Wings Over Scotland

We’d be getting a little nervous at the moment if we were citizens of Northern Ireland who wanted to stay part of the United Kingdom. Because over recent weeks and months, the concept of the UK has been increasingly pushed aside, in favour of that of Great Britain. (A construct which, of course, excludes the entire island of Ireland.)

The home team at the London Olympics, lavishly celebrated at the Labour conference yesterday, was branded “Team GB”, rather than “Team UK”, and although there are three devolved administrations and parliaments within the UK, only two of them were featured at the same conference’s “Better Together” session.

The situation in Northern Ireland is none of this site’s concern. But it’s not just the Unionists across the sea who ought to be worried. Because on the strength of what Ed Miliband said in his keynote speech yesterday afternoon, Scotland and Wales face a future of being absorbed, in every practical sense, into a Greater England.

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Ed Miliband’s address to the Labour conference yesterday was billed as one which would completely alter the public perception of the party leader, and revolutionise whether voters saw him as a potential future Prime Minister or not. As you can clearly see from these two snapshots from a Scotland On Sunday poll on the subject, the strategy has been a spectacular success.

This image was from Tuesday morning, before the speech:

And here’s one from a few minutes ago, with the public having had a good 20 hours or so to digest both the speech and the media’s mostly-glowing reaction to it:

Go back to your homes and prepare for the next Labour government, readers. No rush.

…is Hell Yeah! – Wrath Of The Dead Rabbit, which is out today on Xbox 360, PS3 and Steam for PC at the bargaintastic price of around £9.99. It's a heady, super-sexy crush of Sonic The Hedgehog, Super Metroid, Bangai-O, Wario Ware, Pokemon and FIFA 13*, made by the people who brought you the splendid Pix'n Love Rush plus me. Essentially, if you don't buy it you're a complete dick and I hope you die.

Extremely selective review quotes follow.

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We decided it was about time we took in some of the Labour conference, and tuned in this morning in time for the special “Better Together” session, when the party devoted around 40 prime-time minutes early on a Tuesday morning to emphasising just how much the UK values Scotland and Wales (although apparently not Northern Ireland).

Several dozen people crammed into a hall with a capacity of 9,000 to hear Gordon Matheson, Margaret Curran and Johann Lamont represent North Britain, followed by a token Welsh bloke we’ve never heard of and finally the fragrant Dame Tessa Jowell to celebrate “Team GB” and the success of the Great Patriotic Olympics.

The crowd, as you’ll see below, went wild.

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Johann Lamont seems a bit confused today over whether her cap fits or not. Can you help the Scottish Labour “leader” get dressed in time for her big important speech?

Following a passing remark from an unsuspecting reader, we’re beside ourselves with excitement to announce some new additions to our range of Wings Over Scotland-branded quality merchandise at eye-watering prices outwith our control.

Just click this link to magically transport yourself to the Wings Over Scotland Megastore’s brand new “ayeStuff” section, where you’ll find a veritable plethora of cases and protective shells for all manner of Apple devices from the iPhone 3GS/4/4S/5 to the iPad 2/3 and various generations of iPod Touch, all of which have been cunningly modified with a subliminal suggestion as to which way unsuspecting onlookers might like to vote in the 2014 independence referendum.

At the time of writing there’s still a 10% discount available for any purchases over £25 (use code SHOPTY3), but let’s be honest, if there’s anyone used to forking out implausible amounts of money for stuff it’s Apple users.

You do sometimes have to admire the sheer barefaced chutzpah of Scotland’s Labour MPs and MSPs. Take this solid-gold passage from Douglas Alexander’s speech to the Labour conference today, which he apparently delivered with a straight face:

“Just two years into Government and that’s David Cameron in a nutshell: out of touch at home; out of his depth abroad.

But what’s the Conservatives’ strategy for the EU? Nothing, it’s a blank page.

What’s the Conservatives’ strategy for the G20? Nothing, it’s a blank page.

What’s the Conservatives’ strategy for the WTO? Nothing, it’s a blank page.

What’s the Conservatives’ strategy for NATO? Nothing, it’s a blank page.”

No, you’re not imagining that, folks, it really happened – a senior figure from Scottish Labour genuinely just criticised someone else for having no policies on something, less than a week after his own supposed leader had announced that we’ve got at least two more years to wait before their party will deign let the people of Scotland know what they stand for on any subject at all.

