In a post earlier this morning we made passing reference to the Scottish “cringe” – a sociological phenomenon by which Scots develop a subservient inferiority complex about their culture and abilities, predominantly compared to England. It’s not something we’ve ever suffered from personally, but every once and a while its malevolent force can still be felt nagging at the corner of even the strongest psyche.
An illustrative example was provided by an interview that Liam Byrne, the Labour spokesman for work and pensions, gave to Radio 4’s “Today” programme yesterday on the subject of the party’s proposed reforms to social security should it somehow win the 2015 UK general election.
We had a wee fond chuckle to ourselves this morning when we woke up at some ridiculously ungodly hour and saw the front page of the Scotsman.
Not, you understand, at the thought of millions of Scottish people getting cancer, and certainly not at the Duke of Edinburgh being admitted to hospital, but rather at the staunchly-Unionist paper inexplicably missing a chance to add the words “after independence” or “under SNP” to the headline, as would be its more common practice.
MARGARET CURRAN: Well, what we are saying, and Ed will make his own speech tomorrow, and I don’t have foresight of that… What we are saying is when you get into government, and when we come in in 2015, we won’t be able to do all that we wanted to do… Will child benefit for the wealthiest people be our top priority? I’m not sure about that.
ED MILIBAND, 6-6-2013: When it comes to the decisions of the next Labour government it won’t be our biggest priority to overturn the decisions this government has made on taking child benefit away from families earning over £50,000 a year.
We must admit, for someone who hasn’t seen the speech it’s a heck of a guess. Does anyone want to ask Ms Curran if she’s got a score forecast for Croatia vs Scotland?
It seems worth updating this piece from last September, for the 40,000 of you who weren’t around then. Today, Labour leader Ed Miliband gave a speech on his party’s welfare plans should it win the 2015 UK general election. It contained the following line:
One of the odder quirks about the BBC iPlayer is that it’ll let you rewind live TV broadcasts for up to two hours, but not radio, despite radio using vastly less bandwidth. So at the moment we can’t bring you a verified quote that Liam Byrne really just told Radio 4’s Today programme that the idea of rent controls as a solution to the UK’s housing benefit bill was “going a bit too far”.
But there’s another new Labour welfare policy that’s missing a fairly vital chunk of information this morning, which is even more worrying than the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions having less intelligence, insight, principle and moral courage than a starving weasel.
Heaven’s sent us an angel, folks. Alert reader Jack Deeth is stranded far from home shores (really very far indeed) and stuck for something to do in the long winter nights, he very generously offered us his transcribing services.
We leapt on the offer with undignified haste, and you can read the first results below, in the shape of today’s interview between Margaret Curran and Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics, in which the shadow Scottish Secretary clearly and unambiguously laid out a future Labour government’s spending and welfare plans.
Please don’t make us transcribe this nine-minute trainwreck of an interview with Margaret Curran on the subject of Labour’s welfare and spending plans, from this afternoon’s edition of BBC2’s Daily Politics. We don’t know if we could take it.
Click the image to listen, if you have a high pain threshold.
Along with more direct, overt scaremongering, it’s probably fair to say that the core theme of the “Better Together” anti-independence campaign to date has been “uncertainty”. Day after day sees the media and public assailed with neurotic demands for definitive answers about every conceivable aspect of an independent Scotland that in most cases couldn’t be answered by any nation on Earth, including the UK.
The No camp disastrously overplayed its hand with the “500 questions” fiasco, which saw it subjected to literally worldwide mockery, but it suffered an arguably even more wounding blow today with the release of some figures which blew gaping holes into pretty much everything it’s spent the last 18 months saying.
From the excellent Part 1 of STV’s new documentary “Road To Referendum” (based on the book by Iain Macwhirter, out this week), Labour PM Harold Wilson and Scottish Secretary Willie Ross punt a rather familiar line four decades before Ed Miliband.
We’re sure there’s nothing at all sinister in the fact that the show was unavailable to most viewers due to an unprecedented cross-media technical failure, which also wiped out the STV news at 6pm and this evening’s Scotland Tonight, incidentally.
This morning’s Daily Record carries a story about Ed Balls’ policy speech on welfare yesterday. Commendably, the Labour-supporting paper isn’t shy of pointing out the implications of Balls’ comments:
“Scots could get welfare benefits at lower rates than people in wealthy parts of England under plans being worked on by Labour. Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls yesterday raised the idea of a regional cap on welfare, opening the door to variations in a range of social security benefits.
