Moment of truth for Indyref 2 as Sturgeon's red line is crossed : reports suggest Theresa May will pull the UK out of the single market

Several newspapers have reported in the last few minutes that Theresa May is now confirming that she will be prepared to withdraw the UK (and by extension Scotland) from the single market if the free movement of people is non-negotiable - which Angela Merkel and other European leaders have already stated is absolutely the case.

So this is the moment of truth for the unionist commentators who have spent months telling themselves that Nicola Sturgeon is bluffing about a second independence referendum.  If they're right, Sturgeon will shortly abandon her red line that Scotland must stay in the single market, and will offer to settle for much more modest concessions.

I don't believe for one moment that she's going to do that.  Deep down, I don't think her critics truly believe that she will either (except perhaps for a few based in London who are particularly poorly informed).  Either way, it looks like we're about to find out.

Let's not rewrite history on the "tactical voting" stunt

Via Twitter, I've learned that Richard Walker said this at the Scottish Independence Convention earlier today -

"The National, the Sunday Herald, Bella Caledonia and CommonSpace all came under fire during the Holyrood election campaign for the sin of giving space to pro-indy parties such as RISE and the Greens, because we were accused of allegedly encouraging voters to give their second votes to those parties, and therefore eroding the SNP majority."

With all due respect to Richard, that gives a somewhat misleading impression of the nature of the criticisms that were levelled.  It's true that some people had a general complaint that wildly disproportionate coverage was being given to RISE in particular, which was and remains a fringe party that never had any realistic hope of winning even one seat in parliament (the fact that they didn't come close even after the lavish coverage they received tells its own story).  But there was also an entirely separate and much more specific criticism of Bella Caledonia and, for one weekend only, of the Sunday Herald - namely that they misled their readers about the workings of the voting system, giving the impression that SNP list votes were not required for a majority, and that SNP supporters would therefore be foolish not to give their list votes on a tactical basis to RISE or the Greens, with the pie-in-the-sky objective of simultaneously electing a majority pro-independence government and a pro-independence opposition.

It's disingenuous to imply that the latter type of criticism of Bella and the Sunday Herald amounted to an objection to RISE or the Greens being given any coverage, or even very generous coverage.  It would have been perfectly possible to give those parties lots of space to pitch for list votes on the basis of their own policies, as opposed to the endless distortions about the voting system and the "tactical" possibilities it supposedly offered.  It's impossible to know for sure whether the pro-tactical voting editorial line in Bella and the Sunday Herald contributed in any significant way to the loss of the SNP majority, but as the SNP actually made gains in the constituencies and lost their majority entirely on the list, the possibility self-evidently cannot be excluded.

Note that this criticism does not extend to The National - I can't recall them ever publishing anything misleading on the tactical voting issue, and indeed in the run-up to the election they splashed with a very fair piece by John Curtice that set out at least some of the arguments in both directions very clearly.  Although CommonSpace were pushing RISE quite heavily, I can't clearly remember what line they were taking on tactical voting - I do recall that at one point they posted both the Phantom Power video I appeared in, and Stephen Paton's own pro-tactical voting video, to allow people to make up their own minds.  So there was perhaps less of an all-out propaganda campaign going on at CommonSpace than there was at Bella.

YouGov poll reveals the chasm between Scottish and British public opinion on the EU is as wide as ever

I think if I was a Liberal Democrat, I'd be distinctly underwhelmed by the findings of the first two Britain-wide voting intention polls of 2017.  Both YouGov and ICM have Tim Farron's party trailing in fourth place, behind UKIP by several points.  The suggestions of a few weeks ago that 'normal service' had been resumed and that the broadcast media could safely revert to treating the Lib Dems as the 'real' third force of British politics now ring even more hollow than they did at the time.  The very minor boost that YouGov reported for the party after Richmond Park appears to have been largely reversed, while ICM never really showed a boost in the first place.  The most that can be said now is that the Lib Dems are at the higher end of what was their 'normal range' of support prior to Richmond Park.  Unless they achieve a big headline success story at the local elections in May, the momentum from their by-election triumph may end up being squandered.  It's the age-old story - for every by-election sensation like Hamilton that truly changes the course of history, there are ten other sensations that turn out to be one-hit wonders in retrospect.

