The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland



The outstanding balance 591

Posted on February 10, 2019 by

We had an interesting exchange with Scottish Labour MP Paul Sweeney this week on the deathless lie that is the “fiscal transfer” – the £10bn or so that Unionists rather startlingly insist the rest of the UK generously donates to Scotland every year out of the goodness of its heart, just for the pleasure of our company.

As you can see, the debate was of a high intellectual standard.

Read the rest of this entry →

The useless Samaritans 76

Posted on September 15, 2013 by

We’ve been meaning to nag someone to present this data in a super-snappy visual form for ages, then what do you know except that the splendid Stewart Bremner just pops up out of nowhere and does it without even being asked.

samaritans

Independence will NOT “abandon England to the Tories”. If the people of the rest of the UK choose to vote Tory, we can’t save them from themselves, even were we to be so arrogant as to assume we had any business doing so. If they choose to vote Labour, they’re equally capable of electing them just fine without our help.

Scottish votes are almost totally irrelevant to UK elections. We have no impact on the government England gets. They, on the other hand, force governments that we voted against on us more than 60% of the time. That’s not a union of equals. That’s the political equivalent of domestic abuse. It’s never the wrong time to walk away.

Read the rest of this entry →

The invisible truth 4

Posted on February 12, 2012 by

There are some stories which persist long after they’ve been debunked, a recent example being Joan McAlpine’s supposed accusation that anyone opposing the SNP was “anti-Scottish”. However many times it was shown that she didn’t say any such thing, however often she explained what she HAD said, the lie kept being perpetuated (and will doubtless continue to be in the coming months and years) by people who knew full well it wasn’t true, because it suited their agenda to do so.

The notion that Scotland is massively subsidised by England is another such political legend, and we don’t imagine for a second that this story from today’s Sunday Times will stop the endless stream of idiots on the Telegraph, Mail and Express (both above and below the line) from continuing to assert it at every opportunity.


But at least now you can handily link them to the actual facts, even if they don’t want to hear them. The full article can be read below.

Read the rest of this entry →

Alex Salmond Dictator-Comparison Bingo! 59

Posted on February 03, 2012 by

It won’t have come as any surprise to SNP supporters that the media – the same one that devoted hundreds of column inches to misrepresenting Joan McAlpine’s “anti-Scottish” comments on Twitter – was today absolutely silent on Labour MP Denis McShane’s comparison of Alex Salmond to Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic.


MacShane, who voted in favour of the Iraq War, hasn’t deleted the tweet, despite a storm of protest on Twitter. But he’s only the latest in a long line of Unionist politicians to compare Scotland’s democratically elected First Minister (who as far as we know isn’t implicated in a single death) to murderous genocidal dictators.

Labour in particular are fond of crying about the nasty cybernat “bullies” who occasionally call Labour politicians names online, but those are pseudonymous internet users with not a shred of evidence that any of them are members of – or even vote for – the SNP. We’re not aware of any elected Nat representative or even pro-independence journalist ever having likened Gordon Brown or Tony Blair or Ed Miliband to Hitler, but the brave defenders of the Union have no such scruples. MacShane is merely the latest in a long and ignoble line, so we thought it’d be a good idea to keep track and see if we can get a full house.

Read the rest of this entry →

Why Labour doesn’t need Scotland 111

Posted on January 10, 2012 by

One of Labour’s sneakier tricks in opposing Scottish independence is to appeal to Scottish voters’ sense of social responsibility. The former party of socialist internationalism begs the Scots to show Unionist solidarity with their poor comrades in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, who would – the story runs – be abandoned permanently to the mercies of the evil Tories if the Westminster Parliament was deprived of its traditional sizeable block of Labour MPs from Scotland.

This narrative is regularly propagated by Labour’s friends in the media (and sometimes by gleeful Tories too). Only today, for example, the Scotsman carries the line in a piece which asserts that an independent Scotland would leave David Cameron “with an inbuilt Tory majority for his party in the rest of the UK”.

There are, of course, innumerable things wrong with this argument – for one, the dubious morality of using Scottish MPs to impose a Labour government on English voters who may have rejected one, when Scotland has its own Parliament and England doesn’t. (An offshoot of the timeless West Lothian Question.) And for another, the highly questionable premise that the modern-day Labour Party is ideologically significantly different from the Tories anyway.

But the biggest problem with the notion is simply that it’s completely untrue.

Read the rest of this entry →

Missing the point of a referendum 3

Posted on November 15, 2011 by

Scottish Labour embarrassed themselves horribly today when they jumped on comments from SNP MSP Stewart Maxwell in which he noted that the Scottish Government was only legally empowered to hold an advisory referendum on independence rather than a binding one. Not withstanding the fact that ALL referenda in the UK are only advisory, whether conducted by Holyrood or Westminster or anyone else, Labour’s humiliating blunder was in triumphantly asserting there was something new about this position, when in fact the very first sentence of the SNP’s National Conversation website – dating back over two years – says the exact same thing:

“The First Minister has outlined plans for a public consultation on a draft Referendum Bill which sets out proposals for an advisory referendum on extending the powers of the Scottish Parliament.”

