Oh my goodness. Our deep-cover source inside the “Better Together” HQ has well and truly surpassed themselves this time, with a leak of the No campaign’s latest poster so early that it doesn’t even have the “official” logo in place yet.
We’re in trouble now, folks.
Oh dear, here we go again. The latest Scotsman/SoS poll yesterday afternoon:
And here it is this morning:
This is getting spooky now.
Scottish Labour quasi-leader Johann Lamont at FMQs last month.
We’ve explored the “Kinnock Factor” previously on this site, but some numbers from the latest YouGov weekly polling surprised even us today. Labour’s lead over the midterm Conservative-led government is still falling – to just 6% this time – and Ed Miliband’s personal ratings are even worse than David Cameron’s, but that wasn’t it.
You’ll probably want to click on that image to enlarge it.
Got stuff to write about today. Should really comment on Henry McLeish’s cutting observations about the No campaign, or mock the Daily Record’s hilarious attempt to pretend Johann Lamont’s been driving Labour action over Falkirk all along. But I can’t seem to put sentences together, because I’m still trembling a bit after watching this.
It’s hard to relate it to the Scottish independence debate, except to note that where the US goes, the UK is rarely far behind. (In much the same way that a devolved Scotland ends up following the policies of England within a few years, because without control of your own revenues, taxation and welfare there’s only so much you can juggle a decreasing budget to try to offset the effects.)
I don’t want a “special relationship” any more. I want out.
We don’t often have cause to praise the actions of Tory councillors, so allow us to take the opportunity to salute Cllr David Meikle of Pollokshields for this intervention against braying Spectator idiot (and former star of our Zany Comedy Relief section) Fraser Nelson:
Ooft! Oddly, Nelson hasn’t rushed to also claim Gordon Reid as “British”, despite his being so in just the same way Andy Murray is – perhaps because Gordon and his Dutch doubles partner in fact lost their semi-final yesterday against the top seeds.
We’d previously dismissed the complaint as a tired old nationalist chip-on-the-shoulder hobbyhorse, but it seems that – to BritNats like Nelson at least – it really IS true that sportspeople from Scotland are British when they win and Scottish when they lose.
In a week that will end with the finals of the incredible wheelchair tennis at Wimbledon, it was perhaps understandable that people might not have noticed the UK government sneaking out the announcement that the five remaining Remploy factories in Scotland are to be closed as part of its reform of welfare provision.
(The minister involved, Esther McVey, made very clear that welfare provision was how the government saw the factories, rather than legitimate businesses which happened to be subsidised by the taxpayer, like the UK’s railway companies and banks.)
If only we had a Labour administration at Westminster to protect them, eh?
We won’t do any more of these after this one, honest. But we couldn’t help noticing the Director Of Research for “Better Together” posting this sorry whinge of a tweet last night, unable to resist a chance to have a snipe – however petty – at the First Minister of Scotland for wishing a Scottish sportsman well on behalf of the people of Scotland:
Mr Aikman might want to poll a little wider before repeating that claim.
It’s “Follow Friday” on Twitter (as it is every Friday). So for those of you still scared to take the plunge into this most modern of communication tools, we thought we’d put together a handy one-stop list of 50 of Scottish politics’ most significant tweeters, and see if we can get you started.
(Click the images to visit the pages.)
Relaxing at the splendid American Museum high on the hills at the outskirts of town tonight, celebrating Independence Day on a glorious summer’s evening with a few Budweisers, a barbecue and a couple of hundred ex-pats and well-wishers.
Our turn soon.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
