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Wings Over Scotland


An unexpected alliance 108

Posted on February 04, 2014 by

We’ve already mentioned this in passing, but it’s worth pulling out in its own right, because people hardly ever bother to click links in features and it’s kind of important.

Late last year we had a bit of an epiphany in terms of realising the implications of Scottish Labour’s draft proposals for giving more powers to the Scottish Parliament in the event of a No vote in the independence referendum. We suggested that the plans were in fact a trap, which would be a disaster for Scotland and see billions of pounds of cuts in the Scottish budget.

iandavidsonfacepalm

What we weren’t expecting was for Labour MP Ian Davidson to confirm it for us.

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A mixed day for Johann Lamont 178

Posted on February 04, 2014 by

There’s both good and bad news for the embattled Scottish Labour “leader” in today’s newspapers. But before we get to that, we’d like you to watch this.

The gent posing the rather lengthy question is Sean Clerkin, the man Iain Gray hid from in Subway. We must admit we’re not quite sure why he thinks Johann Lamont has anything to do with Atos sponsoring the Commonwealth Games – something which would presumably be a matter for the Scottish Government and/or Glasgow City Council, neither of which she controls – but the Labour MSP’s reaction is remarkable.

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Browser-tab round-up 99

Posted on February 03, 2014 by

Readers, you can’t begin to imagine how much stuff happens. Seriously, it’s going on EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME. You’d think there’d be lulls now and again, but people just keep doing things. It’s annoying.

frytabs

Throughout the day, we’ll see or be sent roughly a billion links, and because otherwise you’d never keep up with Twitter alone, what you do is click any that sound interesting to open them in a tab, then go and actually read them later when you’ve got the time.

Unfortunately there are always more things than time (like, WAY more), so you end up having a huge backlog of tabs that you either haven’t read, or have read but haven’t got round to writing something about yet.

We’ve just had a brutal pruning of Firefox and we’ve still got 76 open, so to let us get a few more closed we’re just going to stick some of the ones we HAVE read here and you can go through any you like the sound of for yourselves. They’re all good.

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A strange kind of positivity 171

Posted on February 03, 2014 by

We were a little perplexed this morning by the Daily Record’s banner headline.

recordbed

And not just because of the unusually generous use by the Labour-supporting paper of the term “SNP Government” (rather than “Scottish Goverment”) on a good-news story.

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In Sealand today 84

Posted on February 03, 2014 by

From this morning’s Independent:

‘Poll tax mark II’ pushes Britain’s poorest into debt

Up to 70,000 low earners, single parents, and disabled people are being pursued by bailiffs over their failure to pay the ‘new poll tax’, according to figures revealed for the first time.

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Unleashing a firestorm 394

Posted on February 03, 2014 by

It’s not as if the Financial Times doesn’t have history with dropping great big payloads of high explosive into the middle of the independence debate late on a Sunday night. But a piece coming up in Monday’s edition (and online tonight) is going to choke a few breakfasts in London tomorrow morning.

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Stories of the week, 2-2-14 22

Posted on February 02, 2014 by

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

1. The honesty patrol
Cybernats!

2. The lonely hours
Cybernats!

3. Cybernat of the week
CYBERNATS!

4. The Mars bar at your seat
Idiot.

5. You’d need a heart of stone
Idiot whines about cybernats.

Eesh. Grim stuff. Let’s hope for a more pleasant week to come.

The crushing of a people 201

Posted on February 02, 2014 by

The following paragraph closes an article in today’s Observer.

“Kelly Gibson, 36, a homeless Big Issue seller on busy Sauchiehall Street, perhaps summed it up best: ‘I think that maybe we’ve got too much to lose. If they can’t explain to me how Scotland will be richer, how do I know that I will be better off?'”

We’re almost lost for words. But not quite.

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The lifelong sigh 90

Posted on February 02, 2014 by

Sorry we haven’t posted much today, folks, but with a pulsating League Cup semi-final and then Scotland’s first game in the Six Nations (about which events we shall speak no more) it’s been a big day for sport. You know, this stuff:

andyengland

We hate to be so petty and chippy, but after 40-odd years it wears you down. We’re pretty sure it’s a mistake they’ll stop making if we’re actually a proper country.

An impressive feat 218

Posted on February 02, 2014 by

It takes some doing to make even BBC News presenters look a little uncomfortable at the sheer depth of your ignorance when it comes to Scottish independence, so we probably ought to offer some sort of commendation to this guy:

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Our new theme music 153

Posted on February 01, 2014 by

imperial

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Cybernat of the week 137

Posted on February 01, 2014 by

Poor Anas Sarwar. He just can’t get anything right.

cybernatoftheday

Doing his best to join in with the Daily Mail’s month-long witch-hunt, Labour’s “deputy” leader in Scotland leaps on an abusive and disturbingly racist-looking comment aimed at him. It’s nasty all right. It could well qualify as “hate”. But who’s it from?

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    • Alf Baird on And Nothing Happened Forever: ““Everything will be business as usual for the next five years” Politically, maybe, but the inevitable failure of the political…May 9, 10:13
    • Andrea on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Can someone tell me, what are the conditions of eligibility for the SP? I am thinking about the new green…May 9, 10:06
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    • Al on And Nothing Happened Forever: “40.5% of a 53% turnout – something like 20% of the voting age population – pathetic!May 9, 09:52
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    • diabloandco on And Nothing Happened Forever: “He doesn’t need to search for it , he found a looong time ago.May 9, 09:47
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    • ALANM on And Nothing Happened Forever: “At least we’ll now be spared the gruesome sight of Swinney and Starmer going head to head in an independence…May 9, 09:09
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    • robertkknight on And Nothing Happened Forever: “My god… The delusional and willfully blind are breathtaking. The SNP has haemoraged 414,127 constituency votes and 428,465 regional votes…May 9, 08:53
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    • Aidan on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Well it doesn’t seem to have done judging by the results!May 9, 08:34
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    • ScottieDog on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Yes, made that comment on SM yesterday. Perfect result for Swinney. And of course, mandate aside, the press will associate…May 9, 08:14
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