Wings Over Scotland

Among Scotland's professional media, there's a pretty wide consensus that the Herald is the best of a bad bunch when it comes to fair and balanced reporting. It's arguably Scotland's only genuine remaining "quality" newspaper, the Scotsman having to most intents and purposes become a large-format tabloid, full of shrieking headlines and "SNP accused" churnalism fed by Unionist-party press releases. While openly opposed to independence, the Herald offers regular commentary from all sides of the political spectrum, takes a mostly non-partisan line in editorial and rarely allows overt bias to seep into its news coverage.

Every now and again, though, it lets its guard down.

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There could have been nothing more predictable in the independence debate than that the Unionist parties, having furiously demanded a clear, simple, yes/no question for the last eight months, would be in a tumultuous rage when they finally got one. The First Minister had barely announced the Scottish Government’s chosen ten-word proposition to the Scottish people when a chorus of angry voices in the Unionist camp were on the airwaves denouncing it as “leading”, “unfair” and “rigged”.

Supposed experts were hastily summoned to explain to us how the phrasing of the question was designed to lead brainless voters down a “cognitive chute”, because the poor stupid Scottish electorate had no idea of what the SNP meant by “independent”. The Telegraph leapt into action, conducting its own polls with various possible versions of the question in an attempt to demonstrate how widely responses could be altered by simple changes in wording. It then swiftly wrote up the results in doom-laden terms, thundering in the article’s strapline that:

“The “loaded” question Alex Salmond wants to ask in the Scottish independence referendum leads to at least a 10-point increase in public support for ending the Union”

That analysis came a little TOO swiftly, as it turned out.

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(See here for the whole story.)

“We need to hear detailed reasons and hard facts about why Scotland is better off as part of the UK — not slogans and scaremongering.“
(The Sun editorial, January 2012)

“In a speech in Glasgow later today, Ed Miliband will seek to go beyond the process-driven debate over independence for Scotland, seeking to make a positive case for Scotland to remain within the Union.“
(Left Foot Forward, January 2012)

“Darling – whose reputation was enhanced after he warned of the looming global economic meltdown in defiance of then PM Gordon Brown – said he was determined to make a positive case for Scotland remaining in the UK.“
(Sunday Mail interview with former Chancellor of the Exchequer, January 2012)

“Questions abound. How will the campaign be structured? Who will lead it? And can it develop a positive case for the United Kingdom?“
(David Torrance, commentator and biographer of Alex Salmond, January 2012)

“I have a positive vision for Scotland.“
(Johann Lamont, Scottish Labour leader, January 2012)

“Everyone wants to see positive arguments for the Union, and we will have these in spades.“
(Murdo Fraser, Conservative MSP, January 2012)

“I am not going to run a campaign that says Scotland cannot survive on its own. I am going to run a campaign — and others will run a campaign — about the advantages of being together. Let’s have a positive conversation, because I think the Union is a very positive thing.“
(David Cameron, UK Prime Minister, January 2012)

“There is a positive case for the Union.“
(Gerry Hassan, Scottish political commentator, January 2012)

“We are likely to see the likes of Labour’s Alistair Darling, the Liberal Democrats’ Charles Kennedy and the Tories’ Annabel Goldie playing leading roles in putting a positive case for the Union.“
(Leader in The Scotsman, January 2012)

“My ten tartan rules for success: 1. Make the positive case for the Union.“
(Peter Duncan, former Conservative MP for Galloway, January 2012)

Do we need to bother indicating to you, beloved and attentive readers, whether any of these fine people and publications went on to actually explain what this ever-elusive “positive case” might be? We suspect, all too sadly, that we do not.

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TIME ELAPSED: 31 years, 11 months
ACTUAL SIGHTINGS OF POSITIVE CASE FOR UNION TO DATE: 0
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We're supposed to live in an age where politicians are trained to within an inch of their lives by media advisers, in order that they can spout bland pre-programmed soundbites about any given subject at a second's notice. (With the infamous nadir of the phenomenon being represented by Ed Miliband's toe-curling broken-robot impression at the time of the public-sector strikes.) So perhaps we should be happy on the rare occasions when we discover a couple of elected representatives still willing to appear like clueless idiots in front of the public.

First came a few comments in the Scotsman from the leader of the SNP group on Glasgow City Council, Alison Hunter. With the SNP hoping to take control of the Labour stronghold this May – or at least deprive Labour of its majority – she was asked which policies she would seek to implement if her party pulled off such a titanic feat. Hunter's scarcely-believable and less-than-inspiring response was "I haven’t thought about that yet. Actually, I’m not an out-there leader. I’m a team leader. So we haven’t actually thought about that yet."

