The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland



Quoted for truth #6 17

Posted on February 04, 2013 by

This came out quite a few days ago, but didn’t get the attention it merited. Once again, we invite readers to ponder the “invisible hypothetical” of whether the Scottish media would have shown such complete disinterest in a piece of investigative journalism which revealed an elected representative of the SNP and some of its prominent activists discussing their own party’s complete uselessness.

We do accept that Scottish Labour being in shambolic disarray isn’t exactly hold-the-front-page stuff, and is in fact somewhere on a par with “Rain forecast for Hebrides” or “Scottish rugby team beaten at Twickenham”. But clearly the bar for headline stories is rather lower than it used to be, so you’d think it’d at least get a passing mention.

Read the rest of this entry →

Quoted for truth #5 29

Posted on January 18, 2013 by

An unnamed SNP spokesman on STV News:

“We have no wish to comment on Cllr Matheson’s private life. The issues which are important to the city are Labour’s scandalous £500,000 pay-off to a supposed anti-poverty boss which has been condemned by the charity regulator, the closure of day centres for adults with learning disabilities without consultation, and their incompetence over plans to redevelop George Square.”

Still, we’re sure that free wi-fi will be along any day now.

Quoted for truth #4 46

Posted on January 18, 2013 by

Joyce McMillan in the Scotsman today, as the Scottish press is finally, after three days, shamed into acknowledging what happened on Tuesday.

“What I see at Westminster now is not an alternative politics that avoids the pitfalls of nationalism, but an instinctive, backward-looking British nationalism that is even worse: a farrago of double standards about Westminster and Holyrood, and of reactionary nonsense about the nature of national identity in the 21st century, combined with a complete vacuum of progressive policy, and an instinctive willingness – on the part of the Labour Party – to side in this debate with what is perhaps the most privileged and reactionary government the UK has seen in a century.

The truth is that the tone of the No camp’s response to the independence debate has – in too many cases – been so reactionary, so negative, and so fundamentally disrespectful of the Scottish Parliament as an institution, that I now find it hard to think of voting with them, no matter what my views on the constitution.

And this, for me, is a new experience in politics – to enter a debate with a strongish view on one side of the argument, and to find myself so repelled by the tone and attitudes of those who should be my allies that I am gradually forced into the other camp.”

We’ll have more on that subject later this morning. Don’t miss it.

Quoted for truth #3 36

Posted on January 07, 2013 by

John Harris in the Guardian today:

“[six years ago] to be living on an estate, and in receipt of benefits, and possibly out of work, was to not just to be fair game for Oxford undergraduates, the future king and a certain kind of TV comedian, but the butt of a huge national joke. Some of us wondered where exactly what was briefly known as ‘The New Snobbery’ was headed.

We now know. Its cultural aspects were merely the tip of the iceberg – as the Labour party engaged in the rebranding of social security as ‘welfare’ and its ministers raged against ‘benefit cheats’, something poisonous was being embedded at the core of our national life.

While the Conservative party grimaced through a fleeting modernisation, it sat there, ready to be picked up by a Tory-led administration and taken to its logical conclusion.”

And, of course, by Scottish Labour.

Quoted for truth #2 32

Posted on January 06, 2013 by

Sometimes other writers say things better and/or more concisely than we could hope to, which is great as it’s a real time-saver for us, so we might make this a regular strand. Today’s QFT is from an excellent Iain Macwhirter piece in the Herald (as, coincidentally, was the first one), which is worth reading in its entirety, but from which we especially commend the following passages (our emphasis as ever):

“But supporters of independence hope that voters will eventually come to realise that, in a sense, they have no option but to go for broke in 2014. Scots will be the laughing stock of every stand-up comedian in Britain if they bottle out of self-government.

“Anyone who believes that the UK Government is itching to give the Scottish Parliament more economic powers than those in last year’s Scotland Act really hasn’t been keeping up. The review of Barnett that will follow the implementation of the Scotland Act will be an opportunity for the Coalition to answer the charge that Scotland has been getting more than its fair share of public funding. With the threat of independence removed, the UK will no longer feel any need to placate Scottish demands for what many English voters believe is special treatment.

Okay, it’s not quite as snappy as “Vote No, Get Nothing”, but it does have the benefit of being actually slightly more true.

One more than you 17

Posted on May 11, 2012 by

We don’t know if anyone still reads the BBC’s “Blether With Brian” column since the Corporation banned Scottish readers – uniquely in these islands – from posting comments on it, nor can we normally think of a reason why anyone would. It’s generally the blandest-possible summary of events people have already seen for themselves, with no effort to impart any sort of insight or analysis.

However, once in a while the understated approach yields a more profoundly powerful result than screeds of polemic, and we can think of no way to better illustrate the bizarreness of Johann Lamont’s chosen line of attack at yesterday’s First Minister’s Questions than to simply relate the events as they transpired, in the most neutral and factual manner, as the national broadcaster’s Scottish political editor does today.

How to decide who has won an election? The customary method is to count the ballot papers – and to award victory to the one with the most votes. Now the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies adds a degree of sophistication to that. But, still, the spoils tend to go to those with evident popular support.

This, apparently, is an old-fashioned outlook. Just so Twentieth Century. At Holyrood, Labour’s Johann Lamont suggested another test might be used instead. The SNP, she said, might have won the council elections “on the arithmetic”. But “on the politics” they “got stuffed.”

It is difficult to be entirely certain, but I suspect that most political leaders would probably settle, on balance, for winning “on the arithmetic”.

