The Super-Duper Mega Vow Deluxe Plus 126
We’ve already said all we’ve got to say on this one.
We’ve already said all we’ve got to say on this one.
Kate Devlin of the Herald has been a political journalist as long as we can remember.
So it’s quite surprising that she’s apparently never heard of Gordon Brown before.
We don’t get paid enough. Then again, we’re not sure how much money it would have taken to make the job of wading through the UK government’s 134-page “command paper” on Scottish devolution bearable. There may not BE that much money.
The entire document is a heroic achievement in the field of wonkspeak, screed after screed of impenetrable jargon deployed to create something which could in fact be accurately and fully summed up in six words: “Oh, we’ll figure something out later”.
Here’s a (very) typical passage:
We haven’t left out a subsequent paragraph explaining the answer. The paper simply leaves this and pretty much every other question hanging in the air, to be filled in at some unspecified future date after the general election, by whichever party is in government, if they can be bothered.
Don’t all celebrate at once.
The No camp really do seem to be the world’s worst winners. In a mischievous piece of trolling today, the First Minister announced that the SNP’s policy of not voting on English matters at Westminster was to come to an end, and that it would intervene for the protection of the NHS, on the reasonable grounds of avoiding Barnett cuts to the Scottish budget were privatisation south of the border to lead to lower spending.
The reaction from Labour and the Tories was predictable, with the latter accusing Sturgeon of throwing principle “out the window”. George Osborne, furthermore, was quoted in the Telegraph telling a Commons committee that:
And readers might be forgiven for thinking “Hang on, isn’t that what you wanted?”
Below is a clip from today’s “Morning Call” on BBC Radio Scotland. Speaking (from 16m 24s on the full show) are SNP MSP Mark McDonald, presenter Kaye Adams and Labour MSP Lewis Macdonald. There are a couple of noteworthy moments.
A caller named “George” had rung in concerned that the SNP might be giving up on their goal of independence, and Adams invited Mark McDonald to set his mind at rest. Here’s what happened in the next three minutes.
Just keeping you in the loop, readers.
The Daily Record, 27 November 2014:
So, IS the Scottish Government budget going to “nearly double”?
As the Unionist press and parties indulge in orgasmic paroxysms this week about how “The Vow” has allegedly been delivered and exceeded, it rings even stranger that absolutely nobody wants to claim the credit for authoring the historic document that saved the UK. Our investigations continue.
We’re going to hold off full scrutiny and analysis of the Smith Commission report on devolution until it’s actually released and we’ve read it, rather than going on pure speculation like most Scottish newspapers this morning.
But what we CAN talk about is this.
We’ve had another letter from the government.
Peeking at the Twitter accounts of the country’s more prominent Unionists has been an especially entertaining pastime today, as self-awareness has been cast aside even more vigorously than usual in a concerted attempt to attack new pro-independence daily The National as being an uncritical mouthpiece of the SNP akin to the infamous Russian propaganda newspaper Pravda (mostly despite those concerned admitting to not having read the first issue).
It’s surely a tribute to the pedigree and potential of the new paper that the prospect of Unionists only having 97% of the Scottish media on their side has them hoiking toys from prams with such squealing abandon, and it’s both curious and hilarious that 35 newspapers in favour of the Union was a perfectly acceptable manifestation of the freedom of the press but a single one in favour turns Scotland into the Soviet Union.
But more to the point, there’s a far better candidate for the “McPravda” sobriquet.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)