There’s a curious column in today’s Scottish Sun on the subject of the Smith Commission. We’re going to have to quote quite a large chunk of it to make our point.
As the Unionist press and parties indulge in orgasmic paroxysms this week about how “The Vow” has allegedly been delivered and exceeded, it rings even stranger that absolutely nobody wants to claim the credit for authoring the historic document that saved the UK. Our investigations continue.
We’ve had another letter from the government.
Peeking at the Twitter accounts of the country’s more prominent Unionists has been an especially entertaining pastime today, as self-awareness has been cast aside even more vigorously than usual in a concerted attempt to attack new pro-independence daily The National as being an uncritical mouthpiece of the SNP akin to the infamous Russian propaganda newspaper Pravda (mostly despite those concerned admitting to not having read the first issue).
It’s surely a tribute to the pedigree and potential of the new paper that the prospect of Unionists only having 97% of the Scottish media on their side has them hoiking toys from prams with such squealing abandon, and it’s both curious and hilarious that 35 newspapers in favour of the Union was a perfectly acceptable manifestation of the freedom of the press but a single one in favour turns Scotland into the Soviet Union.
But more to the point, there’s a far better candidate for the “McPravda” sobriquet.
In the wake of the story carried by many newspapers today about Scottish Labour changing its position on the devolution of taxation for (by our count) the 15th time, we thought it only fair that we should let each of the three candidates for the branch office managership explain it in their own words.
We’re certain that it’ll all be clear once they’re finished.
The talk of the steamie in this weekend’s Sunday papers is that Scottish Labour are set to backpedal on the devolution of 100% of income tax, a position previously described by Gordon Brown – the great architect of “The Vow” – as a “Tory trap” which was “not in Scotland’s interests”.
(Coincidentally, the papers also report that Brown, who said he would personally ensure the safe delivery of the new devolution settlement, will stand down at the 2015 election in order to devote more time to his “charity” work.)
It is, of course, a challenge to keep track of Labour’s position on the move from one day to the next. In 2013 it wanted to devolve all taxation, then in 2014 it decided as its final settled position that it wasn’t a good idea after all, and has flip-flopped on a more or less weekly basis ever since. Just this month the favourite for the Scottish branch office leadership, Jim Murphy, poured cold water on the notion, but now it seems yet another U-turn is on the cards.
We wouldn’t put a lot of money on it being the last one.
From an editorial in today’s Daily Record:
“The debate in the House of Commons yesterday proved once and for all that The Vow is doing its job.
The Prime Minister insisted no review is ‘on the horizon’, saving valuable funds for Holyrood.”
But that isn’t a very accurate report of events, for several reasons. Not least of them is the fact that David Cameron wasn’t even there.
Earlier today we published an email from Daily Record editor Murray Foote about “The Vow”. In it he referred to an editorial published in the paper on 8 September, attacking the “confused” and “shambolic” position of the three Unionist parties on further devolution to Scotland in the event of a No vote.
The infamous “Vow” was their response. When publishing it on 16 September, two days before the referendum, the Record announced on its front page that “NOW VOTERS CAN MAKE AN INFORMED CHOICE”, thereby implying that “The Vow” had delivered what the 8 September editorial had demanded.
Readers can judge for themselves.
Disappointingly, we haven’t received a reply from Daily Record editor Murray Foote to our email yesterday inquiring into the provenance of “The Vow”.
However, an alert reader who wrote to him yesterday did. You can read it below.
Below is a letter from the editor of the Daily Record sent to a Wings reader yesterday (and, we presume, to many others). We thought you might find it interesting.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
