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Scotland In Numbers 2

Posted on February 17, 2026 by

Cost of keeping vital rape crisis services in Glasgow operating: £500,000.

Amount of money wasted by the Scottish Government fighting and losing court cases to try to remove women’s rights: £1.14 million.

Angry yet?

The Longest Road 87

Posted on February 16, 2026 by

As the six-year fight for justice for Alex Salmond continues, we thought you might like to see this clip from this morning’s Mike Graham Show, interviewing Paul McManus, the businessman and drummer in Glasgow rock band Gun who’s stepped up to fund the Salmond family’s case against the Scottish Government despite disagreeing with much of what Alex stood for politically.

We take our (hi-)hats off to him.

The Modern Politician 328

Posted on February 10, 2026 by

A play in three acts:

And you thought ours were spineless.

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A Dumber Nation 85

Posted on February 09, 2026 by

In politics, readers, evil and stupidity aren’t the same thing.

But nor are they exclusive.

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Echoes of history 68

Posted on February 08, 2026 by

The Sunday National’s front page today elicited a sigh of “So what?” from most.

We’ve already GOT a “pro-indy” majority at Holyrood and have done for the last 10 years, for all it’s been worth. But to be fair there was a paragraph in the article that at least raised a quizzical eyebrow.

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A Stitch In Timing 160

Posted on February 05, 2026 by

Readers will probably be aware that literally as you read this, the Scottish Government is in court trying to defend its policy of letting male murderers be housed in women’s prisons by arguing that the Equality Act 2010 (as ruled on by the Supreme Court in the For Women Scotland case) is incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998, implementing the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (commonly referred to as the ECHR).

But this article isn’t about that case.

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The Marshalling Plan 230

Posted on February 02, 2026 by

Another month has passed, so we suppose it must be time for the third of our polling-analysis pieces for the Scottish Parliament election in May.

(Last time round we assessed the grotesque rank idiocy of voting SNP on the list if you want a pro-indy majority, and the time before that we considered the possible impact of Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party on seat numbers, which now looks rather less potentially semi-interesting than it did last summer.)

So what can we look at this time?

Well, what if Unionists were slightly less stupid and tribal than SNP voters?

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Shield Of The Phantom 337

Posted on January 26, 2026 by

Well, we gave it a go.

It seems that it’s fine to farm important judgments out to mysterious shadowy figures who just make important chunks of them up out of thin air, and then issue them in your own name. Back in your boxes, plebs.

Yelling at the tide 310

Posted on January 21, 2026 by

We figured someone had to at least try.

So in the light of this, we’ve sent a letter.

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The Secondhand Amendment 137

Posted on January 19, 2026 by

We’re really not sure this makes things any better with regard to the incredible tale that’s unfolded around the judgment in Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife.

In fact, on any interpretation we can think of, quite the reverse.

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Learning Insanity 154

Posted on January 14, 2026 by

This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.

It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.

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Governing For Beginners 108

Posted on January 12, 2026 by

My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.

Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.

