counted.

The note also compares, for each division since 2001, the lobby in which the majority of MPs per constituent country of the UK have voted to the lobby in which the majority of UK MPs voted.

In the current Parliament the lobby in which the majority of English MPs have voted has coincided with that of the majority of UK MPs for 99% of divisions. The majority of Scottish MPs has coincided with the majority of UK MPs for 24% of divisions; that of Welsh MPs for 26% of divisions.”

The emphasis is ours. England gets what England’s MPs vote for more than 99% of the time. Scotland gets what Scotland’s MPs vote for less than a quarter of the time. We’ll leave it at that.

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Category analysis, comment, scottish politics, stats, uk politics

The limits of ambition 114

Posted on December 11, 2014 by

Labour have already been widely derided for their feeble plan to increase the minimum wage to £8 by 2020 – a level likely to barely keep pace with inflation. But it turns out they’ve got a goal even more pathetic for people trying to survive on meagre incomes.

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Category comment, uk politics

The inconvenient truths 449

Posted on December 10, 2014 by

Today’s media is dominated by reports on the release by the US government of a deeply horrifying dossier admitting and detailing the massive scale of torture carried out by the CIA on often-innocent detainees during the USA’s “war on terror”.

You can’t chuck a brick at the internet without hitting a hundred links on the subject, so we’re not going to pick any out in particular, but many reflect on the UK’s willing complicity in many of the abuses, with the Labour government of Tony Blair having allowed Prestwick Airport to be used as a stop-off for torture flights.

rendition

There’s also a rather telling article in the Scotsman.

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Category comment, uk politics

A number of complaints 82

Posted on December 10, 2014 by

Just keeping you in the loop, readers.

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Tags:
Category media, scottish politics

Why won’t he just die? 382

Posted on December 09, 2014 by

Alex Salmond as the Terminator. Any way you slice it it’s a remarkable mental image from the mind of a clearly distraught James Kirkup of the Telegraph.

Apparently death wouldn’t stop him anyway. We’ve actually cut this clip before the point where the woman from the Economist calls the former First Minister a “zombie who just keeps on powering through to the end of the horror movie”. Of course, if you think of the Union as the horror movie, it’s not the worst analogy we’ve ever heard.

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Category scottish politics, uk politics, video

The Conservative And Labour Party 258

Posted on December 09, 2014 by

This is Tory activist Sarah Robb. She’s not a very nice person. (We don’t feel too bad about saying that, as she’s no fan of ours either.)

sarahrobb

But, y’know, Tory activist, not a nice person – no news there, right?

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Category analysis, comment, culture, scottish politics, uk politics

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