Wings Over Scotland

The devil, they say, is in the detail, and that certainly seems to apply to the UK Government’s first paper on the consequences of Scottish independence. With remarkably little fanfare, the coalition appears to have dropped an atomic bomb into the heart of the constitutional debate, and not even realised it.

The core premise of the document appears to be the counter-intuitive idea that the UK can have it both ways – it can insist that an independent Scotland would be a brand-new nation with no rights to any of the shared property of the UK, but that it would somehow simultaneously be responsible for its full share of the UK’s liabilities. Michael Moore is quoted saying precisely that in today’s Herald.

The justification for this outwardly-absurd claim rests on an astonishing assertion lurking unassumingly in a series of paragraphs in the middle of the paper. We’ve copied it below and highlighted a couple of the relevant phrases.

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There will be uncountable acres of newsprint expended on analysing the UK Government’s paper released today on the implications of Scottish independence for EU membership. If you’re in a hurry, though, the entire document is comprehensively and accurately summed up in these two paragraphs from Part V, Section (3):

Even shorter version: if the EU wants us in automatically (something which is plainly in absolutely everyone’s interests, including the rUK’s), then we’ll be in automatically, no matter what the small print says. And that’s that.

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Recently we’ve mentioned a concept we called the “invisible hypothetical”. It refers to a form of media bias characterised by omission, and which is therefore hard to prove. This morning’s edition of the Scotsman carries a conveniently striking example.

Taken solely on its own merits, the article below the headline is impossible to fault. It notes the figure claimed today by the UK Government for the number of treaties an independent Scotland would be required to (at least theoretically) renegotiate, and even refers – obliquely and neutrally – to the previously-cited figure of 14,000.

In that oblique neutrality, of course, lies the rub.

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For all the staggeringly impressive total to date, fewer than 500 of our 30,000+ readers have currently donated even a single £1 to our fundraising campaign. If you’re one of the other 29,500 – and statistically you almost certainly are – there’s a certain lion who wants a wee word with you this morning.

EXCLUSIVE! Wings Over Scotland discovers that after studying a number of secret UK Government documents the BBC is resigned to a Yes vote, has already removed Scotland from all its maps of the “United Kingdom”, and is preparing to replace the whole of BBC Scotland with Jeremy Clarkson after independence.

Eggheads is going to be a bit different.

Unionists can often be heard protesting that the phrase “too wee, too poor, too stupid” is a dreadful Nat calumny which nobody on the No side has ever actually uttered. And of course they’re technically right – not even “Better Together” is quite stupid enough (and certainly not honest enough) to come out and use the phrase in its overt form.

A Coalition source said the report would highlight the weakness of Scotland’s negotiating position with the EU if it was to leave the UK, given the size of its population and economy, which would relegate the Scots to Europe’s minor leagues.

“At these European summits, you see all the key players moving around, the French, the Germans and the British. But where are the Danish? They’re nowhere. It’s not that Denmark is not significant, but it’s not as important as these other nations, simply because of its size.”

That quote, taken from a story in today’s Sunday Herald, seems to be pretty closely related to the first two of the unholy trinity, though.

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The Telegraph’s crotchety old relic Alan Cochrane is usually a figure of comic fun for independence supporters. But now and again the Tory dinosaur’s prehistoric polemic conceals something more dangerous. In a misguided attempt to add hard numbers to a piece yesterday reporting Teresa May’s speech about spies, Cochrane seems to have used Wikipedia for some information on Swedish and Danish domestic intelligence services and come up with this:

“For instance, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, which is part of the country’s police force, has 650 officers. Sweden, which is not a member of Nato, has over 1,000 officers in its security, counter terrorism and intelligence service – SAPO – which has an annual budget, according to one estimate, of £800 million.”

“According to one estimate”? That’s an interesting choice of words. Unfortunately someone wasn’t reading closely enough. Wikipedia’s English-language page on Säpo does indeed say that it had a budget of around 800m in 2008. Except it wasn’t £800m, but 800 million Swedish Kronor. At today’s exchange rate that’s around £80 million. Mr Cochrane has, in his fury, overstated Sweden’s intelligence budget by 1,000%. Oops.

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It sometimes feel as though the jagged, jittery line stretching from Gretna to Berwick isn’t so much a border as a fracture in a mirror, through which things look different according to which side of it you’re standing on.

On its south side, Labour decry a Tory government as the worst thing that can possibly happen. To the north, it’s an inconvenience Scots must bear for six or seven years out of every ten despite always rejecting the Conservatives at the ballot box, because to cast them out decisively would be selfish, childish “narrow nationalism”.

Scottish Labour MSPs abstain from voting for the replacement of Trident nuclear weapons, presenting a transparent lie of opposition to the weapons of global destruction. But something about the short train journey to London persuades Scottish Labour’s MPs to advocate Trident replacement enthusiastically, demanding only to know what else can be cut to ensure there’s enough money for it.

When in Scotland, the Tories and Lib Dems in the coalition government issue dire warnings that an independent Scotland would be cast out of the European Union and into international isolation. Safely back home in England, the Prime Minister promises UK voters a referendum that (according to polls) will achieve that very end.

The Huffington Post quotes the PM today on the subject of Scottish independence.

“He questioned why people should be made to choose between Scotland or Britain when they could be part of both, adding: “Britain works. Britain works well. Why break it?”“

But hang on. “Britain ain’t broke, don’t fix it” wasn’t Mr Cameron’s previous view.

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Whoah! We were starting to think SoS had lost its touch. But neigh chance.

Astonishingly, this really is the mane article on the paper’s front page today. Some hack must have noticed there were no “SNP accused” stories in this week’s edition and made something up on the hoof, in an attempt to give those beastly Nats a shoeing and stirrup a shocking tail out of nothing. What a load of old pony.

It’d give anyone who believes in a balanced Scottish media a really long face.

Remember when some of us made a bit of a fuss about the epically tasteless plans for the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1, and were angrily told by various indignant British nationalists that the planned events were a “commemoration, not a celebration”? Turns out you can’t keep the truth down for long.

Astonishingly, the government even wheeled out some unbelievable numbnuts of a defence minister who offered up the following quote to describe this great sporting showpiece in which we will again be encouraged to see the Germans as our enemies:

“A no-brainer in terms of an event that is going to reach part of the community that perhaps might not get terribly entrenched into this”

Yep. He really said “entrenched”. Still, we agree with the first three words.

For those who haven’t already seen it on Twitter, we’ve been trying to follow up a recent comment made by James Kelly of the splendid Scot Goes Pop! blog, and we’ve drawn a blank. So: does anyone know when the UK Labour Party gave up its full membership of the Socialist International?

The party’s website still claims to be a member, and the Wikipedia entry concurs, so the change of status is likely quite recent*. But the SI’s own site is clear that the party is no longer a participating member, merely an observer. Yet we’ve turned Google upside down searching for any sort of news story about it anywhere.

(And since UK Labour has been an active member for the entire period of the international group’s existence – joining it when it took its present form in 1951 – you’d think someone somewhere would have seen fit to mention an event as significant as it leaving “the worldwide organisation of social democratic, socialist and labour parties”.)

Anyone?

.

*[EDIT @ 13.12: An alert reader uncovers an entry on archive.org still listing the party as a full member as recently as December 27th of last year.)