Before you ask, we have no idea what the difference between an "out-there leader" and a "team leader" is either, and we imagine Ms Hunter will soon be leaving SNP HQ with a well-skelped erse and a disinclination to say anything quite so stupid out loud ever again. In her defence, however, we suppose we could offer up the fact that she's highly unlikely to ever have to consider such a scenario – with Labour currently holding 45 seats (out of 79) to the SNP's 22, even denying Labour a majority in Glasgow this time round would be a huge and significant achievement for the Nats. Winning outright or even plurality control this year is surely beyond its reach.

We're not sure what Johann Lamont's excuse is, though.

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You can’t heave a brick into the Scottish political media and blogosphere without hitting half-a-dozen Labour MPs, MSPs or activists all claiming that they belong to “the party of devolution“. This self-awarded title is based on the premise that Labour “gave” Scotland the limited degree of home rule it currently enjoys. It’s a premise of dubious merit – given that it was the Scottish electorate which actually made it happen by voting for it – but let’s be generous for a moment and treat it as truth.

Labour also regularly claims ownership of the phrase “devolution is a process, not an event” – although despite it being commonly attributed to Donald Dewar (whom the party self-aggrandisingly dubbed the “Father Of The Nation” in much the same way that Michael Jackson presumptuously crowned himself “King Of Pop”), the term was in fact coined by the former Welsh Secretary, the pre-disgrace Ron Davies.

So how can it be that Labour is suddenly so desperate to disown and deny the thing it claims so proudly to have invented? Because the party’s extraordinary outbreak of poisonous hostility towards devolution as an ongoing process – in the shape of its advanced forms, so-called “devo plus” or “devo max” – since the SNP won a majority in the Scottish Parliament can only be interpreted, on any sort of remotely rational examination, as a complete reversal of its entire ideology on the subject. But why?

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We've been super-busy, so here's a very quick pointer at some of the best recent stories you might not have spotted in the current avalanche of independence coverage (not least because both of the country's leading papers have websites with simply abysmal search facilities). First and best is this tremendously good piece by Anthony Barnett over on Our Kingdoms, while behind the Herald's paywall lurks a triple whammy of excellent columns from Iain Macwhirter (one which is literally impossible to access from the mobile version of the paper's website), Ian Bell (who's on fire at the moment) and an uncredited editorial.

Scotland on Sunday drops a bomb from David Cameron which we'll be looking at in more depth very shortly, and raises its recent game somewhat with strong articles from Duncan Hamilton and an unusually even-handed Eddie Barnes, as well as a surprise leader supporting the SNP's call for 16/17-year-olds to vote in the referendum.

Hindsight provides comedy as a Telegraph piece on the referendum question is horribly overtaken by events rendering its commentary idiotic, while Gerry Hassan talks a lot more sense on the nature of the Yes and No camps, a view echoed more concisely by the increasingly-unmissable Alex Massie in the Spectator.

When you're done with digesting all that lot, we'll have something new of our own ready for you in the morning.

Just a quick bit of housekeeping here, folks, nothing much to see. I'm not used to being popular, so I'm a tad mystified by the flow of Game Center friend requests that arrive on my iThings every day from people I don't know, and who, to be honest, I have very little interest in being pretend internet buddies with. I'm 44, y'know? I very much enjoy challenging personal friends, professional acquaintances or WoSland readers at games, but not some random adolescent from Bumhole, Nebraska.

The big problem with the internet, though, is that even many otherwise sane and decent people still insist on using absurd playground nicknames to identify themselves rather than proper human names, or at least – as in my own case with Game Center – the recognisable name of their app/business/whatever. So a request from "sUP3rKEWLd00d__87" might, horrendously, turn out to be from a person I actually do know in some way and would (inexplicably) wish to be "friends" with.

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So that was the launch of the independence referendum consultation. Not much we didn’t know, and the usual tired, pointless carping from the FUD benches, but there was one very significant new development. The question being proposed by the Scottish government is this:

“Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?”

It could barely be simpler or more direct. But the fascinating aspect is the impact the form of the question could have on the legal status of the referendum. The previously-suggested question was rather longer and encased in tortuous legalese:

“Do you agree that the Scottish Government should negotiate a settlement with the government of the UK so that Scotland becomes an independent state?”

The seemingly-technical change is potentially of vital importance. The core dispute over whether the Scottish Government has the legal right to conduct a consultative referendum is the “purpose and effect” of its doing so. The old formulation of the question clearly implied that the Scottish Government would use the referendum as a trigger to actively attempt to remove Scotland from the UK (by opening negotiations with the UK Parliament), and as such the referendum could very easily be held to be exceeding Holyrood’s devolved powers by directly leading it to take action on the constitution, a matter reserved to Westminster.

The new question, however, merely innocently enquires as to the Scottish people’s opinion on the subject, without promising that the expression of that opinion will cause it to take any particular action. As such, it’s difficult to see how it could fall foul of any reasonable interpretation of the law.

