After all, the UK government didn’t put the effort in to construct an even minimally coherent case, so frankly we don’t see why we should. We’re going for a pie.
When supprters of Scottish independence cite the infamous McCrone Report – a UK government document suppressed by both Conservative and Labour administrations in the 1970s because of its explosive revelations about the potential wealth of an independent Scotland – Unionists have a standard tactic.
Mumbling that it’s all ancient history, water under the bridge, and things are different now, they attempt – quite understandably – to swiftly move the discussion away from the uncomfortable reality of how much trust Scots should place in the word of London governments on the subject of oil revenues.
Today’s Sunday Post carries a front-page lead story which notes that in the 40 years since the original report was hidden from the Scottish people, nothing has fundamentally changed. As almost nothing of the Post is currently available online, we’ve included a hefty extract from the article below.
We got an email from our Prague correspondent last night, but that’s not the only thing the disgraceful pun in the headline refers to. As Michael Moore was kicked around the playground by Nicola Sturgeon in the first Scotland Tonight debate that same evening, the soggy security blanket he clung to more than anything else was the currency issue, which the No camp appears to believe is now its most powerful weapon.
It’s a two-pronged Trident, if you’ll forgive the even more tortured wordplay in that metaphor. Firstly there’s the scaremongering part containing the (empty) threat that the rUK would refuse to enter a currency union with an independent Scotland, forcing it to join the embattled Euro, and as back-up there’s the claim that if we DID get a currency union, Scotland would somehow end up getting less consideration from the Bank of England governors when it came to monetary policy than the none it gets now.
Let’s take the briefest look we can manage at both of those assertions.
We should point out in advance that we’re using the word “voter” quite wrongly here. But a piece in today’s Daily Record has us beaten all ends up for wrongness.
If there’s one area where you really have to hand it to “Better Together”, it’s sheer shamelessness. Despite having been humiliatingly exposed for inflating attendance figures at their events by at least 100% twice on this site alone, to the great merriment of Yes campaigners, they just keep right on going without a hint of embarrassment.
We can’t help starting to wonder if this might all be one of those sort of “When I was going to St Ives…” trick riddle things. How many Darling Youth kids make 70?
The Scottish press has chosen its latest martyr well. Perhaps aware that the average politician – whose day job is basically one long playground name-calling session – doesn’t tend to cut a very convincing figure as the subject of “bullying”, this week the print and broadcast media chose someone a little more sympathetic to portray as a broken, pitiful victim of the Evil Cybernat Hordes: a poor vulnerable wee lassie.
A tiny 4’11”, Susan Calman is nevertheless a former lawyer (who’s worked on Death Row in the USA) as well as a comedian, and one might reasonably expect that she’d be fairly used to both being asked for evidence and being heckled. It’s quite difficult to imagine that any time she was challenged in a courtroom, with someone’s life hanging in the balance, she crumbled in tears at the shock of anybody requesting that she support her case with some sort of verifiable facts.
Alert readers may recall the anti-independence “Better Together” campaign’s rather, shall we say, enthusiastic approach to statistics. Earlier today we noticed them excitedly tweeting “Head count just done! About 600 at the launch of #bettertogether Edinburgh!”, and wondered if they might have once again been so kind as to provide a picture for purposes of verification. And bless them, they had.
If you’re looking at that shot and thinking that it’s certainly full but doesn’t look much like “about 600” people, you’re not alone. So we did a quick bit of investigating.
We stumbled across this quite by accident yesterday. We think you’ll enjoy it.
The clip is from last year, and was aired on Canadian national news channel Sun News. Douglas Murray is a British writer who claims to be half-Scottish on account of unspecified links to Unionist breeding ground the Isle of Lewis, popular haunt of No-camp luminaries like Alistair Darling, virulent Labour anti-devolutionist Brian Wilson and controversial “Better Together” donor Ian Taylor.
Murray studied at Eton and Oxford and writes for august UK journals like the Spectator and Guardian, as well as appearing on numerous BBC political shows. For some reason, the Canadians consider him an expert on Scottish politics, qualified to inform and enlighten their viewers. See what you think.
We already know that the No camp has, shall we say, a bit of difficulty when it comes to basic arithmetic. But rarely do they demonstrate it so eagerly as they did last night.
We very much appreciate their helping to make our job easier.
It would appear that we’ve reached the point where the anti-independence campaign has officially run out of arguments, and is being forced to reissue its Greatest Hits.
The headline on the left is from January 2012, the one on the right is yesterday’s.
