Wings Over Scotland

This is a version of a piece I originally wrote for my personal blog way back in April 2011. Scottish Vote Compass no longer appears to be live, but the data is still extremely pertinent, as Labour continue to propagate the lie that left-of-centre social democrats can realise their goals by voting No to independence and electing Labour into power at Westminster.

It was called the “me-too” election. The Scottish media was (and still is) full of the widely-repeated wisdom that three of the four main parties contesting Holyrood seats (the other being the Tories, who nobody votes for in Scotland anyway) have triangulated (ie stolen each other’s policies) to such an extent that there’s almost nothing left to choose between them on ideology, and elections are now just a personality contest. But is it true?

Labour politicians and activists are fond of labelling the SNP with the tag “Tartan Tories“. This is because Labour’s primary strategy in most Scottish elections (whether for Westminster or Holyrood) is to paint themselves as the ideological opposite of the Conservatives, and therefore Scotland’s best protection against them.

It’s a message that plays well in Labour’s heartlands in and around Glasgow, because the Scottish electorate still has a visceral hatred of the Tories – especially if it’s framed around memories of Margaret Thatcher, a figure of near-mythical dread and evil in Scotland even though over 20 years have passed since she last held political office.

But even Labour’s most fervent supporters in the media grew tired of the party’s attempts to keep fighting decades-old battles, amid signs that the Scottish voters want the Scottish Government to decide what happens in Scotland rather than have them be used as an ineffectual stick to beat the Westminster coalition with.

Despite all the coverage about the SNP and Labour having near-identical policies (after the latter experienced sudden road-to-Damascus U-turns on long-standing policies about freezing the council tax and university funding), though, nobody seems to have done any actual research on whether it’s true or not – and if it isn’t, who’s actually closest to who. As ever, then, it was left to Wings over Scotland to apply some journalistic skills and discover the reality.

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After a seemingly endless “phoney war“, we’ve now reached the point where both teams for the 2014 independence referendum have ended their pre-season training and taken to the field for real. The “Yes” campaign saw the launch of the Yes Scotland in a cinema in Edinburgh, with readings from politicians and celebrities, music, the affirmation of goals and the rolling out of a new independence declaration.

Yes Scotland set an ambitious target of 1 million signatures to the declaration, and backed up the document with stirring calls to action from the likes of former Labour MP and independent MSP Dennis Canavan, Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Green Party, Alex Salmond of the SNP and the always-brilliant Hollywood actor Brian Cox – a man who was proud to support Labour at the start of the Blair project but subsequently became disillusioned and convinced of the merits of independence as a means to improve the chances of achieving what were once traditional Labour goals.

The Yes Scotland site argues that the core reasons for independence are good governance, an end to nuclear weapons on the Clyde, the divergence in cultures and attitudes between the rest of the UK and Scotland (reflected by Scotland’s consistent rejection of the Tories), the maintenance of the social contract, control over our own resources to secure the best returns, and the maintenance of health and education as cornerstones of our society rather than generators of private profit.

By explicitly targetting specific groups like women, “New Scots”, young Scots, businesspeople and creatives for independence, the Yes campaign’s website seeks to provide an all-encompassing platform of civic nationalism focused on inclusiveness and positivity. In contrast, while the “Better Together” hub pays lip service to those two ideals, the essence of its approach is entirely different.

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The “No to independence” campaign launched last month, and at its showpiece event we listened to Alistair Darling talk of the things that we’ve shared as the United Kingdom – we heard him talk proudly, for example, of the NHS and the Welfare State. At the same time David Cameron was spelling out future welfare reforms for a system which will exclude the under 25s from housing benefit and which may lead to people on benefits in the South East receiving more money than those in the less affluent areas of Britain. Once again, David Cameron is targeting the poor and the most vulnerable in society in an effort to fix the mess that the rich and the greedy caused.

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Due to a family bereavement and attendant commitments, posts on Wings Over Scotland will probably be fairly sporadic for the rest of this week. We’ll do what we can, though, and full normal service should be resumed on Monday 16th.

A possible watershed: Annan Athletic have declared their opposition to admitting Sevco Scotland FC (change of name pending) to Division 1 of the Scottish Football League. By our calculations, that means that the Charles Green-owned company can NOT now obtain the 15 votes it needs to secure admission – 14 clubs are opposed, two have declared in favour, two are abstaining and 12 have not made their position known, leaving Sevco with a maximum of 14 votes.

Much water remains to pass under the bridge before Friday’s meeting, of course. The SFA, SPL and SFL might yet pull some desperate new trick with the rulebook, or increase their bribes to the lower-league clubs enough to turn some heads. But at the present moment in time, Sevco FC will be playing – at best – in SFL3 next season.

We’re a bit bemused by a story reported in the Herald this morning, which makes a fairly dramatic headline claim:

“Scottish voters are turning strongly against independence, according to the latest opinion poll, which shows the cross-party No camp charging ahead with a record 20-point lead.

The snapshot by TNS BMRB – taken after both campaign launches – puts those against independence on 50% and those in favour on 30%; the latter figure being the lowest received for independence in five years of surveys by the Edinburgh-based pollster.”

We were even more bemused when we went to the TNS BMRB site to examine the details and found no mention of it. Now, we’re sure the Herald hasn’t just made it up and that it’ll appear shortly, but the odd thing was that we DID find mention of some other polling by the same company on the subject, conducted just two weeks ago.