Does this mean that Alex Salmond is preparing the ground to face down the UK Government and hold the referendum on his terms – without the Section 30 order that would clear away most possible legal challenges – should the imminent negotiations with David Cameron not turn out to his liking? We’ll be watching with great interest.

This blog doesn't share the eagerness of much of the centre-left to either abolish the House of Lords or make it an elected body. Politicians pandering to the public's most primitive prejudices in pursuit of power are responsible for much of the atrocious state of British democracy, and while we're uneasy with the exercise of mostly-unearned privilege, the Lords were responsible for obstructing some of Tony Blair's worst attacks on civil liberties, and have been the only voice speaking up against the coalition's brutal welfare "reforms". We're not so sure we trust them less than MPs, who regularly stand for election promising one thing then do the precise opposite in government.

There's also nothing exclusive to the Lords about ham-fisted attempts to insert ludicrous amendments into new bills. But it so happens that the most recent example has come from that direction. Conservative hereditary peer the Earl Of Caithness (who owes his position to ancestors over 600 years ago) has put forward a series of extraordinary alterations to the unloved Scotland Bill, currently making its weary way towards a likely rejection by the Scottish Parliament. They're unlikely to be passed, but even the attempt reveals a great deal about the mindset of Scottish Unionists.

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We’ve had our hands full in the real world for a few days, so let’s catch up on what’s been worth reading recently. Iain Macwhirter is on the money as usual as he ponders why Unionists cling to the “scare story” [paywall link] tactics that have proven so spectacularly unsuccessful over the past decade or so and propelled the SNP into power, while Alex Massie in the Spectator eloquently expresses his frustration with the idiotically negative approach of his fellow Great Britain fans in the right-wing press. Kenny Farquharson takes a related line in Scotland On Sunday, excoriating the FUD camp’s ludicrous attacks on Sir Peter Housden.

Jackie Ashley, one of the Guardian’s more thoughtful commentators on Scottish affairs, takes an interesting angle on how the Scottish situation relates to and impacts on the centre-left in England, while Socialist Worker demolishes the lie still being implausibly peddled by Labour that the Union serves the interests of the left, by openly advocating independence for Scotland.

In the blogosphere there’s a really good piece on BaffieBox, spinning off a theme we’ve been shouting about for a while – the fact that independence is in essence merely an administrative change to the electoral register, with post-independence policy being a matter for the Scottish people, not just one party. Better Nation covers a very similar point in less detail and with less insight, but does see an excellent debate in the comments section, with numerous posters eviscerating Labour’s recent dismal smears and sneers about an independent Scotland’s defence policy.

And finally, if you’re having trouble sleeping this evening, try penetrating this vision of a more fully devolved Scotland by Labour activist Ian Smart. It’s a commendable attempt at a positive argument, describing in some detail where devolution could go rather than sticking to the “LABOUR SAYS NO” party line, but if you can get all the way to the end of it you’re a better blog than us.

Enough to keep you going until lunchtime there, we reckon.

(See here for the whole story.)

Northern Ireland’s politicians seem keen to get involved in the debate at the moment, with the latest contribution coming from Lee Reynolds, Director of Strategy for the Democratic Unionist Party, writing on the Slugger O’Toole blog.

“The Unionist case needs a Scottish and non-party political voice that will sell a positive narrative.”

Reynolds’ piece runs to over 750 words, concerning itself entirely with the need for the Unionist case to be made positively rather than negatively and insisting that the FUD camp needs to “sell the benefits of our Union”. Unfortunately, perhaps due to pressures of space, Mr Reynolds was not able personally to specify in the article what any of those benefits actually are. We’re confident someone will soon.

TIME ELAPSED: 31 years, 11 months
CONFIRMED SIGHTINGS OF POSITIVE CASE FOR UNION TO DATE: 0
 

(See here for the whole story.)

An alert viewer drew our attention to the latest call to arms, published in Tory Hoose and penned by Tom Elliott, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.

"It is absolutely essential that the pro-Union forces articulate a convincing and positive case for the continuation of the Union in the 21st Century. Those of us who wish to see Scotland and its people remain as fellow citizens in a United Kingdom must both articulate the benefits which the Union has brought to Scotland and provide a positive vision for the future continuation of the Union."

To be honest we could barely be bothered building our hopes up this time, and sure enough out came the familiar tune. An independent Scotland would be bankrupt in a matter of days, just like the Republic of Ireland (hmm, no agenda there, we're sure), and Greece and Portugal and Iceland. The UK has saved us from economic disaster – um, you might want to take a look at the books, Tom – and "the choice facing the people of Scotland may be between a broke but independent Scotland or a comparatively prosperous Scotland still within the Union".

If that's the "convincing and positive case", we sure as heck wouldn't like to meet Mr Elliott when he's down in the dumps.
 

TIME ELAPSED: 31 years, 11 months
CONFIRMED SIGHTINGS OF POSITIVE CASE FOR UNION TO DATE: 0