Stranger still was Brian’s citation of Fat Les in support of his assertion, but other than to wistfully dwell for a moment on our long-held dream of Scottish fans repurposing the song in question with the words “Irn Bru” replacing the title, we’ll let that one pass.

If we had a hammer 4

Posted on January 14, 2012 by

…we would give it to Ian Bell, for he’s hit the nail so hard on the head in today’s Herald that he must surely have broken his own. As we’ve said before, we don’t make a habit of reproducing stuff from behind newspaper paywalls, because as journalists ourselves in our day jobs we support the idea of paying for quality journalism, and at just 75p a week a Herald online subscription is very fairly priced, unlike some.

But Bell’s piece today (which also indirectly addresses the hysterical, hypocritical faux-outrage over Joan McAlpine’s “anti-Scottish” comments) is more important than that, and deserves a nationwide audience who can be directed to it time and again over the next two and a half years. Read it below, and then please consider whether for Scotland’s sake you can afford NOT to support one of its few remaining outlets of decent, honest and reasonably balanced writing about politics.

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: 6,683 Posts, 1,207,197 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Hatey McHateface on Once more around: “Thanks, Alf, I was hoping it was on for Monday, but obviously not. I’m intrigued by your efforts to turn…Jan 4, 07:49
    • Hatey McHateface on Once more around: “Classic Geri, Geri, glad to see 2025 has you coming out misfiring on all cylinders. “shouting yer racist gob off”…Jan 4, 07:34
    • Mark Beggan on Once more around: “Next year they are going to open a facility for all the abandoned children. They will integrate both facilities so…Jan 4, 05:07
    • Mark Beggan on Once more around: “It was delayed until they got the OK from the drug gangstersJan 4, 05:03
    • Geri on Once more around: “I think we’d be a lot quicker having a referendum on the monarchy. We’ve never been asked if this consent…Jan 4, 00:57
    • Geri on Once more around: “The incumbents are breaking the law. Holyrood is an English staging post where the incumbents have to swear allegiance to…Jan 4, 00:51
    • Alf Baird on Once more around: “Sovereignty of the people means just that and those deceiving and acting against the sovereign people, including the SNP Scottish…Jan 3, 23:39
    • Redacted on Once more around: “As long as the next cartoon is a burping Hamish, extracting bone fragments from his teeth, whilst voices in the…Jan 3, 23:12
    • Geri on Once more around: “I hope so to. Something had to change because clearly sticking to the outdated model wasn’t working. I’m sure it’ll…Jan 3, 23:05
    • Geri on Once more around: “It does because unless you have proof there isn’t white gangs operating too then you can’t go shouting yer racist…Jan 3, 22:50
    • agent X on Once more around: “The UK’s first safer drug consumption facility has been given an official opening date for Monday, January 13 2025.The site…Jan 3, 22:08
    • Geri on Once more around: “I think you may explain why Alba got nowhere. A supposed *founding member* never tired of telling Independence supporters how…Jan 3, 22:01
    • Mia on Once more around: “Yes, it does follow. Because the gangs raping young girls that have been recently been the focus of attention in…Jan 3, 21:59
    • Hatey McHateface on Once more around: “The Cutty Sark was rigged too 🙂Jan 3, 21:58
    • Geri on Once more around: “Does Tesla make tanks for the military complex now? Watch that space…Jan 3, 21:53
    • Geri on Once more around: “Curtis for example – wasn’t he always conducting polling to show ppl regretted Brexshit? Oh lookie, a general election was…Jan 3, 21:44
    • Geri on Once more around: “Can you explain why the most competent leader Scotland has ever seen at Holyrood suddenly went from hero to zero?…Jan 3, 21:38
    • Andy Ellis on Once more around: “Then you’re more of a crank than I thought, which for avoidance of doubt probably makes you discernible from low…Jan 3, 21:30
    • Hatey McHateface on Once more around: “If you are unconvinced that a single demographic is overwhelmingly behind this, your subsequent statement: “it seems very clear that…Jan 3, 21:08
    • sarah on Once more around: “They are paid to, perhaps?Jan 3, 21:01
    • Mia on Once more around: “I am not convinced that it can be stated that a single demographic is overwhelmingly responsible. I do not think…Jan 3, 20:44
    • Campbell Clansman on Once more around: ““Geri,” do you also “firmly believe” that the polls, from so many pollsters, showing Alba similarly nowhere, are also rigged?…Jan 3, 20:42
    • Geri on Once more around: “I firmly believe the elections are rigged. There is no other explanation for Alba not making ground. Unless the *blow-ins*…Jan 3, 20:31
    • Hatey McHateface on Once more around: “I’m guessing, Alf, that you do recognise and understand that writing a bit of text, calling it a “constitution”, posting…Jan 3, 20:09
    • Campbell Clansman on Once more around: “These micro-parties and micro-movements also exist to feed the egos of the creators.Jan 3, 20:03
    • Hatey McHateface on Once more around: “There’s massive amounts of child abuse going on in England, and to a lesser extent in Scotland. It’s a single…Jan 3, 19:43
    • Young Lochinvar on Once more around: “Why would anyone down vote this??Jan 3, 19:31
    • Hatey McHateface on Once more around: “A western tank, Geri, with American heavy duty armour, so useless. As you continually like to tell us. “super duper…Jan 3, 19:30
    • Hatey McHateface on Once more around: ““Bragg’s, now got some stupid title like, Liberty or something like that” Odd, Ros, you’re forever on here revealing the…Jan 3, 19:26
    • Hatey McHateface on Once more around: ““tried to justify the US’s assassination of Iran’s and the region’s most prominent anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani” Why…Jan 3, 19:14
  • A tall tale



↑ Top