Wings Over Scotland

As we’ve noted before, the Independent is by a large distance the most English of all the UK’s “national” newspapers. Alone among its peers, it has no Scottish edition, no Scottish news section, no Scottish editor, not even a full-time Scottish correspondent. It struggles to shift 3,000 (not a typo – THREE thousand) copies a day in Scotland.

So if we were conducting a panel debate about Scotland on a news channel, we’re not sure that the paper’s chief political commentator Steve Richards is the guy we’d call for expertise. But the BBC, bless it, has other ideas.

That notwithstanding, today’s edition of Dateline London was an interesting watch. Correspondents from the USA, China and Greece, and host Gavin Esler, offered some largely insightful comments, only occasionally interrupted by Richards butting in in a desperate attempt to get the discussion back on the standard UK-media line.

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The Scottish and UK press has been packed solid for the last 48 hours with strangely uniform assessments of how George Osborne has conclusively smashed the Scottish Government’s position on an independent Scotland’s currency.

We’ve offered our own analysis, and various politicians and professional activists on the No side have been pouring ugly, borderline-xenophobic scorn and sneering on other nations which use some of the alternative options to a formal Sterling union, which is usually a sure sign that they’re scared of something.

So it seemed worthwhile to collect together the views of some proper financial experts in one place for handy reference, because the cosy consensus in the UK media doesn’t seem to be reflected by people who actually know what they’re talking about. Read the rest of this entry →

Sometimes you have to wonder if the Scottish Wars of Independence are actually over. Throughout many long centuries, Scottish independence was seen by England not just as a threat, but as something that wasn’t actually legal.

Throughout the medieval period, the argument revolved around homage – which Scottish King had done homage to which English king, hence confirming the fact of feudal overlordship and thus the Scottish monarch’s subordinate position. When that was denied, violence was the usual result. And in his own only slightly more modern way, George Osborne this week declared the same war once more.

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Okay, readers, there’ve been quite a few 18-hour work days recently, and an awful lot of pain-in-the-arse stuff to deal with. Tonight I’m kicking back, cracking open a smooth and spicy Bundaberg Ginger Beer, and playing TxK.

Talk amongst yourselves. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Labour’s Michael Kelly on last night’s Newsnight Scotland, explaining that Scottish Labour MPs and MSPs would “to a person” back Ed Balls refusing a currency union, even if it damaged Scotland, because otherwise Labour might lose a UK election:

It’s nice to know clearly and unambiguously where Scotland stands as far as Scottish Labour’s concerned, isn’t it, readers? The only purpose of Scottish votes is to get Labour into power at Westminster, even if it means hurting Scotland to do it.

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In our public-funded role of monitoring the Scottish and UK media, readers, there is but one major frustration. Time and again we find ourselves figuratively – and occasionally really – screaming at newspapers or TV screens, unable to understand why we’re the only people who can actually hear what politicians are saying.

In a world full of seasoned political reporters, it seems inconceivable that we’d be the only people who understand their special language of evasion and obfuscation and code, yet over and over, journalists and broadcasters seem unable to pick up on comments that couldn’t be any clearer if they were written out in neon tubes, taped to a hammer and smashed into the interviewer’s face.

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Can’t wait to read these two stories in the morning.

Goodnight, readers.

The man the No campaign want to keep in charge of Scotland’s finances:

Britain and Scotland’s journalists have set a high bar for stupid today, but this might take the biscuit. Almost every half-cut hack and so-called expert who talks about the currency options open to Scotland casually mentions that Scotland “could join the Euro”. Whether such people are doing so through ignorance of the rules of the Eurozone or through malicious intent is for observers to decide, but either way, this particular piece of witless misinformation just will not go away.

So, let’s make it nice and easy for all the lazy people who can’t be bothered Googling “Eurozone Convergence Criteria”, shall we?

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The term “angels’ share” comes from the ancient Scottish tradition of Whisky making and refers to the phenomenon of sealing up a volume of whisky in an oak barrel only to find less fluid in the sealed barrel when it’s re-opened. We can only assume that it was a mite confusing to people in the past to have sealed up a resource and find when they opened it back up that it was less than before.

Specifically, it’s the portion of a whisky’s volume that’s lost to evaporation during the ageing process, which is deemed to have been consumed by angels. But there’s a more modern version of the “angels’ share” at play in modern Scotland, and this one’s a celestial snaffling not of whisky, but of Scotland’s money.

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It’s been hard to miss the constant shrieking from Unionists in recent days (and indeed, weeks and months) about the consequences of an independent Scotland telling the rUK where to shove its debt in the event of a non-cooperative approach to negotiations. The words “renege” and “default” are repeated constantly, sometimes dozens of times in a single interview, alongside dire warnings that international markets would regard Scotland as some sort of pariah state.

This is of course utter bumguts – to use the proper financial jargon – on about half a dozen levels. An independent Scotland would in such circumstances have no debt, a budget surplus (because our current deficit is entirely down to UK debt repayments – without those Scotland would be in the black BEFORE it even factored in savings from different policy choices, like the £800m a year on defence), and a vast reserve of tangible resources, most notably oil, as security.

The rUK, by comparison, would have a debt of £1,500,000,000,000 and a huge budget deficit. If you were going to lend someone money, would you choose the guy living within his means with plenty of assets, or the guy who already owes his entire annual salary and is still spending more than he earns?

Nevertheless, we were still intrigued to see the comments of Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, in his published advice to the Chancellor today, because we like it when people who aren’t on our side agree with us.

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The most significant message of George Osborne’s much-trailed speech in Edinburgh today wasn’t actually in the speech at all. The text itself was drivel, founded largely on arguments discredited literally years ago – chiefly that an independent Scotland would have to bear all the costs were one of its banks to go bust again.

(Yes, the same banks we’re told would in fact have relocated to England. Sigh.)

When he finally got down to the brass tacks, even his actual threat – that he would be “unable to recommend” a currency union in the event of Scottish independence, and that therefore “it is not going to happen” – was essentially completely meaningless. It was nothing more than politicking, a threat which could and would be easily reversed in the event of an actual Yes vote.

The real menace behind the speech lay elsewhere.

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