Wings two days ago: “The SNP wants to do a devo-max deal with Labour”.
The SNP today: “We’re prepared to do a devo-max deal with Labour”.
We were reminded this week of the amount of stick we got when we wrote these words almost five years ago, right after the 2016 Holyrood election:
(The rest of our post-match analysis wasn’t too shabby either.)
But readers, we have to grudgingly admit: we’re only NEARLY always right.
For much of last year, this site advocated a rational but unpopular position – namely that the SNP, which at the time held the balance of power in the UK parliament, should offer to support Theresa May’s soft-Brexit deal in exchange for the transfer of powers to hold a second independence referendum.
The logic was clear – nothing was ever going to stop Brexit from happening, but passing May’s deal would save the UK from the catastrophe of a no-deal. Everyone would be a winner – England and Wales would get what they voted for, Remain-voting Northern Ireland would get special terms that kept it in the EU in all but name, and Scotland would get the chance to stay in the EU as an independent nation.
“But no!”, everyone screamed at us. “We can’t possibly do any sort of deal with the Tories or we’d be electorally crucified and lose the referendum, you idiots!”
Record scratch, jump-cut to the present day.
[Pause for long, weary sigh.]
29 June 2016. Don’t say we don’t warn you, readers.
And this was February of the same year, when Barack Obama and David Cameron were still in charge of their respective nations:
You’ll always read it here first, folks. Even when you don’t want to.
Almost exactly two years ago, this website suggested that it might not be the smartest idea for Labour to go along with Theresa May’s call for a snap election. (Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, it couldn’t have happened without Labour’s support.)
And it occurred to us today that if they hadn’t, the current government would only have a maximum of one year left to run.
So there was a football match at the weekend.
At least three people were stabbed, one very seriously, in violent incidents the likes of which haven’t been seen around Scottish football for years.
But it was probably just a random, unforseeable one-off, right?
Regular readers of this site will be impressed, if perhaps less than astonished, at the new high score achieved this week in the timeless game of McTernan Predicts:
It’s 4.36am. I’m going to go to bed in a minute. I’m hoping that I get up in a few hours and laugh at this, delighted at my own unfounded pessimism.
Back in May we wrote this:
The prediction duly came true, as most of ours do. Sometimes we hate being right.
Exactly two years ago today (how time flies), we wrote this:
It doesn’t seem overly immodest to say that we pretty much nailed it. But if that was then and this is now, what of tomorrow?
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
