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Wings Over Scotland


Meanwhile, back in the real world 136

Posted on July 01, 2014 by

The Guardian, 1 July 2014:

Many British people will never afford an acceptable minimum living standard

The chances of people on low incomes affording a decent life, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, have dramatically reduced.

We know we go on about this quite a lot, but it’s pretty important – if the Tories win the next election, they’ll cut billions of pounds more from the welfare budget. If Labour win it, they’ve pledged that they’ll be even TOUGHER on welfare than the Tories.

Welfare isn’t just about the unemployed, though the unemployed don’t deserve to suffer either. Millions of people in full-time work need benefits to top up their earnings to even remotely close to a liveable standard. Whether under Labour or the Tories, the prospects for the poor are bleak and getting bleaker, no matter how hard they work.

Scotland, alone, has an option for real change available. Just about every billionaire businessman in the country wants Scots to turn that chance down. UK government ministers who rely on Scotland’s multi-billion-pound annual net contribution to the Treasury want them to turn it down. Labour MPs who’ll be out of a cushy job-for-life if there’s a Yes vote want them to turn it down.

All we’d say is if you’re planning to vote No and you’re NOT a billionaire businessman, a UK government minister or a Labour MP, it might be worth wondering why that is.

The new socialist 338

Posted on July 01, 2014 by

Every rock that we look under near Labour’s newest Westminster candidate Kathy Wiles – who thinks that 7-year-olds taking part in a peaceful Yes protest are akin to the Hitler Youth, and that “most” SNP voters are benefit scroungers – sees lots more nasty little cockroaches skittering out and running from the sudden influx of light.

wilesanas

But despite setting a high bar with the comments above, Ms Wiles keeps clearing it.

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Turning the screw 99

Posted on July 01, 2014 by

From yesterday’s Evening Express:

“Out of work Scots had their benefits sanctioned on almost 900,000 occasions last year, a new report has claimed.

A total of 898,000 sanctions were applied to claims for jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) and employment support allowance (ESA) during 2013, according to Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS), with 871,000 of the penalties being applied to claims for JSA.

One man in the east of Scotland had his benefits reduced to about £11 a week after sanctions were applied when he failed to attend an interview with a work programme, despite producing a doctor’s certificate to say he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was not fit to travel, the report stated. “

It’s probably appropriate to remember at this point that Labour have promised to be even tougher on welfare than the current coalition should they be elected in 2015. But there’s something very alarming about those stats.

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Let them eat contempt 148

Posted on July 01, 2014 by

There’s a strange phenomenon at the heart of Scottish politics, and it runs far deeper than the independence referendum. It’s summed up pretty well in this image.

kwiles1a

The picture and the comment alongside come from the Facebook page of Labour’s newest Parliamentary candidate, Kathy Wiles. They were made more than two months ago, so you’d imagine that any selection committee worth even a quarter of a damn would have checked her out enough to have a look at her social-media accounts and see if she might have said – or be likely to say in future – anything stupid.

But the thing is, we’re sure they did. Because as far as Scottish Labour as concerned, calling “most” of the voters of the most popular party in the country a bunch of workshy scroungers only interested in claiming benefits isn’t even a gaffe. It’s pretty much the official policy position.

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Smear ’em young 312

Posted on June 30, 2014 by

At the weekend, hundreds of people (estimates of the actual number, as is traditional, varied wildly according to who was counting) protested against BBC bias at the state broadcaster’s Pacific Quay headquarters in Glasgow. There was a very great amount of sneering on social media among No campaigners and journalists at the peaceful, good-natured gathering, for such is the character of No campaigners and journalists.

A small group of readers of this site were among those who attended the protest. They were carrying a Wings Over Scotland banner, and some people had photographs taken with it, which naturally led to more sneering, such as this:

hothersneer

So far so unremarkable. That’s a jibe aimed at me rather than the wee kids in the pic, and I’m fair game. But then a gang of usual-suspects No types piled in on Labour and “Better Together” activist Hothersall’s tweet, and things got a little ugly.