Meanwhile, YouGov asked a long series of supplementary questions relating to Brexit, which allow us to make some sort of comparison between British public opinion and Scottish public opinion - and there's certainly quite a sharp contrast between the two.  OK, we always have to bear in mind that Scottish subsamples of Britain-wide polls are small and not necessarily reliable - but for what it's worth, the Scottish voting intention figures intuitively 'feel' pretty close to the money.  The SNP are on 51%, the Tories on 20%, Labour on 16% and the Lib Dems on 8%.  Perhaps the SNP are a little too high and the Tories a touch too low, but the figures are certainly not far off from what we believe to be the true state of play.  That adds a bit more credibility to what you're about to see.

How well or badly do you think the government are doing at negotiating Britain's exit from the European Union?

Britain-wide figures : Very or fairly well 20%, Very or fairly badly 57%
Scottish figures : Very or fairly well 8%, Very or fairly badly 69%

In hindsight, was Britain right or wrong to leave the European Union?

Britain-wide figures : Right 47%, Wrong 43%
Scottish figures : Right 31%, Wrong 60%

Do you think Britain will be economically better or worse off after we leave the European Union, or will it make no difference?

Britain-wide figures : Better off 29%, Worse off 37%
Scottish figures : Better off 14%, Worse off 55%

Do you think Britain will have more or less influence in the world after we leave the European Union, or will it make no difference?

Britain-wide figures : More influence 21%, Less influence 36%
Scottish figures : More influence 11%, Less influence 54%

Do you think leaving the EU will have a good or bad effect on British jobs, or will it make no difference?

Britain-wide figures : Good for jobs 28% , Bad for jobs 32%
Scottish figures : Good for jobs 15%, Bad for jobs 47%

Do you think leaving the EU will have a good or bad effect on the NHS, or will it make no difference?

Britain-wide figures : Good for the NHS 30%, Bad for the NHS 25%
Scottish figures : Good for the NHS 13%, Bad for the NHS 36%

Do you think leaving the EU will have a good or bad effect on people’s pensions, or will it make no difference?

Britain-wide figures : Good for pensions 10%, Bad for for pensions 25%
Scottish figures : Good for pensions 4% , Bad for pensions 41%

What I find most extraordinary about those numbers is that, even now, there seems to be a lingering faith south of the border in the Leave campaign's claim that Brexit would somehow magically make the NHS better. A nasty shock is coming to a country near you...

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Co-belligerents rather than loved-up allies : a realistic view of how different parts of the alternative pro-indy media can complement each other as Indyref 2 approaches

So Bella Caledonia's future seems secure after all, without even needing to take up Craig Murray's offer to work as editor for free (although, after the overwhelming result of our poll the other night, Craig will forever be known as "the people's choice for Bella editor"!). From my reading of the announcement, it seems that Mike Small will continue as editor, but only for a transitional period while new arrangements are put in place. I suspect that even Bella's most trenchant critics will be happy enough with the outcome, because most of them regard 80-90% of the site's output as exceptionally good - it's just been the editorial stance in respect of RISE and tactical voting (and the denials that there has been any editorial stance on those subjects at all) that has got quite a few backs up.

With a localised crisis having been averted, this may be a useful moment to reflect on the broader state of the pro-independence alternative media as we approach a probable (admittedly not certain) independence referendum over the next couple of years. As you may remember me mentioning, about three months ago I was invited to a 'separatist dinner' along with a number of other Yes people who have a decent following on social media or in the blogosphere. One purpose of the event was to have a collective think about how we might go about neutralising the problem of what our opponents would describe as 'Cybernat abuse' during the next referendum. I don't think there was any intention to deny the fact that abuse from the unionist side is either equally bad or in some cases much worse. There was simply a feeling that if we could find a practical way of reducing the problem on our own side, it would be a good thing in itself and also helpful for the Yes campaign.

I was, I must admit, a wee bit sceptical about how effective a 'disapproval of community elders' approach can ever be. Really hardcore abusive trolls are not going to be impressed by that sort of thing, and may become even worse if they feel persecuted by both sides. But if it is to have any chance at all of working, there would have to be a reasonably united front, and that's where the idea really starts to fall down. Ironically, a few of the people who were at that dinner, including myself, have since ended up having bitter disputes with each other on social media - not necessarily abusive disputes, but certainly very unpleasant. So there's a part of me that's inclined to say : to hell with clearing out the nutter trolls, the first priority has got to be to stop ourselves from damaging the cause by knocking lumps out of each other.  The disagreements are probably not doing any harm at the moment, but in the heat of battle it could be a very different story.

