Wings Over Scotland

The Scottish and UK press has been more and more careless about disguising its bias as the referendum nears. Almost every paper, for example, reported without question the recent “Better Together” press release about being “inundated” with small donations after the first TV debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling.

Normally headlines would put the statement – which was completely unsubstantiated by the slightest scrap of evidence – inside quote marks or accompanied by qualifiers like “No camp claims”, but instead it was almost universally presented as fact.

“Better Together inundated with cash after debate” (The Guardian)

“Flood of donations sees Better Together hit campaign limit” (Daily Express)

“The official pro-UK campaign has publicly called for Scots to stop giving it money after a flurry of donations following Alex Salmond’s TV debate defeat.” (The Telegraph, slipping a sneaky wee bit of editorialising in too)

Calling for people to stop sending money was nothing more than a moderately clever PR stunt – the official No campaign already has more cash from millionaire Tory donors than it’s actually allowed to spend by September 18th, so there’s little point in continuing to accumulate it – but the papers obediently played along anyway.

The donations story, though, was essentially a piece of trivia. A much more serious matter was the Bank of England’s inflation report yesterday, and the embellishment and exaggeration applied to it by certain outlets revealed a great deal about publications which still officially claim to be neutral.

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We’ve been absolutely blown away by the response to The Wee Blue Book, readers. As we write this it’s about to pass an astonishing 200,000 downloads in just two days, and we’re besieged by enquiries about the print edition, which should be rolling off the presses any time now.

But it’s no use just sitting around patting ourselves on the back about how much Yes supporters seem to like it. The most exciting and encouraging responses have come from No and undecided voters, and we need to get the book into as many people’s hands as possible in the next five weeks. Let’s get to work.

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With the referendum now just five weeks away and most of the polls still uncomfortably close, there’s an increasing sense of urgency and lack of subtlety about the No camp and media’s scaremongering.

Yesterday the Scottish media covered the award of a Royal Navy shipbuilding contract to BAE Systems in unequivocally political terms. “Promise of £348m shipyard contract for No vote”, blared the Scotsman, while the Scottish Sun’s front page went with “3 ships deal ‘if No vote’”. (The English edition was the rather more loquacious “Scots will land £348m Royal Navy contract – if they stay in the UK”.)

Yet the text of the articles told a radically different story.

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This isn’t a spoof. We checked.

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Saluting one of our favourite movies of all time.

(The glasses are here. Well over 100,000 downloads so far today.)

The pocket guide to the independence referendum is here.

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Alert readers may recall that when the UK government announced plans for a £55m jamboree to mark the beginning of World War 1, on a date conveniently before the independence referendum rather than the traditional Remembrance Day in November, the more cynical of Yes supporters were immediately suspicious and/or angry.

But despite David Cameron initially announcing it as a “Jubilee-style” event that would tap into the celebratory spirit of the Olympics and might feature a star-studded football match (rather clumsily between Germany and England, rather than Britain or the Allies), the assurance was given that it would in fact be a sombre event respectfully commemorating the sacrifice of the dead, and definitely NOT a jingoistic festival of Britishness designed to influence the outcome of the vote.

Above is the video released by the “Military Wives” choir for the occasion, featuring Eamonn Holmes, Alan Titchmarsh, a George Formby impersonator and a dancing dog singing “Pack Up Your Troubles”, a jaunty song about what a jolly lark war is.

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One of the most enlightening aspects of doing this website has been seeing how the nation’s elected representatives behave towards the people they ostensibly represent.

We’ve been collating the responses from various Unionist MPs, MSPs and assorted others to these questions we raised recently and the standard has varied wildly, from serious and considered to petulant and juvenile. (Many more, of course, simply haven’t bothered to respond to their constituents’ queries at all.)

But the most disturbing yet is the one below.

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The Telegraph, 10 August 2014:

“Policy Exchange, a think tank with close links to the Conservative Party, will later this month publish a report calling for the government’s £26,000 benefits cap to be lowered outside London to reflect the lower cost of living.

Any enterprise as crass, witless and poorly-thought-out as Dan Snow’s “Let’s Stay Together” campaign – funded by the same man who gives millions to murderous war criminals and populated by a curious mix of billionaire Tories, Sirs, Lords, Baronesses and Z-list nobodies – will always create all manner of hostages to fortune.

We’ve already mentioned David Starkey, who felt able to pledge his love to Scotland despite having previously called it a “feeble little country” obsessed with the “deeply boring provincial poet Burns” and “the awful bagpipe”. The “celebrity” list also featured Ross Kemp (who previously likened Glasgow to a third-world warzone) and the deeply unpleasant right-wing columnist Rod Liddle, who opined in 2010 that:

“The only reason any people remain in Scotland is on account of the extremely cheap alcohol available in supermarkets, plus a ready supply of heroin for when the alcohol runs out.”

And then there was “hard man” actor and bookies’ shill Ray Winstone.

Quite a few people picked up on Winstone’s appearance last year as the guest host of “Have I Got News For You”, in which he trotted out a list of tired stereotypes and suggested Scotland should “bugger off”. But as we noted at the time, HIGNFY is a comedy show produced by public schoolboys for whom patronising the “Jocks” is second nature and not worth getting worked up about.

What bothers us a little more is Ray’s view on the country he wants Scots to stay in.

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I watched your STV debate with Alex Salmond on Tuesday night with interest. As the debate progressed I began to realise that your task would be so much easier if you simply put forward reasons why the United Kingdom, in its present form, is a positive force that serves the Scottish people and satisfies their aspirations.

I’ve no doubt that you’d also prefer to put forward a positive case instead of having to constantly attack the idea of independence and use negativity, uncertainty and personal attacks to achieve your aims. So why are you doing this?

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