Nation speaking tunes unto nation 161
Posted on
February 22, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
SATIRE:
REALITY:
At least, we THINK we’ve got those the right way round.
A casual grenade 121
Posted on
February 22, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Scotpulse poll we mentioned last night in a frankly shameful outbreak of tooting our own horn actually released two sets of data, accompanied by an odd email apologising that the survey had featured an overly wide range of questions. We don’t know if we’re going to see the others at any point, but the second one released yesterday was intriguing.
And we’re not talking about the somewhat leading preamble.
The lovebombs keep coming 135
Posted on
February 21, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Here’s we’re-not-actually-sure-what-he-is Bob Mills earlier this evening on Radio 4’s News Quiz, hosted by Sandi Toksvig with a very quiet Fred MacAuley twisting his tartan bunnet in the corner and hoping for a pat on the head.
Whatever will they do for laughs without us?
In the clouds 238
Posted on
February 21, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Someone just forwarded us the results of a survey by STV’s polling arm Scotpulse. It’s a “wordcloud” of the sort we have on this very site (it’s over on the right hand side and down a bit, marked “Tags”), where the more significant something is the bigger its name gets printed. It pretty much speaks for itself.
You’re the ones who put the word out there, readers. It’s working. Thank you.
Preparing for Project Blue 115
Posted on
February 21, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A reader comment this morning caused us to go back and double-check the facts in an old post (which turned out to be entirely correct, so that was fine). But for reasons which will shortly become clear, Wings Over Scotland is on a constant mission to distill aspects of the independence debate down to the clearest, most concise summaries possible, and the act of checking spurred us to lay something out.
Expressway To Fear 193
Posted on
February 21, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
DOOM!
GLOOM!
We’re not sure we can take many more blows like this.
Who’s your fave Dave? 192
Posted on
February 20, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
So we’ve now had David Cameron, David Mitchell and David Bowie all “lovebombing” Scotland with pleas to stay in the Union (as assorted Tory ministers and their Labour and Lib Dem hangers-on lurk in the shadows a few feet away tapping knuckle-dusters into their palms and making throat-slitting gestures in our direction).
But the big question is, which David would you like to see try it next?
Including Carwyn Jones 158
Posted on
February 20, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We must admit, we’re perplexed by Scottish Labour’s apparent and oft-expressed belief that the Welsh (Labour) First Minister is the ultimate authority on currency unions. We’re not aware of any financial expertise on his CV, and as he’s not even a Westminster MP his opinion will carry no weight in any negotiations on the matter.
So we’re not sure why his view is singled out, from the entire population of the UK, as having special relevance. Still, Johann Lamont seems pretty worked up about it.
Taming the savages 65
Posted on
February 20, 2014 by
Julie McDowall
It takes a startling amount of arrogance to try and impose your morality on someone else. We no longer send our privileged white men to the dusty, dirty parts of the globe to educate the natives, to show them how to speak and eat and dress and worship. British toffs don’t hack their way through jungles any more, subduing spear-wielding tribes with Browning machine-guns and renaming their rivers after tubby queens.
The map is no longer Empire pink, and the British zeal for moral crusades has largely faded with it. But in the Telegraph yesterday, the charming David Cameron took us on a nostalgic trip back to glorious, Union-Jack-fluttering Victoriana.
The differential slip 87
Posted on
February 20, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As alert readers know, we don’t get ourselves overly excited about individual opinion polls, even when they’re like today’s Survation one showing a big 5.5% swing to Yes in the wake of George Osborne’s intervention on a currency union last week.
What we DO like to ponder is the more interesting data buried in such surveys.
Time to draw a line 83
Posted on
February 20, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Let’s all agree: from now on, anyone who says “An independent Scotland would have to join the Euro!” is either deliberately lying or a dribbling slack-jawed imbecile without the faintest idea of what they’re talking about.
As such their views should be dismissed with contempt, and ideally they should be chased out of town by an angry mob with pitchforks and flaming torches. We’d say Dr Zuleeg was pretty unequivocal and definitive on the subject here.
The news in numbers 139
Posted on
February 20, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We wouldn’t like to suggest Unionists are clutching at straws this week, but:
Number of words actually spoken by David Bowie about independence: 4
Number of words written about it so far by major news outlets: 3,916
To be honest we stopped counting after that.