As a result of the Bella crisis, GA Ponsonby has reiterated a vision of a united pro-indy alternative media that he's outlined before - as I understand it, the proposal is that there should be a pan-Yes co-operative with a central fund to aid all writers who need to be compensated for their time and effort. I struggle to see how that would work in practice, because if absolutely anyone could access the fund for absolutely any form of writing, the money would often not go to the best use. But as soon as you bow to the inevitable and introduce editorial control, you're assuming that all parts of the Yes movement are capable of treating each other with mutual respect and tolerance, without trying to silence certain voices or shut down certain views. I have to say that I feel my own experiences over the last few days have tested that assumption to destruction.

As long-term readers know, I'm about as left-wing as they come, and when I fill out 'Political Compass'-type questionnaires, they often end up telling me that my own politics are actually closest to the Greens rather than to the SNP. So in theory at least, I should have a great deal of common ground with people involved at CommonSpace, or in the Greens, or in RISE. But one reason I'm not a Green, of course, is that I regard independence as an overriding objective on its own merits. No-one could ever reasonably dispute the authenticity of Patrick Harvie's commitment to independence, but it's not what brought him in to politics. Many people in the radical left parties are, quite understandably, most passionate about the environment, or about citizen's income, or about LGBT rights, or about radical feminism.

For the most part that needn't cause any flare-ups, because there's considerable shared ground on many of those issues across the Yes movement. But I think we have to be grown-up enough to recognise that there are some points of contention that 45% of the population (let alone 51%) are never going to be able to resolve amongst themselves or reach a shared view about.  Radical feminist ideology is one obvious example.  Please note that I'm using the term 'radical feminism' advisedly - I'm not referring to a belief in equality between the sexes, which in this day and age is a shared value across the vast bulk of the political left, and most of the political right as well.  Radical feminism goes well beyond that, with some strains of the ideology regarding women as the inherently superior gender.  (Even when that view is not expressed explictly, it's betrayed by the constant spitting out of words and phrases such as "mansplaining" and "what about teh menz", which frame the word "man" as if it's somehow derogatory.  It would never be regarded as acceptable to use the word "woman" in the same way.)  Self-evidently, that worldview is not one that's shared by the great mass of the population, either female or male.  It is therefore totally unrealistic to expect the Yes movement, which ultimately is drawn from that population, to speak with a single voice on the issue.

So what is the test of tolerance and mutual respect here?  I'd suggest there are two approaches that ought to allow people with diverging views to rub along with each other.  One is just not to engage with each other at all on the subject, and the other is to engage in a comradely way that acknowledges the right of the other person to hold an alternative position.  Several people involved with CommonSpace (belatedly including the editor herself) failed that test when I dared to express my own view on the John Mason episode the other day.  Instead of debating or challenging my views in the normal way, they tried to shut those views down and pathologise them - and indeed to pathologise me.  I was a mentally unstable, "weird", "creepy", "auld guy", who was "harassing younger women" simply by speaking to them as I would speak to anyone else, and who wasn't respecting their right to withhold "consent" (the latter being a cowardly way of implying that answering them back was somehow equivalent to sexual harassment or rape).  I should have just "shut up".  Make no mistake about it - I thought that use of language was disgraceful at the time, and with the benefit of having had plenty of time to reflect on it in the cold light of day, I still think it's disgraceful now.  I know that quite a few other people received similar treatment.  What I find disturbing is not so much that I will almost certainly never receive an apology, but that the people involved probably don't even privately have the first glimmer of understanding of why using those words about another human being, whether female or male, is dehumanising and profoundly hurtful.

Depressingly, I therefore see no prospect of there ever being sufficient mutual respect and tolerance across the Yes movement for it to be possible for particularly sensitive and contentious topics that don't directly relate to independence to be openly debated in a constructive and comradely way.  So to avoid harmful disputes, perhaps what we need to do is just embrace the fact that in many cases we're in this game for very different reasons - in the terminology of warfare, we're 'co-belligerents' rather than 'allies', with independence being the common objective.  As far as the alternative pro-indy media is concerned, we can certainly complement each other and make sure we don't tread on each other's toes as the referendum gets close - for example, the radical left can recognise that Wings reaches a great many people that CommonSpace and Bella never will, and vice versa.  But even that will require a kind of grudging mutual respect - an acceptance, even if it's never spoken aloud, that the bits of the pro-indy media you personally dislike are nevertheless part of the solution in hard-headed electoral terms, rather than part of the problem.  That more limited mutual respect isn't there yet (witness the latest attempts to brand the huge popularity of Wings as "problematic"), but it's a more realistic goal, and I think that's probably what we should be working towards.

