The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland



Some product 9

Posted on November 29, 2012 by

Keen-witted viewers may have spotted a couple of additions to the central links column, which will help to support the site without costing you anything. If you want to buy anything through Amazon, visiting their site via the button on the right will divert a few pennies from your purchase to Wings Over Scotland, which isn’t quite as good as them paying proper amounts of tax but at least it’s something.

GiffGaff, meanwhile, is a top-notch pay-as-you-go mobile-phone network we’ve been using for a couple of years now and highly recommend for its excellent-value packages (especially if you use the internet on your phone) and terrific customer service.

Commercial message ends. As you were.

The Barnett Trap and the expensive lunch 61

Posted on October 23, 2012 by

The prime raison d’etre of a government is to provide for its citizens defence, security and services that either an individual would be unable to provide for themselves, or where such services are in the public interest but cannot be adequately served by market forces. Government is there to act on our behalf and in the common interest of our society, and in order to do so is funded by the people through taxation.

It’s the responsibility of any government to ensure that the services that the public pay for are maintained and that the money that is paid in taxation is spent as effectively as possible in delivering those services. These are not “giveaways”, but the reallocation of public funds to meet the needs of the populace, a transaction in which the recipient of the service has already provided payment – in many cases far more than they would ever recoup themselves.

Historically this was the most basic founding principle of the Labour Party, which advocated socialist policies such as public ownership of key industries, government intervention in the economy, redistribution of wealth, increased rights for workers, the welfare state, publicly funded healthcare and education. These principles were duly enshrined in “Clause IV” of the Labour constitution.

In 1995, however, “Clause IV” was abolished by Tony Blair, heralding the birth of “New Labour” and the adoption of market based solutions and neo-liberalisation. Labour in Scotland was less keen to accept this new creed than its compatriots south of the border, but when Johann Lamont recently signalled Scottish Labour’s final submission to the triangulated centre-right doctrine, many whose traditional sympathies lay with the party rounded bitterly on her policy shift.

Read the rest of this entry →

Onwards and upwards (TBC) 5

Posted on July 02, 2012 by

The records have been tumbling like skittles at Wings Over Scotland – we’ve just notched up our biggest day of page views ever (last Friday), our biggest week, and our biggest month. Especially heartening was the fact that no single post provided more than 18% of the traffic for any one week, or more than 6% of views for the month – we were already comfortably through the 200,000 barrier even before Friday’s popular and widely-linked piece on the SFL’s farcical “reconstruction” proposals.

We also smashed the 1000-Twitter-followers barrier (despite a furious Twitstorm from No campaigners last Tuesday), set a new high of almost 23,000 unique users, and exceeded 50,000 visits for the first time. Thanks so much to everyone who’s come to the site, and particularly to those who’ve tweeted links, posted Facebook likes and all the other stuff that’s helped our readership grow by 1,675% since the turn of the year.

Now for the (slightly) bad news.

Read the rest of this entry →

  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)

    Stats: 6,677 Posts, 1,204,906 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “That last para is absolute bollox & has been debunked a gazillion times. & The West lied just the once?…Dec 12, 01:59
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “Unfortunately Estonia has jettisoned in a rabid psycho & Ursula Von derHitler has ushered her pal into the EU fold…Dec 12, 01:13
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “He has spoken of regrets about that in the past. The more he was in the job the more shit…Dec 12, 01:01
    • Robert Matthews on The Wage Thief: “The usual ‘colonial’ guff from a man with an Anglo Saxon first name.Dec 12, 00:49
    • znovak on The Wage Thief: “Thanks for the response, I wrote what I think about Sachs (and why) in a reply to Breeks a little…Dec 11, 23:04
    • znovak on The Wage Thief: “Thanks for a long and thoughtful response, even if I have to disagree with parts of it. I reply late,…Dec 11, 22:57
    • Robert Matthews on The Wage Thief: “If Alba intervene in constituency races in 2026, they will harm independence and harm themselves on the listDec 11, 22:54
    • agent X on The Wage Thief: “I bet all the 1000s of OAPs ( aka – Geriatric Millionaires , according the warped perception of ” some…Dec 11, 21:54
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “The Vandals: Internet Dating Superstuds: 43210-1: “Stop! Pretending you’re even having fun You just stand there looking dumb and bored…Dec 11, 21:52
    • Willie on The Wage Thief: “Assisted Dying – it’s here now big time with these sub zero temperatures and Starmer’s removal of the pensioner heating…Dec 11, 21:50
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “@PeteWishart has blocked you: “You guys are certainly obsessed with carrots, but ’10 years of carrots’ would be a great…Dec 11, 21:21
    • sarah on The Wage Thief: “Why? Surely better to stand on the list?Dec 11, 20:27
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “The Sheepdogs: The Sheepdogs: Feeling Good: “Are you close to mine Or could you blow my mind Cause the heat…Dec 11, 20:22
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “Evil Conduct: King of Kings: Change the World: “You ain’t got no message You won’t change the world I don’t…Dec 11, 20:11
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: “Deep fried in Fanny Batter. The order that’s set off many a post-closing-time chipper rammy in my neck of the…Dec 11, 19:51
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: “On the plus side, sheep are feeling a lot less nervous.Dec 11, 19:46
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: ““Readers here like what I write” Nah. 1 Upvote 2 Scroll on by 3 Log in with new ID 4…Dec 11, 19:42
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: “He’d maybe have to do what it says in the Declaration Of Arbroath and completely destroy the Picts. That may…Dec 11, 19:33
    • Campbell Clansman on The Wage Thief: “The “Claim of Right,” promoted by morons like Alf and Sarah as part of a (non-existent) “Scottish Constitution,” IS “sectarian…Dec 11, 19:28
    • Zander Tait on The Wage Thief: “Ha ha. More lies from Grendel. 6 up votes in 26 minutes for me and numerous down votes for you…Dec 11, 19:23
    • Young Lochinvar on The Wage Thief: “Codename Beef Curtains..Dec 11, 19:20
    • Young Lochinvar on The Wage Thief: “Maybe she’ll team up with Jean Paul Gautier and release Eau de Colon..Dec 11, 19:06
    • Captain Caveman on The Wage Thief: ““Rammy in the chipper” …? I think not. These lot barely leave the safety of their mum’s spare bedroom lol,…Dec 11, 19:01
    • Campbell Clansman on The Wage Thief: “6 upvotes in 3 minutes! Very impressive! I guess we now know how many aliases “Zander” posts under. My fellow…Dec 11, 18:57
    • Captain Caveman on The Wage Thief: “Being told I’m “missing a few brain cells” by some fragile, witless moron who does know what paragraph breaks are…Dec 11, 18:56
    • Dan on The Wage Thief: “Still tying to punt that sectarian drivel. https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2022/08/31/in-response-to-roddy-dunlop-qc/Dec 11, 18:53
    • Mark Beggan on The Wage Thief: “For me The Cranky Show is a conspired and direct attack on our society. A threat to men, women, and…Dec 11, 18:53
    • Zander Tait on The Wage Thief: “No-one here is interested in anything you have to say on any topic now and forever, Grendel. Ha ha ha…Dec 11, 18:49
    • Campbell Clansman on The Wage Thief: “That would make him King Donald IV of Scotland. Of course, with anti-Catholic “Claim of Right” he’d have to swear…Dec 11, 18:42
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: ““Donald King o Scots” Naw. King Donald of Orange has a better historical precedent. I think we can safely ignore…Dec 11, 18:20
  • A tall tale



↑ Top