We have a fun task for Scottish Labour’s exciting new “Truth Team”, which made its debut last week. Clearly it would be rather unseemly to go around proclaiming yourself an arbiter of truth if there was a great big lie at the heart of your very existence, so hopefully someone on the Team will be able to explain the curious and seemingly untrue assertion that still heads up Scottish Labour’s own Twitter account.
sam on Yelling at the tide: “Wuz that yer Da n Ma? Interested? https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/scots-language” Jan 23, 17:41
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Great post, Alf. And here was me thinking the people of these islands had always enjoyed quite a privileged and…” Jan 23, 17:40
sam on Yelling at the tide: “Linguistic professors, McLeod and Jones of Edinburgh University chart the decline of the use of Gaelic language. “In the mid…” Jan 23, 17:32
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““Gaelic is exponentially closer than Inglis is to (what is known of) the language of the Picts.” I think you’re…” Jan 23, 17:28
TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “A cosmopolitan «littérateur» ancestor of mine wrote in Ottoman Turkish. He disliked Syriac, and had reservations about Arabic considering the…” Jan 23, 17:09
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “All I know, Sam, is that when my folk arrived here there was naebody else tae be seen… and it…” Jan 23, 17:04
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Yelling at the tide: “Gaelic is exponentially closer than Inglis is to (what is known of) the language of the Picts.” Jan 23, 16:58
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““Seriously, tak yer Gaelic and yer Inglis and get yersel’s tae…” Obviously I wasn’t being serious with my last comment.…” Jan 23, 16:52
sam on Yelling at the tide: “@ Northcode “As far as I’m concerned Gaelic is the weird language of the first invader, English that of the…” Jan 23, 16:47
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Shirley-Anne Somerville has sent a baby box to New York mayor Mamdani. To show him how it works, and to…” Jan 23, 16:46
Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: ““claim we were all colonised near a century afore 1707” As noted above, Linguistic Imperialism (e.g. language deprivation and cultural…” Jan 23, 16:42
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Ah, c’moan noo, Northy. Just the other day you were self-identifying as shit. Shit should be in seventh heaven in…” Jan 23, 16:20
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““Can we please therefore jettison the exclusivist “mither tongue” myth… No! As far as I’m concerned Gaelic is the weird…” Jan 23, 15:56
sam on Yelling at the tide: “@ “It was a choice made and maintained by Scots.” Hardly. Historian, Iain MacKinnon. “And in 1608 there was a…” Jan 23, 15:53
TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “When i was a kid my parents visited some relatives and other exiles in California, we have relatives near &…” Jan 23, 15:33
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “See fit ye’ve done noo, Fearghas? Ye’ve empowered the Baird/Northy axis tae claim we were all colonised near a century…” Jan 23, 15:15
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““He also claimed “It was the English who commanded that Scots schoolchildren be viciously belted with a leather strap…” No……” Jan 23, 15:08
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Yelling at the tide: “We observe that the following was written almost exactly a century BEFORE the Act of Union. We note that the…” Jan 23, 15:03
100%Yes on Yelling at the tide: “Is she really worth fighting for “Information commissioner sues SNP Government over ‘failure to publish Sturgeon files’. I wouldn’t give…” Jan 23, 14:51
willie on Yelling at the tide: “If I may, can I turn attention to the Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond and the recent announcement that Lomond…” Jan 23, 14:41
factchecker on Yelling at the tide: “Thank you Cynicus for some factual input. The professor writes “Ignorant rubbish” indeed. He claims “In seeking to justify only…” Jan 23, 14:29
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Aye, TURABDIN, there’s been notable failures. There’s been notable successes, too. Japan, the former West Germany before they were sunk…” Jan 23, 14:26
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: ““As we know, Linguistic Imperialism (e.g. language deprivation and cultural assimilation) are well established colonial procedures intended to make ‘a…” Jan 23, 14:10
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Dinna be sae harsh, Cynicus. It’s Baltic oot there. Northy needs his pants aflame tae keep warm and he’s discovered…” Jan 23, 13:52
Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: ““Ignorant Rubbish” ? In seeking to justify only the English language being taught to Scots bairns in school, British educationalists…” Jan 23, 13:50
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “My, Alf, but like your sidekick Northy, you’re a tonic sometimes. Why don’t you call for what Mummy et al…” Jan 23, 13:49
Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: ““The American psyche’s great flaw is that .. like a prepubescent child uncertain of its identity” This is a general…” Jan 23, 13:34
Cynicus on Yelling at the tide: “Northcode, 23 January, 2026 at 10:56 am “It was the English who forced their own language on the Scots. “…” Jan 23, 12:55
TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “@Hatey McHateface to this reader your argumentation can turn towards the confusing, however, I do share your perspective regarding the…” Jan 23, 12:49
Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: “Aye Willie, and here we are reminded that “whenever colonialism is imperiled, the colonizer reveals his fangs” (Fanon). So why…” Jan 23, 12:26