How to do the Herald Hokey and the BMG Boogie

OK, here are the rules of the dance.  They're pretty straightforward.

Starting position : Britain's decision to leave the EU has made an early Scottish independence referendum very likely, with the most probable dates being 2018 or 2019.  Almost no-one is seriously talking about the possibility of a referendum in 2017.

First move : You'd really like a poll showing that Nicola Sturgeon is under pressure to drop the idea of a referendum, so you get on the blower to BMG.

Second move : You start to worry that you might not get the result you're looking for by honest means, so instead of simply asking the public whether they want a referendum, you ask a ludicrously narrow question about whether they want a referendum in 2017 - which everyone knows is not a realistic possibility anyway.

Third move : You get your hollow 'anti-referendum majority', and run a story about how it's a blow for Nicola Sturgeon that the public don't want her to do something she was never planning to do anyway.

Fourth move : You try to retain your composure as a bemused Nicola Sturgeon points out that the poll result is an irrelevance because, as everyone knows, she never had any intention of calling a referendum in 2017.

Fifth move : You run a hysterical headline pretending that Nicola Sturgeon's statement of the bleedin' obvious is a climbdown caused by the result of your own poll and the extreme pressure it put on her.

Sixth move : You try very, very hard to maintain that innocent look on your face.

Seventh move : Congratulations!  You've turned into the Daily Express.

Poll finds overwhelming backing for Craig Murray's bid to save Bella Caledonia from closure

There has been a great deal of shock at the sudden uncertainty hanging over the future of Bella Caledonia, one of the most prominent sites in the pro-independence alternative media.  The concern has extended way beyond the usual suspects in the Yes movement, with even BBC Scotland's business editor Douglas Fraser revealing his high regard for Bella, and suggesting that pro-indy activists have perhaps been funding the 'wrong' websites to date.  That's a rather odd charge given that Bella's last two fundraisers have in combination brought in an absolutely enormous £87,000, but nevertheless Bella's board and outgoing editor have clearly concluded that the current financial model is not sustainable, and that the site may have to close if a workable alternative isn't found.

One possible solution has tonight been floated by Craig Murray, the UK's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, and now a passionate advocate for Scottish independence.  He has offered to take over the site as editor without drawing a salary, and also to cover any running costs himself.  He has also proposed that contributors to the site should in future be unpaid, thus solving the financial problems at a stroke.  That would be a massive change in direction for Bella, which in recent years has set out (albeit not always succeeded) to broadly replicate the mainstream media in how it compensates contributors. 

Christopher Silver was particularly scathing about this aspect of Craig's plan, which he considers to be another example of a prevailing attitude which is "yoking a generation of talent".  I have some sympathy with that view, but ultimately you have to take a step back, and accept that if you will the ends (the survival of Bella), you also have to will the means - and those means will inevitably be shaped by the sustainability of any financial model.  That doesn't necessarily mean going from one extreme to the other in quite the way Craig suggests, but if you want to keep paying contributors, it might mean paying them less, or only paying certain 'big name' contributors, or cutting down on output altogether.  If Bella is not just 'the media' but is also an integral part of the independence movement, it certainly ought to be possible in principle to find people who would be motivated enough to write for free, or for only a little.  But that would probably involve giving those people the maximum space and freedom to pursue their own passions at their own pace (and I say that as someone who has written a roughly equal number of paid and unpaid articles for other websites over the years).  That in itself might constitute something of a culture change for the site.

Anyway, out of curiosity, I decided to run a poll on Twitter to test the enthusiasm for Craig taking over as editor.  The poll still has almost a day to run, but 409 people have already voted, and the preliminary results can only be described as emphatic -

Should the Bella Caledonia board accept Craig Murray's offer to take over as editor and keep the site going for free?

