Wings Over Scotland

A number of papers today report a manufactured furore concerning some comments we made on Twitter a couple of days ago about Tory MSP Alex Johnstone while watching Scotland Tonight. The Herald, astonishingly, makes it the second-lead story on its website, with political editor Magnus Gardham gleefully seizing the opportunity to stick the boot in after being the subject of much criticism on this site.

The Times also has a large piece about the tweet and it gets a quarter page in the Daily Mail, while the Scotsman’s coverage is more muted – which is perhaps out of embarrassment at coming on the same day the paper had to grudgingly publish a belated correction and “apology” for two grotesque and utterly false smears about us last week. Even Holyrood Magazine gets in on the act, as does the Courier.

That’s all fine and good. Getting monstered by Unionist newspapers isn’t exactly a new experience for us, after all. But there’s something odd about all of the stories.

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We suppose, then, that we’d better deal with the UK government’s bizarre propaganda booklet that’s about to slither through every letterbox in Scotland at taxpayers’ expense whether they like it or not. We’ve been having some fun with the cover image in the last couple of days, but astonishingly enough this is the real version:

To be honest, readers, we’re still kind of rubbing our eyes in disbelief at that one. But the McTrapp Family above (who are these implausibly happy children? Where, who or what are they running from? Are they trespassing? Where are their parents?) aren’t even nearly the weirdest thing about the pamphlet.

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The big story in most of today’s papers is the British Social Attitudes survey, which has discovered a whole bunch of things of absolutely no importance whatsoever.

The Scotsman, for example, highlights the fact that while Scottish people don’t want the UK to have nuclear weapons, if they’re going to exist then a sizeable number of Scots want them – and the hundreds of jobs dependent on them – to stay on the Clyde. (Though just as many want them to leave.)

None of which, of course, will have the slightest effect on anything.

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We know only a few of you sit through these long video clips, but for the benefit of those who do this is a slightly unusual debate organised by the Prospect trade union and chaired by Magnus Gardham of the Herald, which took place at the union’s conference in Glasgow last month and saw Anas Sarwar and Nicola Sturgeon quizzed on some quite specific topics by various representatives of civic Scotland.

Readers can, as ever, come to their own conclusions as to which of the two gave the most convincing and honest answers, but one line from early on did leap out at us.

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Charlie Brooker in the Guardian, 17 June 2014:

“David Cameron has responded to [the ‘Trojan Horse’ schools] crisis by declaring we need to celebrate ‘Britishness’ with more enthusiasm.

More enthusiasm? More? We’ve been celebrating Britishness with the strained determination of a man desperately trying to shit a cricket ball for the past five years. There’s a Union Flag on every cushion, bedspread and Rimmel commercial. Twee cartoons of the London skyline adorn packets of biscuits. TV can’t shut up about Britain. The Great British Menu. The Great British Summer. The Great British Sewing Bee. The Great British Bake Off. The Great British Bayou. The Great British Bull Run. The Great British France.

We had the Olympics, for Christ’s sake. We spent the whole of 2012 waving flags like a semaphore dictionary on fast-forward. And that wasn’t enough? Now, years later, just as the Keep Calm and Carry On posters are finally starting to yellow and peel and fall from the wall like scraps of torched parchment, now Cameron wants MORE of that bullshit?”

Nice to know it’s not just us noticing.

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In the course of debunking some No-camp myths about “high taxes” and the cost of living in Scandinavian countries, we’ve often mentioned that in addition to average real incomes being far higher in places like Norway and Denmark (even after adjusting for the cost of living), that average is itself misleading, because the poor distribution of wealth in the UK means that it’s artificially inflated by the incomes of the super-rich.

Now it’s possible to actually put figures on that.

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This morning’s papers report that Labour, the Tories and a small fringe party whose name has slipped our minds for a moment will this week release a statement about their shared commitment to further devolution of powers to Holyrood after a No vote.

We’re sure that Scotland’s journalists are all on top of the situation as usual and will put the statement under microscope-like scrutiny, but just in case, we have a tip.

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The top five most-read stories on Wings Over Scotland in the last seven days.

1. Voters less ordinary
Housewife turns out to be activist. What could go wrong?

2. Inaudible mumble amplified
A good week to bury someone calling a million Scots racists.

3. Becoming the story
Smearing the messenger.

4. To the editor of the Scotsman
Standing by for developments.

5. The unacceptable face of politics
Grumpy-Looking Man confronts Not Quite All There Woman.

This week’s theme: CYBERNATS! (Again.)

WEDNESDAY: Panini “politics sticker album” jokes are evidence of vile abuse:

SUNDAY: Panini “politics sticker album” jokes are light-hearted comedy material:

The BBC: you have to pay for this or you go to jail, readers.

The Sunday Mail has an editorial leader today about “cybernats”, in which the Daily Record’s sister paper offers the view that “far too much attention is given to these clowns”. It’s a good point – there’s been a surfeit of coverage of the subject lately.

From the last four days alone. Why can’t people just stop going on about them, eh?