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Through the vortex again 111

Posted on June 30, 2014 by

It feels almost insulting to you to even mention this, readers, so we’ll be brief.

Balls seeks to reassure business by pledging to maintain low rate of corporation tax

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A case for Columbo 123

Posted on June 30, 2014 by

One of the features of the independence debate as covered by the Scottish and UK media has been the casual lie. We’re not talking about screaming banner front-page headlines here, but the passing, offhand untruths slipped into articles that are primarily about something else, or tiny little corner-of-a-page pieces so trivial that readers absorb the falsehood in seconds and move on.

afd10a

We covered a good example of the latter last week, and it’s repeated in this morning’s Times, in a piece which makes the flatly and diametrically untrue assertion that “experts” have “produced figures suggesting that the final cost [of setting up an independent Scotland] could be £1.5 billion”, when the reality is that the only expert who has produced figures has explicitly rubbished that number.

But it’s another article in the same paper that made us smile wryly.

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Conflicting reports 444

Posted on June 29, 2014 by

It seems somehow fitting that there was a political battle in Stirling yesterday. The city was host to two sets of military-themed festivities, with the UK government having decided to hold Armed Forces Day there in a move transparently aimed at wrecking the commemorations of the 700th anniversary of the Battle Of Bannockburn.

The anniversary was obviously on an immovable date and location, but the Labour-Tory coalition that runs Stirling Council, and which last year attempted to replace a Saltire which flies over the statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce with a Union Jack – a plan it abandoned after it was highlighted by this site – agreed to host the competing festival on the same weekend.

bblive

Armed Forces Day had free admission to undermine the relatively pricey Bannockburn event. Labour even went so far as to actively try to put people off attending the latter, with Glasgow MP Ian Davidson suggesting that the commemoration was nothing more than a glorification of the murder of hundreds of thousands of English people”. (These particular “people” being an invading army, actual English casualties around 10,000.)

The press covered the subsequent downsizing of the historical recreation with glee, with numerous articles reporting low ticket sales and other problems right up to the eve of the show, which appeared about to be a major flop.

But then something odd happened.

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Four days later 127

Posted on June 29, 2014 by

Julie Webster of the Maryhill Food Bank, quoted in the Evening Times, 28 June 14:

“I have worked in social work for 20 years, so I am pretty hardened but we had a family come in on a Tuesday at 3pm having not eaten since the ­previous Friday.

There had been a problem with benefits and because it was a Bank Holiday weekend the mum had no money for food for her or her two children.

I watched the mum pick up and put down can after can, wondering what she doing, before I realised she was looking for one with a ring pull.

She ripped the top off and starting eating the beans with her hands, she was so hungry. At that point I had to go to the toilets and have a cry.”

The best of both worlds. As good as it gets. UK OK. Better together. No thanks.

The wall 224

Posted on June 28, 2014 by

Our secret agent in the No camp’s taken a real risk to bring you this one, readers. Smuggled out under cover of dusk, we’ve managed to get hold of the early rushes of the first ever combined referendum TV and cinema broadcast on behalf of the Unionist parties and the main campaigning organisations.

As you can see, they’re turning up the fear. Don’t have nightmares.

Firebrand vs milksop 182

Posted on June 28, 2014 by

An angry Dennis Canavan gets stuck into Ian Murray, the Labour MP who calls the police when someone puts a sticker on his window, on “Good Morning Scotland”.

soundwave2

For our money the most telling part is when Murray bleats about the SNP proposing a cut to Corporation Tax, and Canavan quite rightly points out the hypocrisy given that Labour reduced it twice when last in power and pledged to reduce it even further as soon as possible, Murray runs away from the issue without addressing it, but then has the brass neck to bring it up again at the end.

The double standards 207

Posted on June 28, 2014 by

bannocktoon

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