Yes 82%
No 18%

OK, strictly speaking this is a self-selecting 'voodoo' poll, but for a niche concern like this it would in any case be meaningless to attempt to poll a representative sample of the general public.  At least Twitter polls ensure that each account can only vote once, and it's also highly likely that most of the people reached by the poll are active 'consumers' of the pro-independence alternative media.

So if this popular backing for Craig is heeded by the Bella board, what would it mean for the site?  Craig has said that nothing would change as far as the reader's experience is concerned, but a new editor is surely bound to herald at least a subtle change of direction.  I would guess there would be a somewhat 'brasher' emphasis on support for independence in future.  Given that Craig is a former, but not current, member of the SNP, it's likely that the site would continue to be a 'critical friend' of the Scottish Government, but with the criticisms perhaps coming from a somewhat different angle than at present.  (It's worth noting that Craig is also a former member of the Liberal Democrats, rather than a radical left party.)  Ironically enough, one point on which there would probably be no change at all is the site's trenchant support for so-called 'tactical voting on the list', which is the only topic I can ever remember having a direct disagreement with Craig about.

Don't forget to respond to the consultation on a second independence referendum

Just a public service reminder that the Scottish Government's consultation on a possible second independence referendum will be closing in a couple of days.  As you're probably aware, it's not a consultation on the principle of whether an early referendum should be held, but instead asks for views on the rules that should govern a referendum if one is called.  In that sense, it would be equally logical for both supporters and opponents of independence to respond - but I have a sneaking suspicion that the overall number of responses may be used by the media as an indication of the current level of enthusiasm for both independence and a referendum.  So if you feel able to respond, I'd suggest it might be a good idea to do so.

Some of the questions may initially look a bit daunting, because they cover fairly arcane and technical issues, but bear in mind that it's not necessary to respond to every question or to cover every aspect of an individual question.  If all else fails, probably the easiest question to answer is number 2, which touches on the extent of the franchise.  There's the opportunity to express approval for the automatic inclusion of 16 and 17 year olds (without any need for a separate register this time), and for the decision to continue basing the franchise on residency, rather than the 'birthright' principle that governed the Brexit referendum.  It's always worth making the point that if the 2014 indyref had used the same principle as the Brexit vote (ie. excluding most people born outside Scotland), there's academic evidence to suggest that Yes might well have narrowly won.  Conversely, if the Brexit vote had used the same principle as the indyref and allowed EU citizens living in the UK to vote, it's overwhelmingly likely that Remain would have won.  So we're actually supporting a franchise that is against the best interests of the Yes campaign - but we're doing that because we have strong ideals about the type of country we want to live in, regardless of whether we are independent or not.

You can read the consultation paper, and respond to it online, by clicking HERE.

Cochrane Must Answer

Friday : 'Cochrane wants fish and chips'

There were incredible scenes in Largs this morning as the Telegraph's Alan Cochrane visited the Blue Lagoon.  "Yes, I would like fish and chips", said the irascible newsman.  "But only if there's ketchup!" he added, with a gleam in his eye.

Saturday : 'Shock as Cochrane backs off from fish and chips request'

The seaside town of Largs was reeling in disbelief this morning as TV's Alan Cochrane performed a shock U-turn on his request for fish and chips.  Staff in the Blue Lagoon were left stunned as Cochrane made clear he would REJECT the meal unless ketchup was provided.  "Yes, I would like fish and chips, but only if there's ketchup", thundered the rogueish newsman.

Sunday : 'Demands for Cochrane to end confusion as he boasts that he is not bluffing about wanting fish and chips'

There were doubts this morning over the fate of Alan Cochrane's stomach, as the columnist performed his second U-turn in as many days on the question of whether he wants to have some fish and chips.  Staff at the Blue Lagoon in Largs were left bemused as Cochrane announced that he DOES want the meal after all.  "Yes, I would like fish and chips (but only if there's ketchup)", barked the crotchety newsman.

The Telegraph's Alan Cochrane was quick to blast Cochrane over his indecision.  "This is farcical.  On Friday we were told Alan wanted fish and chips but only if there was ketchup.  On Saturday that changed to him wanting fish and chips but only if there was ketchup.  And now on Sunday he's suddenly decided that he wants fish and chips but only if there's ketchup!  Which is it?  Will the real Alan Cochrane please stand up?"