Balls said the welfare cap of £25,000 a year per household should be higher in London but could be lower in parts of the UK where housing is cheaper.”
We’d have been even more impressed, though, if Wings Over Scotland hadn’t revealed the reality of what Labour’s future plans meant for Scotland almost three weeks ago.
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Geri: Alec Salmond said no such thing. He ensured that women’s rights were embedded in Alba policy. You, like several…” Mar 16, 23:03
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “100%YES: so how do you see it being sorted AFTER independence? Do tell. Because sorting it PRIOR to independence is…” Mar 16, 22:46
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Aye, Northy, if you start by ignoring the fact that the 2022 census found 5.44 million people in Scotland you…” Mar 16, 22:34
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Not saying any of the blokes in Your Party hate women. But many of them are enthusiastic followers of a…” Mar 16, 22:24
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““keep on making weapons on our soil” FFS, Dan, that ship sailed over 4 years ago. “makes you look obsessed…” Mar 16, 22:19
Northcode on Looking up at the stars: “This from the 2022 Scottish Census: 4.74 million Scots identified as white Scottish/British. 62.4% of that number identified as “Scottish…” Mar 16, 22:13
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “I was told that when you finish a packet of smoked salmon, the most environmentally sound course of action is…” Mar 16, 22:09
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Oh, I think he’s given it a great deal of thought, Sarah. He just has a problem with women who…” Mar 16, 22:04
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Best you keep voting for that Union Jack safety blanket then Lorna. Aye, there’s jist no point in returning to…” Mar 16, 21:54
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “H McH: what are you doing? Destroying the only policy we have? If we can’t top anything England does in…” Mar 16, 21:53
sarah on Looking up at the stars: “@ Lorncal at 8.52 p.m.: I feel very much the same as you. The world as it is being run…” Mar 16, 21:30
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “H McH: Every statistic and every study undertaken shows categorically that a country where women are treated as less than…” Mar 16, 21:04
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Hmm, think I’ll finish my fishing session as some quarries jist aren’t worth the effort… But I’m all but fucking…” Mar 16, 20:59
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Sarah: your faith does you proud; but I very much doubt it would be possible to dislodge them after independence…” Mar 16, 20:52
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “I’m sorry to have disappointed you, but equally I do feel the likelihood was always that it was going to…” Mar 16, 20:29
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““It cannot be Gaelic because only 50,000 people speak the latter” Scots speakers are a minority too, Alf. A bigger…” Mar 16, 20:06
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Lebanon is in for a kicking because they lack the ability to expel the terrorist cuckoos who have been occupying…” Mar 16, 20:00
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Dan says: “Would you eat a wild Scottish caught salmon or trout out of the Tay, when we still pump…” Mar 16, 19:56
Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: ““Gaelic, the language of the actual historical ‘Scots’.” No one can dispute this, Fearghas, however it is only ever part…” Mar 16, 19:45
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “We can’t all be related to Adam and Eve. In the pictures, they’re clearly white, white, white. And, TBQFH, that’s…” Mar 16, 19:44
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““maybe you participate in things like that” Nobody is much bothered that you’re “pig curious”, twathater, but you’re defo on…” Mar 16, 19:41
100%Yes on Looking up at the stars: “I suppose if we go right to the beginning were all related to Adam and Eve.” Mar 16, 19:40
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““Majorities of MSPs and MPs at Holyrood and Westminster have led to absolutely no progress whatsoever in the independence fight”…” Mar 16, 19:34
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Dunno what you’re so bitter about, YL. Thought you were celebrating the English losing the war. Don’t tell me you’ve…” Mar 16, 19:23
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Mark Beggan @ 18.01. Perhaps one of the most accurate and depressing posts on WOS btl recently, Mark. Self inflicted…” Mar 16, 18:59
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “To be clear, I ate it this morning, it didn’t come out of the Tay this morning. It was smoked,…” Mar 16, 18:57
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Ach, that’s a pity you don’t like fishing like I do. But make your mind up will you, as after…” Mar 16, 18:50
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “HMcH JML appear to do a portable cushion. Ideal for you with a sore a8se after all that Proud Boys…” Mar 16, 18:45
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Could it be that kilts are just dish cloots we took to wearing around our waists. There being no real…” Mar 16, 18:43
