Wings Over Scotland

Readers will be aware that while we still link to articles in the Scotsman, we rarely encourage anyone to read pieces by Brian Wilson or Michael Kelly. Both generally issue furious, barely-coherent rants consumed by a blind, absolute tribal hatred of anything in any way connected to the SNP and/or independence, and amount to little more than professional trolling.

We’re not going to make an exception for Wilson’s latest, a spittle-flecked diatribe (fuelled by the Scotsman’s favourite useful idiot Jim Sillars) about how the idea that an independent Scotland could have an open border with the rUK is “ridiculous”, and that there would have to be border controls and passport checks. If you really want to read it you can go and find it for yourself.

But we thought it might be interesting to see if we could find a couple of comparable neighbouring countries (eschewing the obvious example of Ireland, which is for some reason apparently invisible to Unionists) and see how they handled it.

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We thought we might as well actually put figures to the impact of Rangers’ liquidation on the rest of the clubs in the SPL in season 2012-13. So we did. If you don’t want to read another article about football, look away now.

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“World’s biggest wave energy farm off Lewis gets go-ahead” (Herald):

“Edinburgh wave energy developer Aquamarine Power says the project along the coast at Lag na Greine, near Fivepenny Borve, described as one of the best wave energy locations in Europe, could power nearly 30,000 homes.”

“Scotland warned independence could cost billions in renewable subsidies” (Guardian):

“Private sector investors have repeatedly warned that they will reconsider their investments in renewables in the UK if the political environment is perceived to be hostile or policies liable to be revised in future. Many Tory MPs have fuelled this uncertainty through outspoken attacks on renewables and the subsidies for them.”

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This story was on the front page of the Scotsman website when we were checking the papers at 7am. It’s now not only vanished from the front page, but from every index we can find. We tried finding it with the site’s Search function using the words in the headline, but none of them bring it up.

We eventually managed to locate it via Google, hidden two-thirds of the way down the Business page, but in case it gets deleted for good, you can find it below.

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Johann Lamont used to be an English teacher. We presume she was a conscientious and caring educator. We imagine she’s as horrified and embarrassed by this press release from the train-drivers’ union ASLEF yesterday as we are.

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The SNP has been assailed from all directions at once recently on the subject of Corporation Tax in an independent Scotland. Radical left-wingers say there’s no point in independence if we’re just going to ape neoliberal policy. The No camp insists both that a “race to the bottom” would be destructive and counter-productive and morally wrong, and that we wouldn’t be allowed to anyway.

(Even the Tories attack the idea, despite having just stolen it wholesale.)

At the same time, the Scottish Government has been bombarded with criticism for giving grants to companies like Amazon, who received more money in the UK from government handouts than they paid in tax. (Despite the company’s tax avoidance being wholly in the remit of the Westminster government rather than the Holyrood one.)

We don’t mind telling you, readers, we’re a bit confused.

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The debate about whether Scotland could survive and flourish outside the Union is uncannily similar to the one that filled the media a year ago about whether Scottish football could live without Rangers. (And which by a strange and almost inexplicable coincidence tends to feature many of the same people on the respective sides.)

As the events of the spring and summer of 2012 unfolded, even the game’s own governing body insisted that separating the rest of the SPL from the Union Jack-loving Ibrox club would reap a disastrous whirlwind of destruction, with businesses (sponsors) fleeing in terror and clubs becoming impoverished without the generous subsidy of thousands of visiting Rangers fans.

In the end, despite the most strenuous efforts of the SFA, SPL and SFL to override the wishes of their customers with a campaign of relentless and increasingly-hysterical fearmongering, the new “Rangers” was denied both entry to the SPL and a “leapfrog” into SFL 1, and joined Scottish football at the lowest professional level.

So how did post-apocalypse life turn out in the people’s game?

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A stunning piece in the Telegraph eventually ran away with the vote in our British Loony Of The Week poll at the weekend. But what we didn’t realise at the time was that we were in fact only conducting the first semi-final. We’ve got two more absolute crackers for you to enjoy today.

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…of welfare reform, we thought you might like to hear this. It’s a short (four and a half minutes) interview with a doctor formerly employed by Atos Healthcare, broadcast on the Today show on Radio 4 last Thursday. Atos were hired to do this work by Labour, and retained by the Tories and Lib Dems. But you knew that already, right?

If you want to listen to the whole segment, it’s from 20 minutes.

Yesterday the Daily Record led with a front-page splash about Labour-controlled South Lanarkshire council threatening to evict a tenant over bedroom tax arrears. Today the paper carries a profuse apology from the council’s leader Eddie McAvoy insisting that the letters were sent in error, although the recipient was unconvinced:

“The council last night hand delivered a letter of apology to Angela. But she said: “I don’t believe a mistake was made in the first place and it is only because I appeared in the Record that the council have backed down.””

The Record was deeply sceptical too, issuing a sternly-worded rebuke to the council in an editorial leader column which also pointed out other unsightly goings-on in the “long-time Labour fiefdom”.

We must presume that rogue elements in Labour are at fault, then.

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With the latest Westminster fearbomb, we mean. We’ve covered the pensions thing in considerable detail already, so the Treasury’s attack was outdated before it was even launched. It’s becoming increasingly plain with every passing day than an independent Scotland would be better off financially than the rest of the UK (unless we get “more powers” after a No vote, that is), so why would it have more difficulty paying pensions?

After all, the UK government didn’t put the effort in to construct an even minimally coherent case, so frankly we don’t see why we should. We’re going for a pie.

The Sunday Mail, 19 May 2013:

“Labour are meant to be convincing Scots that we can trust them with our future. On this evidence, you would not trust them to go to the garage for chocolate.”

The Observer, 19 May 2013:

“The Scots are accustomed to having their views ignored in the British political system. Despite voting consistently for the left, Scotland has been governed by Labour for only 30 years out of 68. If England is set to elect the Conservatives, in other words, it’s hardly worth going out to vote in Scotland at all: we know what we’ll get.”

And today in QFT we’ve got three for the price of one.

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