Wings Over Scotland

Will Self in the New Statesman, 28 February 2014:

“As someone who for the past two decades has visited Scotland at least three or four times a year, and spent a great deal of those visits in and around the former steel town of Motherwell, I cherish few illusions about the country.

On the whole, I’ve considered independence to be something of a no-brainer: if ever there was a small, potentially socialistic state that could do with being detached from its deluded imperialist neighbour, it’s Scotland.”

Despite our misgivings about the shortbread, bagpipes, sporrans, whisky, Nessie and deep-fried Mars bar cover, the magazine’s special “Scotland” issue isn’t bad at all. Of course, as Scots we’re all far too mean to pay £3.95 – £3.95! – for a copy, but do go and browse it on your local newsagent’s shelves.

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Melanie Phillips of the Daily Mail on Wall Street Journal Live yesterday.

“I would be very surprised if at the end of the day the Scots will vote for independence. It’s a fantasy, it’s a romantic fantasy, it’s fuelled by fantasy, by resentment, by all sorts of issues.”

Shall we take five minutes out from hating the English and give her a surprise?

The diagram below comes from an interesting feature in The Chemical Engineer Today, pointed out to us by an alert reader and which has a few flaws but is still well worth a browse if you have (quite a lot of) time.

But the thing giving us a wee wry smile this morning is the realisation that if Tony Blair’s 1999  grab of 6000 square miles of Scottish sea is allowed to stand in post-Yes negotiations, we’ll find ourselves in a situation where the “Clyde”, “Argyll” and “Fife” oilfields belong to the rUK, while “Britannia” belongs to Scotland.

Blair’s theft, aided and abetted by Donald Dewar and largely hushed-up by the media, is no laughing matter. But sometimes you just have to appreciate a nice bit of irony.

Running total (10am March 8th, including “offsite” donations): £103,163

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February full stats. No comment.

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Let any dispute be over. Wings Over Scotland has the best readers.

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A chance comment on Twitter this afternoon gave us a fun thought – with over 230,000 readers a month, could we get a song to No.1 in the charts by ourselves now, as both publicity and a rallying call for the Yes movement?

We got lots of suggestions for songs with apt lyrics about Scotland’s relationship with the UK and catchy tunes, so as democrats we’ve decided to have a poll to pick what would be the best choice if we should decide to attempt the project.

You can cast your vote below.

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We’ve kept you waiting for this (at least, if you follow our Twitter account), but it’s worth it. An alert reader sent it to us last night, and it’s NOT one of our always-popular spoofs. To the best of our knowledge it’s 100% genuine.

That’s right – the latest desperate plea for cash from the No camp is a chain letter.

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We’re nowhere near done asking you for money in our second annual fundraiser yet. But with the original goal smashed to pieces in just 48 hours, we can afford to take a day off to direct you to a couple of other worthy pro-independence causes that could do with a little help just to nudge them over the finish line.

Independence debate – the case for Glasgow
A bold move by Yes Glasgow to call out “Better Together” on their cowardly refusal to argue their case for the Union, by sidestepping them and holding a major public event in Glasgow with speakers from both Yes and No sides, because there are still some Unionists less chicken than the pitiable official No campaign. Currently just £800 short of its target with less than a day to go.

**EDIT** TARGET NOW REACHED

Labour For Independence campaign
Labour voters will be key to winning the referendum. Help the party’s enlightened wing reach more of the people who will benefit most from a Yes vote. Plenty of time with this one, but also just £800 short.

**EDIT** TARGET NOW REACHED

The future of Scotland – Scottish Borders
The Yes campaigners working closest to England have one of the toughest jobs, in a traditionally Tory and Unionist region. There are huge potential gains from getting the facts out in that region, and we’re sure the folk slogging away down there would appreciate a hand. They’re a very long way from their goal at the moment, but it’d be nice if we could give them a boost.

**EDIT** TARGET NOW REACHED

The generosity of Wings readers is legendary. We know it’s asking a lot when you’ve just put your hands so deep into your pockets. But if perhaps you’ve held off donating to us in the light of how much we’ve already made, it might just be that you and these three highly-deserving projects are made for each other.

Standard Life, about which the entire Scottish media got incredibly excited about yesterday when they made a rather unremarkable statement which could be spun as a threat to leave Scotland if it voted Yes, employs around 5000 people north of the border. The aviation business, on the other hand, underpins the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Scots. Does it have a view on the subject?

That’s Willie Walsh, head of International Airlines Group (which owns British Airways), responding to a rather loaded question from BBC News by saying he’d regard independence as “a positive development”. That’s pretty interesting in itself, given that airlines are much more important to the Scottish economy than one insurance company, yet we have a strange premonition that it won’t attract the same headlines.

But it ties into politics a bit more directly than that too.

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Credit ratings agencies are not, on the whole, noted for a reckless, devil-may-care approach to either personal or national finances. It’s not too often that you hear one say “Well, we don’t exactly know what’s coming in the future but what the heck, it’ll probably all work out fine in the end”.

So we were naturally more than a little curious to see the analysis released by Standard & Poor’s, one of the world’s key ratings agencies, of the likely state of an independent Scotland’s economy today.

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Let me first declare my interests. I’m a Yorkshireman, so I suppose that technically makes me English. I wish my beautiful region had more autonomy from Westminster, because perhaps if we had our local representatives would have fought to protect our vital industries (steel, coal, fishing, transport), rather than letting Westminster ruin them as part of their ideological experiment in turning the UK into a “post-industrial society” built around the London financial sector. (We all know how that turned out.)

I know there’s no chance of Yorkshire achieving regional autonomy from London in my lifetime, but that doesn’t mean I begrudge the people of Scotland their opportunity to end London rule – in fact I’m delighted for them.

The only concern I have is the possibility that the people of Scotland will decline this magnificent chance to assert their autonomy. Come September the 18th, I hope we’ll be celebrating the rebirth of the Scottish nation. I hope I’ll be drinking a toast to “Scotland the brave”, not mournfully lamenting for “Scotland the servile”.

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