We take our hat off to Wee Dougie. Maybe he can hide his bright red face behind it.

So we’re told that Scottish Labour are to launch yet another devolution commission, which will report on which new governmental powers Labour has suddenly realised the Scottish Parliament needs since the Calman Commission closed down in 2009.

(We like to imagine that as they proudly published their last report, someone at the press conference casually asked what they’d concluded about fiscal autonomy, and the Commission board all slapped their foreheads and wailed “Doh! We knew there was something we’d forgotten to talk about!”)

We’ve already examined the commission’s yawning credibility gap ourselves, but over the weekend we digested a couple of articles from more impartial sources that make it even clearer just how hollow and meaningless any Labour promises of greater devolution to come after a No vote in 2014 will be.

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We apologise for running two horn-tooting stories in one week, but we’re blown away, we really are. Back at the start of August we predicted, in all sincerity, a big drop-off in pageviews for this site, because the June and July figures had been inflated by a hefty sprinkling of Rangers stories as that particular circus ricocheted between slapstick and farce on an hourly basis. We were linked from many dozens of different football sites and forums as far apart as Inverness and Portsmouth, and thousands of readers with little to no interest in Scottish politics arrived for a brief visit.

There was indeed a fall in August as we stopped covering the Great Govan Debacle, but a much tinier one than we’d anticipated – just 4% (and more on that in a moment). And this month, to our considerable amazement, we’ve not only recovered the losses but hit another record high: up over 15,000 to 265,203. We only broke the million-views barrier in August, and in September (albeit the 29th) we passed 1.5 million. Wow.

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Scrapping universal free prescriptions would, after the administrative costs of means-testing and suchlike, save Scotland somewhere in the region of £50m a year. By our calculations, it’d take just 254 years before the policy recouped this gigantic Labour waste of NHS money. But every little helps, right, Johann?

Hilariously, the Scottish Labour Party has just announced the personnel for its latest commission on devolution. We’re not quite sure which dramatic events have occurred since its last one, the Calman Commission, concluded that all Scotland needed was a few extra powers over speed limits and airguns. Oh, wait – yes we are.

It seems that a mere 18 months after it happened, Scottish Labour has finally come to terms with the electorate’s contemptuous rejection of its pathetically feeble vision of enhanced devolution. In just a year and a half, it appears to have finally dawned on the slow-witted dinosaurs at John Smith House that the Scottish people are no longer prepared to accept the status quo with a couple of trivial tweaks at the outer edges.

And in a panic, Labour are flailing desperately in all directions at once.

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Sadly these pieces all arrived too late to be included in yesterday’s round-up and poll. But all of them are still pretty unmissable reading. (And didn’t we tell you weeks ago that Kevin McKenna was starting to see the light? Oh ye of little faith.)

LABOUR STILL LOST IN THE WILDERNESS
(Herald View in the Herald)

“Denied power at Holyrood for a second term, Labour appear so warped by their tribal hatred of the Nationalists that they would rather align with the Coalition than the SNP. Instead of recognising a fellow progressive force, they would rather collude in dismantling the welfare state. It is a pitiful sight.”

LABOUR’S WRETCHED SILENCE ON CHILD POVERTY
(Kevin McKenna for the Observer)

“Ms Lamont’s use of the phrase “something for nothing”, as well as coming straight from the grimoire of Margaret Thatcher is, at best, misleading, at worst, downright false… It’s difficult to assess which body of Labour supporters will be most insulted and alienated.”

HOW DID THE PARTY OF SMITH AND DEWAR COME TO THIS?
(Iain Macwhirter for the Herald)

“As a presentational disaster this ranks alongside John Major’s back to basics speech which helped seal the fate of the UK Conservatives in the 1990s. There has been a whiff of decay around Scottish Labour for some years, but I’m beginning to think it has finally popped its clogs.”

LABOUR THROWN INTO A CRISIS
(Socialist Party Scotland for socialistworld.net)

“Labour’s leader has signalled her support for a vicious extension of the cuts agenda and the tearing up of those modest but important advances that still survive in Scotland. In doing so she could also sound the death of Labour in Scotland.”