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Agents on the scene 344

Posted on March 04, 2014 by

So, wow. Still in its first week, the Wings 2014 fundraiser broke £100,000 last night. We suppose that means we better start fleshing out our “stretch goals” a bit.

agents

And if you’re one of the 99% of readers who haven’t donated yet – perhaps because you’re wasting your money on trivialities like feeding your family or paying bills or something – this is where you can offer us some help that’s just as valuable instead.

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Category admin, scottish politics

Remember what they think of you 114

Posted on March 04, 2014 by

Prominent New Labour writer Dan Hodges has a piece in the Telegraph today (because where else would a New Labour commentator have a column?) about UKIP now being an openly racist party. It contains the following passage:

“Last May Farage visited Edinburgh, where he was met by a small but aggressive mob of protesters. Eventually he had to be escorted from the scene by police for his own safety.

Directly accusing the SNP of being behind the protest, Farage described the protesters as ‘racist Nazi scum’. The incident was, he said, ‘deeply racist and displayed a total hatred of the English’.

And he’s right. He wasn’t targeted on the basis of his race, but on the basis of his nationality. And as he said, that was racist.”

We’ll leave aside that the protest was nothing to do with the SNP or Scottish nationalists, that it was organised by a radical left-wing group and that one of the two men arrested in connection with the incident was in fact English himself. None of those factual inconveniences are allowed to get in the way of Hodges’ bigotry.

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Category comment, idiots, scottish politics, uk politics

Damn that uncertainty 139

Posted on March 03, 2014 by

From today’s Press & Journal, for those of you outside Aberdeen.

pirates1

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Category scottish politics, uk politics

The price of the BBC 204

Posted on March 03, 2014 by

We’ve been writing for quite a while now about the absurd-yet-deathless “Project Fear” scare story that an independent Scotland would lose access to BBC broadcasts (and thereby shows like Strictly Come Dancing, Match Of The Day, EastEnders, Doctor Who and, we dunno, Homes Under The Hammer or something), which was given another tired run-through last week by UK government culture secretary Maria Miller.

rte

We’ve pointed out in some detail that it was complete nonsense, because the BBC is a commercial organisation which would actively seek to sell the rights to its output to Scotland, but what we haven’t been able to do previously was put a figure to the likely cost. Thanks to an alert reader, though, we can now fill in that gap.

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Tags:
Category analysis, culture, reference, scottish politics, stats

The difference a day makes 96

Posted on March 03, 2014 by

Scotland on Sunday yesterday:

devosos

The Scotsman 24 hours later:

scotmanpowers

Rinse, lather and repeat for the next six months.

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Tags:
Category analysis, scottish politics

The Eton Rifling 177

Posted on March 02, 2014 by

Heavens above. We thought that being reduced to sending out chain letters might have been some sort of rogue effort, but it seems “Better Together” really is as desperate for cash  as it’s appeared to be in recent months, with barely a week going by that we don’t get an email from Alistair Darling, chatting about some aspect of the debate before suddenly going “SO WE NEED MONEY! MONEY! SEND MONEY NOW!”

ccuk

But the piece above appearing in this week’s Sunday Times (where we initially missed it because it was in the “UK News” rather than the “Scottish News” section) was backed up by another piece of extraordinary panhandlery.

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Category scottish politics, wtf

The case as it is 72

Posted on March 02, 2014 by

If you missed it live, here’s the audio recording of the debate held at the Volunteer Rooms in Irvine on Friday. (The event wasn’t video-recorded, despite Clan Destiny Films having a high-quality camera team there, because the Labour MP for Central Ayrshire, Brian Donohoe, refused to give his permission.)

irvindebate

Click the image for the two-hour MP3 file.

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Category audio, comment, scottish politics

The meanings of life 81

Posted on March 02, 2014 by

This week’s edition of the Sunday Herald is a “referendum special” marking 200 days of the campaign to go (although actually it doesn’t have an awful lot more referendum coverage than a normal issue).

sh200

There are lots of things worth reading – as ever, we recommend spending a modest 69p for a digital copy via PressDisplay – but what really caught our eye were the two interviews with the heads of the Yes and No camps, Blairs Jenkins and McDougall.

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Category analysis, comment, scottish politics

Pay your money, take your choice 83

Posted on March 02, 2014 by

This morning’s Scotland on Sunday:

devosos

Well, that seems clear.

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Category comment, media, scottish politics

A tale of two cities 65

Posted on March 01, 2014 by

Yes Scotland campaigning today in Edinburgh:

yesedinburgh Read the rest of this entry →

Tags:
Category pictures, scottish politics

New currency options explored 87

Posted on March 01, 2014 by

fiscalwings

Tags: ,
Category scottish politics

As other selves see us 56

Posted on March 01, 2014 by

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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Category comment, media

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