Wherever you find giants, you also find parasites, bottom-feeders and carrion. When a mighty lion dies in the jungle, tiny creeping crawling maggots and insects and bacteria feast gleefully on its corpse for many days.
Which naturally brings us to the Scottish media.
The above paragraphs of cowardly innuendo and baseless speculative smearing were penned by Severin Carrell and Libby Brooks in the Guardian on Monday. (They’re not from the ironically-headed “Appreciation” that the same two hacks wrote for Sunday’s Observer, in which they audaciously claimed that Salmond’s success was down to Nicola Sturgeon).
They sneakily imply that Salmond was guilty not only of the sexual assaults of which he was cleared in court, but also of an unspecified number of unnamed others, and make assertions of “disturbing evidence about his personal conduct” without specifying what that evidence or conduct might have been.
Everyone even remotely connected to Scottish politics has known for months that the below is the case. It’s an open secret.
But what’s playing out right now is something much bigger than the fate of one or two or three individuals. It’s the entire future of the credibility of Scotland’s justice system.
Just a quick bit of housekeeping here with regard to the new Wings comments section, which offers far more functionality but has also attracted a few complaints because it’s no longer a straight chronology of oldest-to-newest tweets.
(We could actually change that back, but the cost would be losing the ability to reply directly to individual comments, which is a big loss, so we’re leaving it as it is for now.)
To those beefing because that means you can’t now immediately tell which comments are new, a couple of helpful pointers. The easiest way to fix the problem is a simple one: keep the tab open.
If you keep the most recent page open in a tab on your browser, the Comment Bubble (visible at the bottom left of that pic) will keep track of all new comments – it refreshes every 30 seconds – and highlight them for you in yellow until you’ve read them.
(The little orange circle should take you to the first unread one if you click it.)
Sadly the Bubble stops working if you close the tab or navigate to a new page from it, but since most people have scores of tabs open at a time that shouldn’t be a problem. So there you go.
When times are quiet in Scottish politics, as they currently are, our favourite genre of story is “mainstream press belatedly catches up with Wings Over Scotland”. And so to this morning’s front page splash in the Sunday Mail.
The rumour mill has been grinding about Operation Branchform developments again in the last few days, although we’ve seen too many false dawns now to get overly excited about that. But the Mail’s story sounded awfully familiar.
While we get on with some tinkering behind the scenes in the absence of any Scottish political news – we have an exciting new comment system and the Contact form finally works again! – readers may wish to enjoy the full marathon three-and-a-quarter hours of last month’s fun indyref anniversary event at the Glasgow Science Centre.
I’m writing to implore you to stop doing press interviews.
Each time you do, it feels like yet another slap in the face from Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre and Rape Crisis Scotland.
To be honest, I didn’t even know who you were until a few weeks ago. When the report into ERCC came out and Mridul Wadhwa resigned, I thought I could put this whole experience behind me.
Last week however, I heard on BBC that you “unreservedly apologise” for the failing at ERCC. It is honestly laughable. I have had no such apology. In fact, quite the opposite.
Anthem on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Oh I don’t know. The red tories are just following on from the blue, and that’s good for London! £1bn…” Oct 18, 01:57
Young Lochinvar on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Correct. Well said. I hope you were being tongue in cheek earlier ruling out the Royals being trivalve ?. When…” Oct 18, 01:45
Robert Matthews on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Hunter was one of the Labour’s Party’s top 50 donors in 2001, with a donation of £100,000. Ahead of the Scottish independence referendum, Hunter…” Oct 18, 01:33
Geri on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Scotland is a sovereign nation. We entered a treaty. Not a life sentence without the possibility of parole. We don’t…” Oct 18, 00:54
Geri on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “I never mention the independence movement. They’re stronger than ever & they’re not the SNP. Sorry to disappoint you. I…” Oct 18, 00:11
Glenn Boyd on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “On reflection I don’t know which is worse? The MSM Hacks or Politicians whose comments were obscene! Having read some…” Oct 18, 00:02
Geri on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “LMAO at only fans. Another top tip for the Job center – Be a Trans Spud Just invent a new…” Oct 17, 23:24
Lee Floyd on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Remember when the Guardian was worth reading? I’ll bet those at the Guardian don’t. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_SsccRkLLzU&pp=ygUYZ3VhcmRpYW4gc2tpbmhlYWQgYWR2ZXJ0” Oct 17, 23:07
Al Stuart on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “I agree with you Andrew. My point is that there is sufficient which is “off” in the public domain to…” Oct 17, 23:06
Campbell Clansman on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “If (as you assert) the insignificant Sturgeon can take down a whole Indy movement, perhaps, just perhaps, that indicates the…” Oct 17, 22:14
Doug McGregor on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Hats off to you , you’re playing against a team of them all on your own. What issue is going…” Oct 17, 22:05
Confused on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “O/T – this Labour govt is turning into a vicious clown show – on telly lunchtime we had “elvira, mistress…” Oct 17, 22:03
Hatey McHateface on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Where exactly are those “democratic levers”? You’re one. Or if you are recused for good practical reasons, there’s somebody very…” Oct 17, 21:05
Meg Merrilees on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Thanks to Sir Tom Hunter for displaying utmost respect for a giant of our times. Safe journey Alex and welcome…” Oct 17, 20:59
Mac on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Wow Salmond could sing. That lassie can really sing, so for him to even be there, he can too. Never…” Oct 17, 20:42
Mia on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: ““Why is that?” Because the British establishment ensures they either can never reach a position of power or, if they…” Oct 17, 20:23
Dan on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “It’s not as many as a few hundred… It’s only 57… That after a decade since the 2014 IndyRef and…” Oct 17, 20:20
David Holden on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Mr Salmond will be home on Friday thanks to Tom Hunter. Not a lot we can do out here to…” Oct 17, 20:03
Anthem on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “We tried that in 2014. The establishment made sure it was rigged. 6570,000 postal votes, a 20% rise. And it’s…” Oct 17, 19:30
Hatey McHateface on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “If you sit around on your flabby, plukey erse all day, endlessly posting mince on here, it’s almost like an…” Oct 17, 19:09
Meg on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Having had a look at what the presstitutes have had to say about Alex Salmond, I think I will have…” Oct 17, 19:05
Bob Mack on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “So. A unionist pays for Alex to be brought home at the cost of £25000. The Scottish government that Alex…” Oct 17, 18:40
Michael Laing on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “I have a hunch that Aidan has been around for a long time and was one of the more obnoxious…” Oct 17, 18:38
Robert McAllan on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Jist tae confirm yir PREDJUDICE, wid ye go awa an FUK yir bunnet intae a tinfoil hat an gie’s aw…” Oct 17, 17:32
Steven on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “By any measure, Scots – and Welsh – devolution has been an unmitigated disaster… for Scotland, for Wales, for the…” Oct 17, 17:22
Geri on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “folie a deux? Take one psychotic nutter (Sturgeon) to manipulate & influence the whole crew. (Her clique) It only takes…” Oct 17, 17:14
James on The fleas on the ticks on the midgets: “Congratulations ‘Aidan’ – you’re our latest ‘name’. Mebbies the site prick will lend you his Daily Heil once he’s read…” Oct 17, 16:43