Wings Over Scotland

After a reader revealed that the lonely lady staffing the “Better Together” stall in Dundee yesterday was from the north-east of England, we did a little digging and discovered that she’s so dedicated to the No cause she’s been touring the whole of the UK (and even some farther-flung places) espousing the positive case for the Union.

It took some Euan McColm-esque sleuthing to track down all the evidence, but Wings Over Scotland stops at nothing to bring its readers the news that really matters.

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One of the benefits, if that’s the right word, of the Daily Record’s shambolic new iPad app is that the 30-day trial period means we got to see a print copy of the Sunday Mail today for the first time in years. It was largely like a parochial edition of Heat magazine (“FAT LASS DATES THIN BLOKE” got a spread), but buried 40-odd pages in was a “special report” that doesn’t seem to have made it onto the paper’s website.

The Mail accompanies the report with an editorial entitled “We must not abandon our Geordie pals”, which is very carefully worded in order to give the impression that a Yes vote would be to do just that, without actually saying so. But the actual content of the report is curiously at odds with the headlines.

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The “Better Together” stall at Baxter Park, Dundee earlier today.

Aw. If we’d been there we might even have gone and helped. We’re not made of stone.

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Last year’s argument over the referendum franchise saw the Scottish Government’s view win the day – that the matter should be decided according to a civic definition of nationality, rather than along the ethnic lines proposed by some in the No camp.

But what of the people of non-Scottish ethnic origin who’ve been thus enfranchised and entrusted with the future of the nation they’ve chosen to make their home?

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It’s been an interesting week for the Scottish media. First the Sun’s website vanished behind the clouds of a paywall, and today the Daily Record unveiled a new version of its tablet app which no longer gives readers the weekday paper for free.

(Both papers, naturally, presented these new restrictions as enhancements.)

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So, slightly to our surprise, we actually just got a reply from Blair McDougall to our email offering to put on a debate between Alistair Darling and Dennis Canavan at a mutually-convenient time and location and with a neutral host.

You can read it below.

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Obviously we tried ringing “Better Together” ourselves again this morning, just before 10am, but once again Blair McDougall was unavailable, and the person we spoke to couldn’t tell us when would be a good time to catch him as he’d be “in and out” of the office throughout the day.

We took that to mean that he was currently out, so we called him on his mobile.

(We’ve blanked the bit where he gives out another “Better Together” mobile number, as we don’t know if that one was publicly accessible like Mr McDougall’s was.)

We’ve sent an email to the specified address. We’ll try a text after that.

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As alert readers will be aware, we’re having an inexplicably hard time getting hold of “Better Together” campaign chief Blair McDougall at the moment. Although the No camp constantly claims to want “debate” and we’ve already got the Yes side’s agreement, for some reason Mr McDougall still hasn’t accepted our invitation to have BT’s official spokesman, Alistair Darling, go up against his Yes counterpart Dennis Canavan in a public head-to-head at a mutually convenient time and location.

Despite our trying to get in touch with Mr McDougall every day for the last week, he always seems to be out or “in meetings”, even if we call 60 seconds after he’s just posted a tweet. And when we leave messages with BT staff, he never gets back to us.

Obviously we’re pretty busy and can’t just sit here redialling every two minutes, so if any of you get a spare moment to call the BT office today, can you ask them – very politely, please – if he’s in, and if so whether he’s got an answer for us yet? Ta.

That number again: 0141 225 6288.

(Link.)

Michael Moore is the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Keep that in mind when you read the next line.

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Some of the more cynical independence supporters among our readership may today be asking themselves “What is it that Labour are trying to bury today with all this ludicrously farcical ‘Labour For Independence’ business?” 

Allow us to suggest a few possibilities.

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