Wings Over Scotland

It’s been a very slow news day today and it’s chucking it down outside, so we found ourselves stuck for entertainment. Earlier this afternoon alert readers will have noticed us tweeting about breaking through 35,000 Twitter followers, and while we were comparing that to various other entities for our own amusement (eg it’s over 10,000 more followers than Scottish Labour, the Scottish Conservatives and the Scottish Lib Dems put together), we stumbled across this feature from 16 months ago.

And because – as readers of our Panelbase polling features will know – there’s nothing we like more than the occasional wallow in some stats, we got to work.

Read the rest of this entry →

It’s the beaten side who are supposed to lose their minds. But we couldn’t resist sharing with you two articles by Labour activists today whose authors have studied the last decade of Scottish politics and arrived at the conclusion that the salvation of Scottish Labour lies in… ramping up the arrogance and hating the SNP more.

Oh, you’re going to love these.

Read the rest of this entry →

From the Twitter account of the Aberdeen Conservative and Unionist Association last night, during the First Minister’s appearance on Question Time from Liverpool:

Just a couple of things.

Read the rest of this entry →

From today’s Media Guardian:

“Despite the huge interest and debate around the Scottish independence referendum, BBC Radio Scotland saw its figures fall for the third quarter of this year.

The station had a weekly reach of 870,000 listeners between 23 June and 14 September (the period accounted for by these audience figures) ahead of the independence vote on 18 September.

BBC Radio Scotland was down 2% on the year and 8.9% on the previous three months.

The BBC faced intense criticism of bias in its coverage of the referendum from pro-independence supporters, with a demonstration outside the corporation’s Glasgow headquarters and participants unfurling a banner calling for political editor Nick Robinson to be sacked.”

It’s worth taking just a few lines to examine those stats more closely.

Read the rest of this entry →

Today’s Herald carries a report from the initial meeting of the Smith Commission on “enhanced devolution” for the Scottish Parliament. The paper quotes from what seems to be a press release issued by the Commission, in which it explains that it thinks the people of Scotland are idiotic, drooling simpletons who’ll swallow anything.

Read the rest of this entry →

The Labour-friendly elements of the press made much play yesterday of an Ipsos MORI poll which showed an unusually high level of support in the UK for remaining in the EU (while ignoring one by YouGov that showed a majority in favour of leaving).

But a piece in today’s Times throws the reality into sharp relief, and illustrates why the Yes movement hasn’t simply lain down and died after losing the referendum.

Read the rest of this entry →

Johann Lamont, Scottish Labour conference, March 2014:

“Scottish Labour is the party of devolution.”

And here’s what that means seven months later, in terms of the submissions of the five Holyrood parties to the Smith Commission on devolved powers:

Imagine if they WEREN’T the party of devolution, eh readers?

The Scotsman’s lead story last night on the left, and the same page today:

Scottish journalism, there.

Read the rest of this entry →

Margaret Curran on last night’s Scotland 2014:

Well, we don’t think anyone can say she didn’t give a full and comprehensive answer on the subject of Scottish Labour’s membership figures there.

Read the rest of this entry →

Here’s Nick Clegg in many of today’s papers:

“Alex Salmond reminds me of a Japanese soldier found in the jungle 20 years after the war had finished, still ducking at every shadow, thinking the war was still on. At some point, you have to call it a day and accept that the people have spoken.

After a ferociously contested referendum that has dominated debate north of the border for years, not just months, there was a pretty emphatic result.

Read the rest of this entry →

This is a tough time to be writing analytically about Scottish politics, and for once we have a degree of empathy with our fellow journalists in the mainstream press. Very little worthy of discussion is actually happening, yet there are still pages to fill. Perhaps we should have taken a month off rather than two weeks.

That’s not to say that nothing NOTABLE is happening. The SNP more than tripling its membership in a month to the point where it may well be four times that of the three Unionist parties put together, for example, is a remarkable event, but there’s very little worthwhile to be said about it other than observing the simple fact. Nobody knows who these new members are, why they joined or what they want, and anyone speculating about it is just filling space with the sound of their own voice for the sake of it.

Similarly, discussing the Smith Commission report is mostly a pointless exercise. Its conclusions will be based on the submissions of the three Westminster parties – we can all, surely, discount the idea that any significant amount of the SNP’s contribution will be included – and those have been known since March.

And in any event, as we noted at the weekend, the Commission’s report will be an irrelevance. It’ll be followed in short order by a general election, and whichever party takes the keys to 10 Downing Street will not be bound by its conclusions. If the eventual devo package reflects the Commission’s findings it’ll be by pure electoral coincidence – if the Tories get in they’ll implement the Strathclyde Commission, and if it’s Labour it’ll be “devo nano”. (Why would either of them, having just won an election, voluntarily and needlessly compromise on their own preferred plan?)

So what to talk about?

Read the rest of this entry →

Preserved for posterity in case of sudden vanishing, but also because we just couldn’t face writing another post about “The Vow” today.

This is a real thing that you can buy on Amazon and iTunes. If you chose to be British last month, this is what “British” means in 2014. Enjoy it.