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    • Effijy on Scotland In Numbers: “And I thought all candidates for the Raving Looney Party wore top hats. Looks like they are wearing yellow and…Feb 18, 00:42
    • Cameron Lochiel on Scotland In Numbers: “It’s about time we gave up and let the bees take overFeb 18, 00:04
    • Confused on The Longest Road: “Academic writing is boring, flatulent, nonsense, often dipped in jargon, sophistry, even when it is something straightforward; picking through this…Feb 17, 23:26
    • agentx on The Longest Road: “I am pleased to report the Isle of Islay has safely arrived at A Coruna, Spain. Bay of Biscay next!…Feb 17, 22:02
    • Hatey McHateface on The Longest Road: ““they clamp the blinkers on tightly” That seems an apt way to describe somebody who refuses to answer a simple…Feb 17, 20:22
    • 100%Yes on The Longest Road: “Slow down, your over thinking politics. Try focusing on the morons back home. Trumps played his TRUMP card and lost…Feb 17, 19:19
    • David Holden on The Longest Road: “Still not seen Melania the movie and it is unlikely to make it onto the Screen Machine play list I…Feb 17, 18:15
    • Sven on The Longest Road: “Did you not inadvertently omit a comma from that book title, agentx ? Surely it should read, “Chunky, new chapter”.Feb 17, 17:44
    • TURABDIN on The Longest Road: “TRUMP the great dictator or the great liberator?….hmmmm If he gets away with this playacting the world becomes the US…Feb 17, 17:44
    • GM on The Longest Road: “It has fuck all to do with his political leanings. I am delighted someone has taken the case on and…Feb 17, 17:23
    • 100%Yes on The Longest Road: “Your welcome Sarah.Feb 17, 17:08
    • bobo bunny on The Longest Road: “Curiouser and curiouserFeb 17, 16:18
    • bobo bunny on The Longest Road: “See how you feel 4 years from now when you are rolling around in aditch, fighting over the last mouldy…Feb 17, 16:15
    • bobo bunny on The Longest Road: “Ok fine. Election. He isn’t doing this because he cares about Alex Salmonds’ legacy, or the cause of independence -…Feb 17, 16:10
    • Alf Baird on The Longest Road: ““they clamp the blinkers on tightly” That seems an apt way to describe the effect of a ‘colonial mindset’ affecting…Feb 17, 15:07
    • Cynicus on The Longest Road: “MaggieC says: “ So tremble false wigs in the midst of yer glee“ ========== Amen to your sentiment, Maggie. There…Feb 17, 15:05
    • sam on The Longest Road: “Northcode I think this is why it happened. Frae the BBC. “The estate of former first minister Alex Salmond is…Feb 17, 14:10
    • Hatey McHateface on The Longest Road: “It’s an interesting case, right enough. As already covered by Our Host, not that long ago, Mr Hirst lost his…Feb 17, 14:05
    • Hatey McHateface on The Longest Road: “To paraphrase my dear departed Mammie: Fa “classified [ye] as an inferior subject rather than an equal citizen”, Alf? Haha,…Feb 17, 13:40
    • sarah on The Longest Road: “@ 100%Yes: good man for posting this link to the Mark Hirst crowdfunder. What a wonderful day it will be…Feb 17, 13:23
    • Hatey McHateface on The Longest Road: “Enough of that, Northy. I don’t want you subtly fooling me into thinking an interstellar Pict can ever be regarded…Feb 17, 12:42
    • Alf Baird on The Longest Road: “Yes indeed, very interesting, including the definition of “modern colonialism” which: “depends first and foremost upon the declaration of sovereignty…Feb 17, 12:38
    • Northcode on The Longest Road: “From the same article. “…colonialism depends first and foremost upon the declaration of sovereignty and/or territorial seizure by a core…Feb 17, 12:34
    • willie on The Longest Road: “I think civil actions can effectively be be bought and sold, The classic example of this is no win,no fee…Feb 17, 12:22
    • 100%Yes on The Longest Road: “He was revealing a lot more than people took on.Feb 17, 12:22
    • Northcode on The Longest Road: “I rarely feel the urge to respond to your stuff, but you actually made me laugh out loud… not bad…Feb 17, 12:17
    • Hatey McHateface on The Longest Road: “Whoops! “For all their theoretical insights, neither postcolonial theory nor decolonial studies systematically demonstrate through sustained empirical investigation the means…Feb 17, 12:07
    • Hatey McHateface on The Longest Road: “You choose to ignore the complications, Alf. Colonisation is like a set of those nested Orc dolls, with the additional…Feb 17, 12:03
    • Northcode on The Longest Road: “I think there might be more to this story than just someone blowing their trumpet over their ‘funding’ of another’s…Feb 17, 11:55
    • sam on The Longest Road: “Northcode, Alf, others. This is worth reading, I think. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/social-science-history/article/reverberations-of-empire-how-the-colonial-past-shapes-the-present/178FA24536F578B3EFE2434DFDB87846Feb 17, 11:55
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