We probably don’t push the annual Wings fundraiser hard enough. Sure, we tweet about it every few days, but other than that we pretty much leave it to get on with itself – we haven’t run an article about it since launching it nearly a month ago.
That’s partly because thanks to the phenomenal generosity of the roughly 1% of readers who’ve donated so far, we’ve very comfortably covered our basic outgoings for the next 12 months and then some – the vast salaries for myself and near-regular cartoonist Mr Cairns, of course, plus webhosting and various other operating costs (eg commission to the fundraising/payment processing companies), money for some more opinion polls and a boost to the Wings Fighting Fund.
But as it enters its last few days we’re going to nag you a bit now, because we don’t think there’s a better-value investment in the independence cause to be had anywhere.
With all costs covered, every £1 you donate from this point onwards will basically put FOUR copies of Wee Blue Book 2.0 through Scottish letterboxes when the next indyref happens, and if you know of a more practical and effective thing you can do to bring independence about with a quid then we’d love to hear about it.
You don’t have to agree with us about everything. And you might think we swear a little too much on Twitter. But if what campaigners tell us is true, the WBB changed more minds in 2014 than anything else that any part of the Yes movement did or produced.
And for £10, you could put a brand new, fully-updated one through every single door in your street. With £25 you could deliver a concise, concentrated and comprehensive summary of the case for a Yes vote to everyone in your postcode, rather than hoping that some politician can get it across convincingly in a 20-second TV soundbite or a two-line quote in a Unionist newspaper, or that an activist can hurriedly explain it all to someone on their doorstep who just wants to get back indoors to have their dinner.
So if you haven’t contributed anything yet this year – and ONLY if you can afford it – please consider doing so now. UK politics has never been in a greater state of chaos, and almost anything could happen with very little notice. Let’s be ready for it.
