Headlines, history and hysterics

When is a story not really a story, and what do headlines tell us?

The Herald is running this story, under the headline;

"Independence warning after SNP ‘historic shift’"

The story starts....

"THE SNP Government is to renew calls for greater economic powers north of the Border after claiming there had been a historic shift in the public’s attitude towards the party. The Nationalists were given a further boost after a poll showed a rise in support across the UK for independence."

It goes on to report that a poll has 39% UK-wide "supporting" "independence" for Scotland.

But look again: is the result so astonishing? We've been here before with even notional majorities in Scotland telling pollsters that they would support "independence", an outcome not reflected in any subsequent electio result.

And who says that it is "historic"? Well nobody really. To quote;

"THE SNP Government is to renew calls for greater economic powers north of the Border after claiming there had been a historic shift in the public’s attitude towards the party."

And there's even more confusion. Even if more people across the UK support "independence", that's no reason to say they would support any specific new or enhanced "economic powers" for Holyrood. It is quite possible that people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland might support "independence" for Scotland for any number of reasons. That's no guarantee that they would support more (or even less) tax raising power for Holyrood. And even if they did, so what? Within the Devolution settlement, Holyrood is quite entitled to ask for more powers from Westminster, but Westminster isn't obliged to grant those powers, particularly without a manifesto commitment to do so, a commitment which none of the UK parties has made.

So. Do we have an "Independence warning"? No. We have a demand for more tax powers, the same demand that has been made often enough in the last few months.

Do we have a "historic shift". Not really. We have an opinion poll. The results are as interesting and important as most polls, but they are not in any way "historic".

So what's it all about? It's all about selling newspapers. Many a nat wandering into the newsagents and not yet decided which paper to buy will have his/her eye caught by this "historic" breakthrough and eagerly buy the Herald to lap it up. What they lap up, the content of the article, will be a lot less nutritious and falvourfull than the hysterical headline has promised.

But hey, that's showbiz, as Alex Salmond regularly responds at FMQs.