Wings Over Scotland

Two ostensibly-unrelated stories from today’s Scottish press leap out at each other with such force you fear the collision could almost create an actual thunderstorm.

“Benefits reform ‘to force 1 in 4 into poverty'”, roars Scotland On Sunday’s second-top story above a curiously makeover-ish picture of Margaret Curran and news of a report by the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations which predicts that hundreds of thousands of children and vulnerable women (in particular) will be pushed into financial catastrophe by the Westminster government’s benefit cuts.

Curran is then quoted as attacking the UK coalition because it’s “prepared to cut the incomes of hard-working Scottish families at a time when people are already struggling to make ends meet”, and demanding “welfare reform that works”. Which makes a story in this morning’s Sunday Herald all the more bewildering.

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Alert readers will recall earlier this month, when the Herald reported that the “flag riots” still going on in Belfast were to spread to Scotland. The paper noted that:

“Demonstraters supporting the Loyalist Union flag dispute in Northern Ireland are turning their attention to Scotland’s independence referendum, with a protest planned against senior SNP figures next week. The protesters are planning to picket Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s constituency office on Glasgow’s south side a week on Saturday.

One demonstrator said the protest at Ms Sturgeon’s office was a “No to independence and to protect the Union”.”

The protests in question took place today, with a number of Wings Over Scotland’s intrepid citizen journalists (whose names we’re withholding for their own safety) braving the ever-present threat of British-nationalist violence to record the events for posterity.

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Hello. Someone directed me to your blog today, which I’d have posted this on if I could have been bothered with registering for a “LiveJournal”, “TypePad”, “AIM” or “OpenID” account, whatever the heck those are. But I can’t – at my age I’d rather have a root canal than waste my time signing up to yet another obsolete social-media network for the dubious privilege of commenting on someone’s website – so I’ll write it here instead. You’re welcome to any extra traffic the link will bring you. Consider it a gift.

I don’t consider your post to be “scaremongering”. I consider it a heartbreakingly sad example of something we used to refer to as the “Scottish cringe”, and which is also sometimes known by the term “Stockholm Syndrome”. For someone so evidently young, the terrified conservatism, fear of responsibility and absence of ambition displayed in your post is far more tragic than it is when those much older and more comfortably set in their ways than you recoil in terror from the idea of change.

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The final aspect of the independence debate touched on by Alistair Darling’s interview on Newsnight Scotland last night brought some more much-needed clarity to the situation. In this segment of the programme the issue being pursued by Gordon Brewer was what the Unionist parties were going to offer the Scottish electorate in the way of greater devolution in the event of a No vote.

Uncharacteristically, Darling was a little evasive when Brewer first raised the issue, but thankfully some hard facts were soon forthcoming.

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While we welcomed the definitive answer on the question of an independent Scotland’s relationship to the United Kingdom, we were a little disturbed by something Alistair Darling said about Europe in his Newsnight Scotland interview last night.

It happened at 13m 42s. See what you think. (Emphasis Darling’s own this time.)

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For goodness’ sake. Despite believing we’d laid the issue to rest once and for all, we’re STILL getting comments and tweets from readers who haven’t grasped Alistair Darling’s simple, straightforward explanation of whether Scotland’s decision in the independence referendum would be irreversible and forever, or whether we would instead quickly and inevitably find ourselves back in the Union.

Since you clearly found our previous quotes from the “Better Together” chairman inexplicably ambiguous, we’ve gone back and found a couple more from the same interview that should DEFINITELY clear things up.

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Readers might be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja vu on watching last night's Newsnight Scotland, which featured a rather animated interview with Alistair Darling. Because not for the first time, the No campaign chief seemed to be experiencing a considerable amount of difficulty in getting his story straight.

Let's examine a couple of intriguing snippets.

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February 2012: “Don’t worry, Scotland – the Olympics might be costing you millions of pounds, but look at all the extra tourism you’ll be getting from it to compensate!”

What could possibly go wrong? Bring on the bonanza!

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We’ve already tweeted about this and it’s doing the rounds in general, but as we know lots of you don’t use Twitter we’re just going to give it another little nudge.

We’re enormously jealous of Bella Caledonia today as they have a fantastic exclusive piece by “Trainspotting” author Irvine Welsh, entitled “Scottish Independence And British Unity”. It’s of particular interest from our perspective as it tells of Welsh’s experiences of spending large amounts of time in both Scotland and England, and his conclusions are both perceptive and compelling.

It’s a lengthy read at 5000+ words, but it’s worth every second. Check it out here.

(Mind you, we’d have caught the typos…)

We’ve closed two comment threads today, both of them coincidentally at the 250-comment mark, which we think is the highest ever. Both had descended into pointlessness, with small groups repeating themselves at each other and everyone complaining that everyone else was being rude. By internet argument standards they were very mild indeed, but it seemed a good time to reiterate our moderation policy.

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We had a conversation on Twitter with a fan of The Rangers this evening (though he was terribly upset at the use of the term for some reason). It was sparked by Charles Green’s latest piece of box-office wizardry, in which he gave an interview – watchable for just 99p on the club’s website – professing his fury at the Ibrox side’s apparent exclusion from league reconstruction talks and vowing to remove Rangers International Football Club PLC from Scottish football at the first available opportunity.

And on the face of it, Green has a legitimate complaint. Rule 19 (above) of the SFL Constitution expressly notes that Associate Members such as TRFC are entitled to “attend and speak at” any meeting of the League, though not to vote, and according to Green his club have in fact been completely ignored in the discussions. But beyond that, it’s extremely hard to actually work out what his beef is.

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A short time ago we received an angry message from someone purporting to be a representative of the anti-independence “Better Together” campaign. It read as follows:

Dear Sir,

“Mars is in fact the only place that the Trident weapons system definitely WON’T be going”

I presume you have a link to back that up? It’s absolutely, 100% certain it won’t and can’t go to Mars? Have you taken legal advice, and if so was that general or specific advice, and was the legal adviser a Martian or a universe expert on Martian law?

Perhaps Trident will stay and Scotland in its entirety may have to be sent to Mars! Have you considered that, huh? Huh? No I bet not because you stupid separatist Yes types have never considered these kinds of questions, despite having over 300 years to do it!”

Yours,
Bet R. Together (Mrs),
BRITAIN, THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Wings Over Scotland would like to take this opportunity to retract our earlier assertion. It is entirely possible that either Trident or all of Scotland might be transported to Mars – a situation which would unquestionably result in the safeguarding of thousands, perhaps millions, of jobs, and a much-needed end to the disastrous fear, doubt and uncertainty being experienced by businesses both in Scotland and on the Red Planet.

Such a prospect is, indeed, at least as plausible as that of a UK government granting the Scottish Parliament extra powers in the event of a No vote. We apologise if we have misled readers in any way. Thank you for your attention.