Wings Over Scotland

The current issue of Private Eye (which also features a fascinating full-page piece on Craig Whyte) relates news of another Labour dividend for the people of Glasgow – the decades-long neglect and imminent destruction of a much-loved green space. We’ve attached the story below for your convenience.

On the upside, though, we’re pretty sure we know where another large green space, which already comes with goalposts, is about to become available.

We’re losing track of all the threats and counter-threats about next season’s SPL. Let’s recap on the latest positions as far as we can discern them:

– Rangers fans are going to boycott their own home games as long as Charles Green remains in charge of the club.

– Rangers fans are also going to boycott away games if penalties are imposed on the newco’s admission to the SPL. (Which seems to be an absolute certainty if they’re admitted at all.)

– Celtic fans are going to boycott away games at any club who votes Yes to admitting the newco (which would of necessity mean at least eight of the 12 teams in the league, possibly including Celtic).

– 54% of Celtic fans are going to boycott ALL games if New Rangers are admitted to the SPL. (A further 36% will boycott Rangers games only.)

– 56% of fans of the other 10 SPL teams will also boycott ALL games in those circumstances. (A further 34% will boycott Rangers games only.)

That seems to be pretty much everyone. As far as we can tell, if Rangers are playing in the SPL next season under Charles Green, the average 2012-13 SPL attendance is going to be about 250 people. We’re not sure Sky are going to be very happy.

After all, we can’t blame a Unionist conspiracy for the borderline-criminal trousers that Alex Salmond inexplicably chose to wear to the world premiere of Brave, and also on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson the same evening.

But we couldn’t help noticing an odd quote in The Scotsman’s report of the event, which the paper happily let end its story, forgetting to close the quotation marks as it did so. According to Kelly MacDonald, voice of the central character:

“She [Merida] is an adventurous tomboy and very happy young woman. The spell is broken when her mother says she has to get married and take on adult responsibilities. That’s when she takes things into her own hands and makes a mess of everything.“

It’s just coincidence, right?

We don’t even like the Doors, but we’re going to reference them twice in the first 30 words: this really is The End for Rangers FC. We’ve passed the evening absorbing and analysing the most recent developments in the saga, and as far as we can see they’re the last straw – there is now simply no remaining way back for the Ibrox club.

Tens of thousands of words have been written on the subject in newspapers and online this week alone, and tens of thousands more are going to follow, so we’ll make this as concise as humanly possible. These are the obstacles in the way of The (New) Rangers Football Club participating in Scottish football in season 2012-13 and beyond:

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To be honest, on the evidence we’ve seen on the rare occasions when Labour lets its Scottish “leader” speak to the public, we’ve been left with the impression that it doesn’t take all that much to confuse her. At the weekly joust of First Minister’s Questions, Johann Lamont is frequently exposed as unable to adapt her script to Alex Salmond’s replies, often leaving her haplessly repeating the question that’s just been answered.

Even in that context, though, the quote attributed to her in today’s Daily Record in regard of the latest referendum poll is a dismaying one for anyone concerned about the standard of Scottish political debate. With the stage set by an earlier quote from a “source” in the No campaign flatly asserting that the reason for the drop in support for independence was “There is just too much uncertainty – over jobs, defence, even the currency – everything, basically”, Lamont gallumphed in with her 2p’s-worth:

“This shows that the more people hear the arguments, the more they see through the absurdities of Alex Salmond’s case for separation”

Hang on. Is it because people ARE hearing the arguments and being convinced against independence by them, or is it because there’s “too much uncertainty” and people just don’t know where they stand, so they’re erring on the side of caution? We’re reasonably sure it can’t be both, and look forward to “Better Together” getting its story straight. We have a sinking feeling that might not be any time soon, though.

An Ipsos-MORI poll in this morning’s Times has shown a small decrease in support for independence, with figures among those certain to vote running at 35% Yes (down 4%) to 55% No (up 5%). The poll was the first full-sample one conducted in several months, and asked respondents the Scottish Government’s favoured question, so it’s a sound enough survey, and the headline figures clearly aren’t great for nationalists.

What’s odd, though, is that most commentators seem to be treating it as evidence of a fundamental shift in the direction of opinion. The reality is that at this moment in time, these numbers are something close to miraculously good for the Yes camp.

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We think our brains may have been completely fused by a story in today’s Daily Record, which is based around comments by Rutherglen Labour MSP James Kelly, pictured below in a scene from the particularly bad acid headache he’s just given us.

Here’s the bit that’s been making our minds spin round and round and round in circles this morning until we’re dizzy trying to make sense of it:

“ALEX Salmond was accused of “double standards” yesterday over his efforts to woo Rupert Murdoch. Labour raised further questions about the First Minister’s links with Murdoch following claims the media mogul lobbied Tony Blair to wage war in Iraq.

Former spin doctor Alastair Campbell said in the latest volume of his memoirs that Blair “took a call from Murdoch who was pressing on timings, saying how News International would support us, etc”.

Salmond won plaudits across Scotland for his outspoken opposition to the war which he described as “the most disastrous foreign policy decision of recent times”. But it did not stop him from trying to get closer to Murdoch to win The Sun newspaper’s backing for the SNP.

Labour MSP and chief whip James Kelly said: “This could make the conversation a little uncomfortable the next time Alex Salmond has Rupert Murdoch round to Bute House for tea and biscuits. Alex Salmond was against the Iraq war but that didn’t stop him cosying up to Rupert Murdoch. This is classic double standards from Alex Salmond who is prepared to put his party’s interests ahead of any issue.””