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Dear Chairman,

You are, it appears, being placed under almost intolerable pressure to do Scottish football’s dirty work for it. You’ve been handed the responsibility for dealing with a farcical mess of a situation despite having had no part in creating it. You’ve been threatened, cajoled and bullied into doing what the SFA and SPL didn’t have the guts to do for themselves. Over recent days you’ve been fed a great deal of misinformation, scaremongering and outright abuse designed to intimidate you into going along with a course of action that undermines every principle of sporting integrity.

I understand, however, that as chairman your job is to take hard-headed business decisions in your club’s interests, rather than to uphold lofty ideals even where doing so would lead your club into bankruptcy. So I hope you’ll consider the following facts before you decide how to vote at the SFL’s Special General Meeting on July 13.

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The past week’s most viewed posts, for the benefit of latecomers. With both Parliaments on holiday, see if you can guess which story overwhelmingly dominated the news agenda of the last seven days.

Ranging far and wide
Jim Traynor’s sudden change of mind

Scottish football decides
LIVE POST: How the SFL clubs are likely to vote on Friday 13th.

Straightening the record
LIVE POST: Busting the myths around the Sevco fiasco.

The customer is always scum
The SFA and SPL’s hatred of their customers revealed.

Stop this sick filth
Token story not about Rangers!

The end of the world
Stewart Regan predicts Armageddon.

For those who doubt
Uncovering the Unionist agenda of Rangers fans.

Why we write about Rangers
Why nationalists should care what happens at Ibrox.

Quick number crunching
Will Sky really cut off their nose to spite their face?

It’s not just us
How everyone else is struggling for politics news too.

We should be grateful for the ongoing Rangers circus. With both the Scottish and UK Parliaments now off on their summer recesses, we’re entering what newspapers traditionally call the “silly season”, where there’s little for political reporters to cover and they’re reduced to fabricating copy out of nothing to fill their sections.

Even so, the Herald’s front-page splash today is a bit desperate. Watch in amazement as the dramatic headline (“Cameron under pressure to stage vote on independence“) crumbles to pieces before your very eyes in the space of a few short sentences:

Frustration is growing in Whitehall that Alex Salmond is “dragging his feet” on sorting out key issues surrounding the 2014 poll, most notably on whether there should be one or two questions.

To be able to deliver the SNP Government’s preferred time-table, it is thought there is just a matter of months to pin down the technical details of the referendum. By next spring, if agreement has not been reached, then the Prime Minister faces a major political dilemma.

Asked if he might have to decide Westminster will legislate to hold an independence referendum in Scotland, a senior Coalition source told The Herald: “Potentially, this is a scenario he may have to face.””

So let’s break that down. “A few months” in fact means “almost a year”, while “Cameron under pressure” actually translates into “POTENTIALLY, Cameron MAY come under pressure, at some point in the fairly distant future, IF the Scottish Government’s consultation process hasn’t resolved itself in a manner everyone can live with, and IF Cameron then decides to commit electoral suicide by imposing a London-run referendum on Scotland”. Well, hold the front page.

We’re reminded of a popular Scottish phrase regarding the addition of certain physical appendages to the person of one’s grandmother in order that she might be denoted one’s grandfather. We commend the Herald on their powers of invention in a lean news period, and will now get back to our piece on what the constitutional implications will be if Michael Moore is unexpectedly revealed to be a Nazi from the moon.

It’s becoming impossible to keep track of all the lies, disinformation, smoke and mirrors surrounding the Rangers fiasco at the moment. We’ll try to update this page with at least the more egregious ones as they arise. Let’s get started.

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For any of you sick of football talk (to be honest, that includes us) and questioning this blog’s oft-stated belief that the fate of Rangers FC (IL) and the fate of the independence campaign are intertwined, we attach below the minutes of the Rangers Fans’ Fighting Fund meeting held earlier this week at Ibrox Stadium. As far as we’re able to ascertain they’re genuine, and we thank the alert reader who sent us the link. The entire document is below, but we’ll highlight the relevant passage right here:

“A representative from Denny then informed the panel that he had four reasons why we should go into Division 3. First he believed it would test Charles Green resolve; secondly he believed it would show the benefit of Auchenhowie and allow the management team to gain experience. Third, it would galvanise and unite the Rangers support, and lastly it would allow us to move on and concentrate on defeating the SNP’s fight for independence.”

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Sky TV has somewhere in the region of 1 million subscribers in Scotland, of whom approximately 50% will also be Sky Sports subscribers.

Assuming all subscribers, both Sports and non-Sports, have the most basic package available (£21.50/month without Sports, £42.50/month with), that means Sky’s gross domestic-viewer revenue in Scotland is roughly £32m/month, or £384m/year.

The deal Sky signed with the Scottish Premier League for live broadcast rights over the next five years will see it pay the SPL around £1.3m/month, or £16m/year.

Should Sky pull out of the TV deal entirely in the event of Sevco Rangers FC being placed in SFL3 (or worse), and some subscribers cancel their service – either in anger or simply because it no longer includes Scottish football – the proportion of Scottish customers leaving which would lead to Sky making a net loss is just over 4%.

If we restrict ourselves to Sky Sports subscribers alone, and assume that they only cancel their Sports package (keeping their other channels), the figure is 13%. Or put another way, if Sky completely abandon Scottish football they need to still hang onto almost 90% of their Sports subscribers in Scotland in order not to lose money.

Simplified, obviously. Just thinking out loud.