Wings Over Scotland

Along with more direct, overt scaremongering, it’s probably fair to say that the core theme of the “Better Together” anti-independence campaign to date has been “uncertainty”. Day after day sees the media and public assailed with neurotic demands for definitive answers about every conceivable aspect of an independent Scotland that in most cases couldn’t be answered by any nation on Earth, including the UK.

The No camp disastrously overplayed its hand with the “500 questions” fiasco, which saw it subjected to literally worldwide mockery, but it suffered an arguably even more wounding blow today with the release of some figures which blew gaping holes into pretty much everything it’s spent the last 18 months saying.

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This week’s Scotland on Sunday is full of the usual outpourings of fear and madness (our absolute favourite is a standout piece of howling-at-the-moon insanity from frothing Tory loonbag Gerald Warner, magnificently entitled “Feminism driving holocaust of abortion”), but one in particular caught our eye.

Headed “Independent Scotland at risk from bank crash“, the Tom Peterkin effort (based, in fairness, on an imminent UK government document) kicks straight off with an opening line that’s a top-shelf example of hysterical sub-Daily-Mail scaremongering. But it’s the second line that makes it special.

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We don’t need it in Scotland. Look at the state of reality:

“THE pro-union Better Together campaign has refused to work with UKIP to persuade Scots to vote against ­independence. A Better Together ­spokesman said: “UKIP have asked to join us and we have said no. If they ask again, we will say no again. They are not a Scottish party and this is a Scottish debate.””

We assume this means that the No camp will be giving Ian Taylor his non-Scottish £500,000 back at last, and roundly condemning the interventions of the thoroughly non-Scottish Carwyn Jones in the debate, yes?

The “Calmangate” story just keeps getting stranger and stranger. A few hours after our piece earlier today noting that the Scotsman had overwritten their article alleging the comedian had suffered death threats and a “barrage of abuse” with a completely new one, a version of the original reappeared at its original address.

Its temporary absence was (ostensibly) explained by a post in the comments:

“Required for legal reasons”? Hmm, let’s see.

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We think this might be that cross-border vortex at play again.

(This post is respectfully dedicated to the wonderful late Scottish folk singer, comedian and actual proper socialist Matt McGinn.)

We know you don’t have all day. Let’s see if we can clear this up in under 600 words.

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A couple of paragraphs in a Vince Cable story (to over-dignify the piece in question) from today’s Scotsman are quite amusing if you swap the order they come in.

“The first day I took up my job as the chief economist at Shell I was given a plaque which had an Arabic saying and when I pressed for a translation, they said ‘All those who claim to predict the future are lying, even if they are later proved right’.”

Righto.

“Business Secretary Vince Cable last night warned that an independent Scotland’s reliance on revenue from oil would result in savage public spending cuts or tax rises, as he addressed the Liberal Democrat Scottish conference.”

Oops!

Veteran readers of this site will know how hard it is to nail Scottish Labour down on a policy for just about anything. So when we suggested earlier today that the party DID have a (sort of) firm policy on something – namely calling on the Scottish Government to bring forward legislation to stop people being evicted over bedroom-tax arrears – we probably shouldn’t have been surprised to be contacted within minutes by a Scottish Labour press officer angrily insisting that it didn’t.

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As we’ve mentioned before, it really has been a revelation to discover that the Daily Record’s iPad app – which gives you the entire printed paper, not just the selection of stories that reach the Record website – is free on weekdays. Today, for example, it brought us a large not-online Page 2 piece on former Tory cabinet minister Liam Fox’s idiotic hardline policy suggestions for the party, which were expertly ridiculed by Conservative commentator Alex Massie yesterday.

Thanks to Mr Massie’s splendid work, there’s no need for us to bother with Fox’s comments. What we noticed instead was the Record’s analysis of them.

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Not content with this morning’s Daily Mail masterclass in misinformation on pensions and embassies, eagle-eyed reader Andy Inglis also offers us this quite remarkable interpretation of the Eastleigh by-election result from the same source:

There’s been a “seismic political upset” in England, so Scotland should stay in the Union to ensure “continuing political stability”, even though being in the Union has brought us “an unknown future at a time of global crisis and financial meltdown”. Eh?

In fact, reading between the lines the piece SEEMS to say “If Scotland doesn’t stay in the Union, the Tories won’t be able to win the next election”. We’re not absolutely sure that’s quite the No-campaign vote-winner the Mail appears to think it is.

We note with interest a letter in the Scotsman today:

“This debate about the word “separation” is annoying and a distraction from the real issues. I am waiting for some answers from the SNP about the potential shape of an independent Scotland. This is a waste of time.

J ADAMS
Harrison Gardens
Edinburgh”

We’re not in the SNP, Mr Adams, but we’re happy to help you out anyway.

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