Let’s try to talk our way through this slowly: LABOUR is attacking the SNP for not being sufficiently critical of RUPERT MURDOCH when he backed LABOUR Prime Minister TONY BLAIR over going to war in IRAQ in 2003? What, seriously?

That can’t really be it, can it? Labour, who instigated the illegal war that left hundreds of thousands dead, attacking an opposition party who voted against that war (and which actually tried to impeach Blair for it) for not being critical enough of a newspaper proprietor whose papers enthusiastically backed Labour at the time and who made Tony Blair godfather to one of his children, because when subsequently in government it had a couple of meetings with that newspaper proprietor (also one of Scotland’s largest private-sector employers) the best part of a decade later?

Are we dreaming this stuff? Please tell us we’re dreaming it.

How’s that cross-party alliance for independence doing? Let’s ask the Scottish media!

GREENS
“Greens walk out on the Yes campaign” (Herald)
“Greens quash claims of ‘Yes Scotland’ walkout” (Holyrood magazine)

MARGO MACDONALD
“Margo MacDonald snubs ‘Yes Scotland’ campaign” (Scotsman)
“MacDonald ‘not leaving campaign’” (Herald)

SCOTTISH SOCIALISTS
“Yes Scotland heading for a right Royal bust-up as SSP break ranks” (Herald)
“As far as we are concerned we are fully part of the Yes campaign, and my attitude is that it has been a success.” (Herald)

Stay tuned for the latest developments!

New Rangers chairman (in both senses of that phrase) Malcolm Murray was fighting fire with petrol at the weekend as he embarked on a charmless offensive aimed at bullying other clubs into admitting the sort-of-new Ibrox club directly into the SPL. Murray (no relation, we think) has quickly rubbed everyone else up the wrong way with a series of boneheaded pronouncements portraying Rangers as victims and displaying not a hint of contrition, and it’s a tough call as to which has been the most crass.

We have a particular fondness for “There is no point in killing the patient while he’s trying to recover. Do that and the whole ward dies”, which shows a disturbing lack of knowledge about how hospitals work, on several levels. But it’s the sentence that came after it, in which Murray claimed that the other SPL clubs rejecting New Rangers would be a “suicide pact”, that’s perhaps the most eye-catching.

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We’ve been getting very confused today by the (New) Sunday Herald. Last night the paper’s “Investigations Editor” Paul Hutcheon tweeted that this morning’s edition would carry an “exclusive” on how a psychologist was telling the SNP to avoid using the word “independence”. Mr Hutcheon was clearly pretty excited about this breaking story, as he plugged it again a few hours later, and has gone on to tweet about it no fewer than 31 more times (figure correct at time of writing) during the course of the day.

But weirdly, this great “exclusive”, rather than being splashed all over the front page as you might expect, didn’t manage to make the online edition of the newspaper at all.

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We were intrigued by a piece we read on the Sunday Mail’s website today. It centred on last Thursday’s session of First Minister’s Questions, when Labour MSP Michael McMahon used (rather improperly) a constituency question to make a political attack on Alex Salmond. The FM slapped the question down, angrily noting that McMahon’s allegation about Salmond calling HMRC on behalf of Sir David Murray with regard to Rangers was categorically untrue, and later issuing a statement pointing out that his only call to HMRC came eight months AFTER Murray sold the club to Craig Whyte.

In the Mail’s story McMahon’s subsequent posture was full of bravado, insisting that he wasn’t about to apologise. “I stand by my comments and Alex Salmond knows they are true, as his response showed how much the truth gets under his skin”, he retorted, but what he said next demonstrated an admirably bold and inventive redefinition of the term “standing by my comments”. See if you can spot the difference.

FIRST MINISTER’S QUESTIONS VERSION:

“The First Minister was quick to call HMRC for his friend Sir David Murray“

“I STAND BY MY COMMENTS” VERSION:

“The First Minister has shown in the past that he is happy to come running to the aid of his bigwig friends when they are in trouble. For example, the way he tried to pressurise HMRC to apply special treatment in the wake of the damage caused to Rangers by his pal Sir David Murray.”

Keen students of the English language may have spotted a subtle alteration there. In the first version, Salmond was allegedly trying to use his influence for the benefit of Sir David Murray personally, on account of their supposed close friendship. In the second, the First Minister was allegedly trying to assist Rangers Football Club, owned by Craig Whyte, to recover from damage CAUSED BY Sir David Murray.

(This would presumably imply that Salmond was also a friend of Craig Whyte, an assertion which must be sailing fairly close to defamation in the current climate. And since Murray has repeatedly publicly claimed that both he and Rangers were “duped by” Whyte, it’s rather stretching the bounds of plausibility to imagine that Salmond could have been helping Whyte at Murray’s behest or on his behalf.)

Wings Over Scotland would like to applaud Michael McMahon for his bold and courageous refusal to back down on this issue, and that furthermore we’re standing by those comments when we point out that in fact he’s a contemptible liar who even lies about his lies in an impressive illustration of the fine art of meta-lying, in order to cover up what was in reality a weasel-worded and entirely craven retraction of them. And you can, or possibly can’t, quote us on that.

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From this morning’s Telegraph: the Union option.

From this morning’s Sunday Herald: the independence option.

The Conservatives, Lib Dems and Labour back option 1. The pro-independence parties (SNP, Greens, Socialists, Solidarity) all back option 2. It’s up to you.