Wings Over Scotland

Last week the Press & Journal carried a story about a debate held at the Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre, attended by just over 150 company directors, senior managers and other “business leaders”. The debate was between John Swinney and Danny Alexander (with contributions from Professor David Bell and businesswoman Christine O’Neill), followed by a poll carried out among the audience.

The No-friendly headline figures – which will come of no surprise to anyone who has ever read the Press & Journal – said 68% of the audience would be voting No at the end of the debate, with 16% Yes and 15% still unsure (1 person said they wouldn’t be voting. Maybe they walked into the wrong room at the start or something.)

That sounds like a pretty comprehensive win for No, so we should probably all just pack up our stuff and concede defeat.

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There’s an interesting article on the Guardian today from the invariably-excellent former music journalist John Harris entitled “The crisis in the Labour party goes much deeper than Ed Miliband”, which looks at how a 280-page policy document published this month by the Labour-leaning IPPR thinktank was boiled down by the party for public and media consumption to “cutting benefits for young people”.

That got us to thinking about something, but luckily before we’d wasted too much time on thinking we discovered that Labour Uncut had helpfully already done the research we were about to embark on for us.

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And this time we’re not being sarcastic. We were bemused yesterday when a number of people on Twitter started swapping referendum-based jokes about Stanley Baxter, who for younger readers used to be some sort of pantomime star and vaudeville performer. The jokes were explained today when it was revealed, to our considerable surprise, that Mr Baxter was in fact still alive and urging a No vote in the referendum.

Baxter, who left Scotland 55 years ago and told the Times that he now returns only for “the odd funeral”, nevertheless felt able to assert from these occasional visits that support for a Yes vote was founded in hatred for the English from simple-witted Scots who “don’t know any better” caused by “Braveheart” and hey, stay awake at the back there because we’re coming to the important bit.

And that’s that the comedian, who made a career out of telling TV viewers that the people of Glasgow had hilarious incomprehensible accents in need of translating into proper English, also went on to (no doubt impeccably) articulate the real reason, never previously spoken aloud, that the No campaign wants Scotland to stay part of the UK.

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Earlier today we reported the Edinburgh Evening News’ coverage of a study by Sheffield Hallam University which found that households across Edinburgh would lose an average of £780 each thanks to the coalition’s welfare cuts, with the worst-affected area – Craigmillar – likely to take an annual hit of £1,240 per household.

Today’s edition of the Daily Record has a prominent feature on the same survey, but chooses to focus on Glasgow rather than Edinburgh, and finds that things are even worse. Households in the poorest part of Glasgow – Calton, infamous for its low male life expectancies – stand to see a shocking £1,760 a year ripped out of their budget.

The Record being the Record, of course, it characterises the cuts – quite correctly – as being the responsibility of the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition. But then, weirdly, it asks a Labour MSP to comment on them.

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As a French Quebecer belonging to a generation that was deeply influenced by Harry Potter, it was with great interest and concern that I read JK Rowling’s recent letter on why she opposes Scotland’s independence.

Of herself and her fellow Scots, she justly writes that “whatever Scotland decides, we will probably find ourselves justifying our choice to our grandchildren.”

Well, I’m one of those grandchildren previous generations now find themselves having to justify their decisions to, and I can tell you how it went for us.

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The Edinburgh Evening News, today:

“Families across the Capital are facing a £780 cut to their annual income following a shake-up of the benefits system, new research has revealed.

Welfare reforms being brought in at Westminster are set to suck £130 million out of the city’s economy – equivalent to £390 for every working-age adult.

The study – produced by experts at Sheffield Hallam University – reveals parents collecting child benefit are most likely to see cuts in their payments while those on incapacity benefit will see the steepest yearly reductions of up to £145. And it has emerged that some of Edinburgh’s poorest areas will suffer the most.

The average family in Craigmillar – the worst-hit neighbourhood in Edinburgh – will lose out on £1240 per year once the full range of reforms are introduced.

But significant losses will be felt even in the city’s most affluent districts, with each family in the Meadows-Morningside ward set to shoulder an average annual hit of £440.”

Well, as long as the poor people are suffering three times as much as the rich people, and the disabled are being hit hardest of all, clearly coalition policy is working as intended. Of course, if Labour get in, it’ll be different – they plan even MORE welfare cuts than the Tories, and they’re proud of it. If you can’t work, you’re dead weight.

We didn’t quite grasp the meaning of the phrase “we’re all in this together” when David Cameron said it before, but we think we’ve got it now.

Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics, a man with absolutely no dog in the Scottish independence fight, has now published his detailed assessment of the set-up costs of an independent Scotland.

He puts the actual additional cost – that is, what Scotland would have to spend that it wouldn’t have to spend anyway if it stayed in the UK – at around £200m. That’s the total, not every year, and is somewhat below the UK government’s own “estimate” of £2.7bn, issued just three weeks ago to widespread derision.

For comparison purposes that’s very roughly what Scotland spends on the upkeep of Trident nuclear submarines every year (our share of the £2.24bn annual cost), but as the Unionist parties constantly complain that Scotland’s savings on Trident get spent several times over by Yes supporters, we thought we’d come up with an alternative.

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A round-up of recent UK stories you may have missed, from The Sealand Gazette.

1. New Government cuts could see a million state jobs go

“George Osborne orders ‘ambitious’ new efficiency drive, to be detailed in the Autumn Statement, for savings and job cuts deep into the next parliament.”

2. British people favour leaving the European Union, according to poll

“Nearly half would vote to leave while only 37% would vote to stay.”

3. The reason voters feel powerless: because it’s the truth

“Public services are so fragmented there are no clear lines of accountability. Parents who are worried by what is happening in a school will try to pull levers and discover that no one is at the other end. They are left to fume impotently.”

4. Trussell Trust told ‘the government might try to shut you down’

“The chair of [foodbank charity] the Trussell Trust has said that the charity made a decision to tone down its criticisms of the benefit system after someone in power warned them that they could get shut down.”

5. Britain’s first secret trial

“Two men, known only as AB and CD, have been charged with terrorism; journalists were forbidden from disclosing even this simple fact until newspapers overturned a gagging order. But for the first time in centuries – and in a direct challenge to the Magna Carta of 1215 – the entire trial will be held in secrecy.”

Vote No if this sounds like your sort of country, readers.

Reports seismic disturbance. (Again.)

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We are not making this up. This is not a spoof.

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This is from today’s Scottish Sun. (Click to enlarge.)

Murdo Fraser actually thinks that houses getting 25% more expensive while wages grow by just 0.7% is a GOOD thing. He really believes that “It’ll cost an extra £23,000 to buy a house if you vote No” is a plus point for staying in the UK.

That’s all we’ve got on that one, folks.

The second weekend in June played host to the Selkirk Common Riding, the oldest of the Ridings events in the Scottish Borders. For the uninitiated, this centuries-old tradition incorporates a series of festivities in the town, the centrepiece of which is a cavalcade of several hundred horses galloping around the perimeter of the Royal Burgh, ensuring the town’s ancient boundaries are in good order (ie that no pesky Sassenachs have invaded the territory).

Despite being raised in the nearby village of Ashkirk and attending Selkirk High School, I was never interested in the Riding. Even in primary school whilst being taught the lyrics to “Auld Selkirk” and “Hail Smilin Morn” it didn’t seem relevant – I only went to my first ride-out last year because my Polish girlfriend was intrigued.

That’s when the penny dropped.

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