But there’s another aspect to the nature of referenda that everyone seems to be inexplicably overlooking of late. The Unionist parties have recently ramped up a campaign in which they demand the SNP “clarify” every last item of policy in an independent Scotland, from currency and EU membership to renewable energy transmission costs, pension provision, and all the way down to what colour the First Minister’s going to paint Bute House’s front door. What nobody seems to have grasped is the fairly crucial point that that’s not what a referendum is for.

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: 6,691 Posts, 1,208,880 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • James Gardner on A crisis of democracy: “The UK squandered it building nuclear bombs and missile technology and fighting colonial wars.Jan 15, 03:39
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “re. rumours #ScotlandEARTHQUAKEJan 15, 01:19
    • Young Lochinvar on A crisis of democracy: “Does that post constitute “whanging on about ….”? or am I simply picking this up wrong?Jan 15, 00:58
    • Young Lochinvar on A crisis of democracy: “Branchform submission? Rumour is Breathy Bain has rolled it into a phallus shape, rocked up to pal Vals polycule and…Jan 15, 00:41
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “The Independent: Is Scotland Facing An Identity Crisis? https://www.indiependent.co.uk/is-scotland-facing-an-identity-crisis/ https://archive.ph/giDy7 #ScotlandIdentityCrisis2025 #YawnJan 15, 00:39
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: ““The eyes are the mirror of the soul, they reflect everything that seems hidden – Like a mirror, they reflect…Jan 15, 00:31
    • Young Lochinvar on A crisis of democracy: “I’m going against a decision I wasn’t going to comment here anymore due to heavy handed “moderation”, but IM; very…Jan 15, 00:23
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “Myself: “A speaker or writer uses myself to refer to himself or herself. Myself is used as the object of…Jan 15, 00:09
    • Scot Finlayson on A crisis of democracy: “£90 billion a year in interest payments for UK £3 trillion debt, most of the debt was from Brown and…Jan 14, 23:56
    • Iain mhor on A crisis of democracy: “Yes and no. I’d rather say that under the Marshall Plan (of which Britain received the Lion’s share) the monies…Jan 14, 23:43
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “BBC (2025): MSP pay to rise by 3.2% to almost £75,000: “The total cost of MSP salaries and associated taxes…Jan 14, 23:41
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A crisis of democracy: “I have just watched and posted the lower of two videos at the link below. It is archive footage of…Jan 14, 23:20
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “Must be my imagination here, but It feels as though I’m talking to myself sometimes, lolJan 14, 23:04
    • gregor on Nicola’s Non-Truths: “re. “Who will get the camper van after the divorce?”Jan 14, 22:46
    • Jay on A crisis of democracy: “There is something in common between Starmer and Trump.Jan 14, 22:32
    • Jay on A crisis of democracy: “Yes, and as Rev Stu mentioned earlier, much depends on the design of the P.R. system used, it can put…Jan 14, 22:25
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “Scotland doesn’t get the message, huh ? I don’t believe you… “Message: 1. a communication, usually brief, from one person…Jan 14, 22:17
    • PacMan on A crisis of democracy: “That is based on the assumption that all of these appointees and members of both houses are totally loyal to…Jan 14, 22:17
    • Jay on A crisis of democracy: “That summarises the threat. There is further threat from oligarchs undermining the ‘4th estate’, either buying formerly reputable titles or…Jan 14, 22:15
    • Dave Hansell on A crisis of democracy: “Nope. Not even Wikipedia has a page on “The Sherman Plan” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?go=Go&search=The+Sherman+Plan&ns0=1 The search engine lists the 1787 Roger Sherman…Jan 14, 22:03
    • Derek on A crisis of democracy: ““the government is opposed by four out of every five voters” isn’t really true though. Plenty of people who voted…Jan 14, 21:58
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “It’s the message that counts.Jan 14, 21:33
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “COPFS @COPFS: reposted: “Disrupting serious organised crime is a priority for @ScotGov and partners on the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce…”:…Jan 14, 21:29
    • willi on A crisis of democracy: “Can’t but help think what friendship the Donald John is saving up for the hapless Sir Keir Starmer who actively…Jan 14, 21:22
    • Marie on A crisis of democracy: “If you say so Chatham House. HilariousJan 14, 21:21
    • Dave Hansell on A crisis of democracy: “Surely the SNP have not done that much damage? Otherwise, we’ed have seen the official D-notice.Jan 14, 21:20
    • Humza Who? on A crisis of democracy: “A promise from that amoral grifter Farage is even less reliable than one from the SNP or the Labour Party’s…Jan 14, 21:07
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “Back To The Future: I have rejoined the SNP: “…in case anyone else is thinking it’s time to work for…Jan 14, 21:05
    • Humza Who? on A crisis of democracy: “There should be enough checks and balances in the US system. That isn’t the case these days. The Republican Party…Jan 14, 21:01
    • gregor on A crisis of democracy: “Operation Branchform latest (2025): Police ‘fed up’ of being blamed for length of SNP finance probe: “The Crown Office has…Jan 14, 20:44
  • A tall tale



↑ Top