Wings Over Scotland

If it’s Wednesday, Labour must have changed their position on their future-devolution proposals again. Following our latest highlighting of the glaring contradictions in the shambolic “Devo Nano” plans, responses have started arriving to your letters.

If you’ve been listening closely, you’ll have heard that the position on whether the Scottish Parliament would be able to reduce taxes below the UK level has see-sawed from “No you can’t” (Johann Lamont MSP, 18 March) to “Yes you can” (Richard Baker MSP, 28 March) and back to “No you can’t” again (Tom Clarke MP, 4 April).

Well, guess what?

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Well, sort of, anyway. We were going to have another poll post tonight, but your eyes go a bit squiffy after an entire day of cross-referencing spreadsheets full of percentages so instead we’re just going to allow ourselves a wee brief glow of pride about this.

We hadn’t any idea the vote was taking place so we couldn’t even shamelessly urge readers to stuff the virtual ballot boxes, so we’re pretty chuffed to be sharing what we’re officially calling “joint 11th place” with some very decent reporters indeed, and to even be on the same list as the likes of Alex Thomson of Channel 4 and other people who get actually shot at for a living (instead of just on the internet) isn’t the worst feeling we’ve ever had.

And the fact that we’re the only other crowdfunded operation, along with the winner, means that you – Wings Over Scotland’s readers and employers – get the credit too.

Thanks to anyone who voted for us, and to everyone who’s helped make it happen.

Alert readers can’t have failed to spot that we’ve been devoting quite a bit of attention on Wings to Labour’s devolution proposals, chiefly because they’re by default the closest thing to the “more powers” option that’s so conspicuously missing from the referendum ballot paper at the insistence of the Unionist parties.

We’ve established that the party itself doesn’t seem to have the foggiest idea what its own proposals are, and we’re still in the process of trying to get to the bottom of it. But as our latest Panelbase poll was “in the field” fairly hot on the heels of the launch of the “Devo Nano” paper, we thought we’d see what the Scottish people made of it.

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Depending on which opinion poll you believe, the number of Scots who haven’t yet made up their minds which way to vote in the independence referendum is anywhere between about 11% and 33%.

That’s a pretty wide range, and when we were pondering our latest Panelbase survey we thought it’d be intriguing to probe the Don’t Know demographic a little more deeply.

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If there’s one thing we – as a website rather than as part of the Yes movement – are sick and tired of hearing from Scottish people about the referendum it’s “We need more information”. Having spent two and a half years writing thousands of articles full of fully-sourced and referenced information covering every conceivable aspect of the debate, our response tends to be “You can’t be looking very bloody hard, then.”

But are we right to be so cranky, or are we just crotchety old grumpyfaces?

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The other (and more complete) view of this story from yesterday:

Remember, readers, when we were all over the papers as “creepy as f**k”, intimidatory “spies” for peacefully and non-confrontationally documenting alleged “Better Together” events with long-distance photos in which we carefully avoided publishing anything that could be used to identify any individuals?

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So anyway. Alert readers will have noticed by now that we’ve had a poll out, and earlier today we finally got the full data tables in.

It’s going to take us a while to fully analyse everything (though we’ve dropped a few tantalising snippets on our Twitter account, which many of you are now stylish enough to follow), but we’re going to start with a theme we return to often in our polls – trust.

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The image below depicts three of what have been at least four different versions of the Scotsman’s story about our latest Panelbase poll. (So far, that is – who knows what might happen in an hour’s time?)

They show a fascinating evolution of editorial line, wouldn’t you say?

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Earlier today we highlighted two pieces of disgraceful, mendacious smearing by The Scotsman, in conjunction with an “anonymous” Labour MP. The articles coincided with a wider campaign of demonisation across most of the Scottish and UK media against supporters of independence, backed up by elected Labour representatives on social media in what might easily be seen as a co-ordinated attack.

The tweets above are from the account of semi-literate Labour councillor for East Kilbride, James Docherty. They follow a week in which the Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray described the placing of one or more small “Yes 2014” stickers on his constituency office windows as an “out of control” escalation of intimidation and Alistair Darling accused some people objecting to a businessman sending a document full of scaremongering lies to 500 employees of his company as “shaming Scotland”.

These hysterical smears would be laughable were it not for the consequences they may yet bring about. We highlight some of those consequences below.

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As someone who’s kept them as pets for over 20 years, I know a thing or two about rats. Intelligent and affectionate creatures, individuals nevertheless have very distinct personalities, and occasionally you’ll get a timid and/or grumpy one. Those take a lot of care, patience and attention to bring out of their shell, and until that point they may try to escape and hide in the tiniest, darkest, most inaccessible corner of the house.

When found, and with all escape routes blocked off, these tiny creatures become incredibly ferocious. They have very long, razor-sharp teeth and move with astonishing speed, and won’t hesitate to attack something hundreds of times their size. Any long-term rat owner will have a few small but permanent battle scars.

And so to today’s Scotsman.

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Just for a change, a wee bit of culture for a Sunday evening.

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“Better Together” communications director Rob Murray:

Labour MSP Neil Findlay:

Don’t you hate these unreliable, low-credibility rogue pollsters, readers?

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