Wings Over Scotland

Private Eye editor Ian Hislop hasn’t made much of a secret of his opposition to Scottish independence. The satirical and investigative magazine, which is normally so razor-sharp on all the failings and hypocrisies of politicians and the media, has been remarkably silent on the subject of the referendum for the past few years, which one might have thought would have given it enough material to go weekly.

So in that context of that self-imposed censorship, the BBC’s coverage of last month’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow must have been really quite something.

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It turns out that Jackie Baillie heard this and thought it was a referendum broadcast.

Silly old Jackie, eh readers?

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Alert readers will be aware that even in a campaign characterised by dishonesty, the ever-smirking Labour MSP Jackie Baillie has carved a reputation for especially notable creativity with the truth. With our hands on our hearts, we don’t think we’ve ever heard her say anything that wasn’t a lie. However, on last night’s The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4, we believe she reached a spectacular personal best. Have a listen.

If you can’t quite believe your ears, we’ll transcribe that for you.

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We’re sure, right?

And it’ll be accompanied, we haven’t even the slightest shred of doubt, by a veritable procession of outraged columnists demanding that Alistair Darling must take personal responsibility for the actions of these people.

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Phoebe Arnold on BuzzFeed Politics, 6 August 2014:

“If you minus Scotland’s total tax receipts generated per person since 1980 from the average for the UK, they’ve contributed a surplus of £222 billion in today’s prices (again, counting Scotland’s geographical share of North Sea oil and gas).”

(Source fullfact.org. Our emphasis.)

£222bn divided by 33 years is £6.73bn a year. No biggie. Don’t mention it.

As so insightfully predicted by Lallands Peat Worrier yesterday, the media has raced to proclaim victory for Alistair Darling in tonight’s STV debate. For our money, the only winners were the people who watched something else.

The debate was a mess – not quite as shambolic as Nicola Sturgeon and Johann Lamont’s effort on the same channel a few months back, but none of the lessons from that trainwreck were learned. Darling was angry and personal from the start, while Salmond was off-form and the strategy he adopted for dealing with the only subject Darling wanted to talk about – currency – was absolutely dreadful.

We warned back in February that Yes couldn’t just keep flatly saying “There will be a currency union” for seven months, even if it’s true, and the studio audience was deeply and audibly unimpressed with Salmond’s evasion of Darling’s repeated question, even if the tactic got old and tired when the No man was still using it an hour later.

But we’re not going to get into too much spin, because our view is partisan. The main evidence used for the hasty declarations of a “triumph” for Darling was a snap poll conducted immediately afterwards by ICM for the Guardian. But on even a cursory examination, the poll actually found the opposite of what the media said it did.

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We encourage readers to keep an eye out for the soon-to-be-released work of the Scottish Research Society. You won’t have heard of them before – they’re only three months old, with just 48 “likes” on Facebook – but they’ve already amassed some serious funds and have registered as campaigners for No in the referendum debate.

The society’s website notes that it “was formed on May 6th, under the Act of 1854, permitting Scientific and Literary Societies to be set up to inform and educate the public on social, economic and scientific matters.”

It goes on to add that “the material contained in the Society’s works, is used to provide accurate and informed commentary on aspects of the issues relevant to the question of Scottish independence. The Society is not a campaign group, but an organisation seeking to inform and provide balance.”

So that’s an interesting start.

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So everyone will believe THAT’s definitely going to happen, then.

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Ralph Topping, CEO of William Hill, in the Financial Times, 4 August 2014:

“I have spent the past six years as chief executive of a company whose 17,000 employees work in Scotland, elsewhere in the UK and throughout the world. Businesses are accustomed to dealing with different tax systems and employment regulations in the countries in which they operate. This rarely causes real difficulties.

And they know that national governments tend to collaborate where there is a mutual economic interest – indeed, they expect nothing less.”

Those voices of common sense just keep mounting up, don’t they?

An alert reader was listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning when they heard something unexpected that made them sit up and take notice. It came as part of a segment on Northern Irish people living in Scotland, 45 minutes into the show, and was stated in passing as an unremarkable statistic by BBC reporter Andy Martin.

We’ve isolated it for you – click the image above to listen to the short 13-second clip. (The full six-minute piece can be found here for when it expires on iPlayer.)

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Chris Huhne in the Observer, 3 August 2014:

“If Scotland goes, it will be in everyone’s interest to have a ‘velvet divorce’, as the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia was described. A nasty and messy separation would damage both sides. London will want early certainty, and for Scotland to be an EU member alongside the rest of the UK.

The result on 18 September may rewrite history, but not geography. We will all still share the same island. Their mess will be ours, both sides of the border. So we will all have an interest not to make a mess.”

Isn’t it weird how an MP has to be “disgraced” before they can tell the truth?