A belated right of reply to Kirsty Strickland, James McEnaney and David Clegg

Further to the post about the confected John Mason controversy the other day, I've just been made aware of a thread on Twitter that was partly about little old me.  It involved CommonSpace columnist Kirsty Strickland, James McEnaney of both CommonSpace and RISE, Vonnie Sandlan of the NUS, Jenni Gunn of RISE, and the Daily Record's political editor David Clegg.  It's from three days ago, and I would never have even been aware of its existence unless someone had just kindly pointed me in that direction, because no-one involved in the discussion bothered alerting me to what was going on at the time.  Kirsty Strickland rather strangely used a screenshot (since deleted) of some of my tweets to kick the exchange off, as opposed to using Twitter's in-built reply or quote options - presumably that was a deliberate choice to make it more likely that I would be kept in the dark, and wouldn't have a chance to reply.

(Click each image to enlarge.)

Now, for the avoidance of doubt, I have no complaint in principle about the failure to alert me.  We're all voluntarily engaged in public discussion and argument, and it's totally unrealistic to imagine that elaborate 'cricket rules' are going to apply every time one person criticises another.  For my own part, I frequently make criticisms of people without going out of my way to attract their attention to it (indeed I'm doing so right now).  However, I think it's perfectly reasonable to point out that at least two of the people involved in the discussion, namely Ms Strickland and Mr McEnaney, do believe that very extreme cricket rules should apply to public debate, which ultimately is the entire basis of their condemnation of me.  Mr McEnaney in particular seems to devote half his life to self-righteous rants on social media about other people's supposed lack of civility.  Ms Strickland, as you may remember, wrote at length a few months ago about how upset she was (and perhaps with some justification in that particular instance) that people had gossiped about her brief association with the BBC without taking the first step of privately contacting her to establish the facts.  It does seem extraordinary that someone with that track record would use a carefully-edited set of tweets to cynically brand an ideological dissenter as some sort of beastly harasser of women, while deliberately taking steps to conceal from that person what she was doing.  When I pointed out the blatancy of her double-standard, she just seemed to think the whole thing was quite amusing.  The only conclusion I can draw is that the 'civility warriors' on the radical left imagine that the rules they seek to impose on others should cease to apply to themselves as soon as someone takes issue with a particularly sensitive part of their ideology.

There's probably not much more I can say about Mr McEnaney that you're not already well aware of, but it's certainly worth pointing out that, contrary to his claim in the above screenshot, it was he who blocked me.  It's true that I blocked him straight back as a matter of personal pride, but the correct sequence of events does put a rather different complexion on things.

As far as David Clegg is concerned, it seems to me he allowed his disdain for Stuart Campbell to cloud his judgement, and as a result I don't think he covered himself in glory on this occasion.  It looks very much as if he only glanced at Kirsty Strickland's edited screenshots, and concluded on that ultra-casual basis that I was guilty of some sort of unspecified 'behaviour'.  If he had actually bothered to read the much longer thread that the screenshots were drawn from, he would have discovered that a very angry individual (not Ms Strickland - someone else entirely) was transparently trying to incite me into saying something that would give her a pretext to report my Twitter account, and I was refusing to play along with her little game.  Instead, the exchange descended into a sort of extended 'ping-pong match' in which each of us was using almost identical words to repeatedly ask the other to stop posting critical tweets.  (The point I was making was that she self-evidently wasn't practising what she was preaching, and that my requests were exactly the same as hers, and were no more or less important than hers.  In contrast, her own purpose in prolonging the exchange seemed to be simply to try to get my account suspended.)  I would still be extremely keen to hear an explanation from Kirsty Strickland, James McEnaney, David Clegg, or anyone at all really, of how it's possible to read that completely 50/50 slanging-match and come to the conclusion that I was somehow the 'aggressor' and the other person was a 'victim of sexist harassment'.  Nobody has even attempted to explain it so far, and I think if they were being honest it would just boil down to "she's a woman, you're a man, and different rules apply, sunshine".  I'd suggest some on the radical left really need to step outside the bubble and reflect upon how that sort of nonsense damages their credibility with what I'm tempted to call 'real people', both female and male.

Of course, the other enormous howler Clegg of the Record made was in branding me a "Wings acolyte", without even bothering to check whether Stuart Campbell and I even follow each other on Twitter.  We don't, and in fact Stuart has only just removed me from exactly the same Wings blocklist that Clegg is complaining about.  Standards of basic journalistic research do seem to be slipping all round these days...