Wings Over Scotland

There is a not particularly funny joke that is sometimes told in legal circles about why a law student failed to finish his coursework – because he had no conviction. With rare exceptions lawyers aren’t renowned for their sense of humour but I can’t help thinking someone, at the highest levels of our justice system, is having a right laugh at my expense and those who have loyally supported me over the past six years.

I’m talking about the Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain KC – a sitting member of the Scottish Government’s cabinet who was nominated by Nicola Sturgeon to that post in 2021, five months after I was acquitted.

For those unfamiliar with my case, I offer this brief summary. In March 2020 I made a short video on my mobile phone that was two minutes and thirty eight seconds in length. I hadn’t planned to make the video when I went out for a walk in a field near my home. But I was annoyed and wanted to articulate that annoyance, although at the time I recorded it I wasn’t intending for it to go much further.

Later that night, just before turning in, I uploaded it to my YouTube channel on a closed, unlisted link and then posted that link to my Twitter account that, at the time, had a modest 1000 or so followers. I then forgot about it.

Little did I know that short mobile phone video would result in me facing initially a criminal trial, then a five year legal battle in the highest civil court in Scotland and now, most likely, an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

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So on the one hand there’s obviously very little point paying attention to the SNP’s regional list candidates for May’s Holyrood election, because as this website has comprehensively demonstrated over recent months, the chances of the SNP having any list MSPs elected are remote.

However, nothing is impossible, so let’s take a look at the B team, which also serves as a guide to the party’s upcoming talent taking its first steps towards the gravy bus.

Well, that was even grimmer than expected.

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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?

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.

A play in three acts:

And you thought ours were spineless.

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

But nor are they exclusive.

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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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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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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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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.

We figured someone had to at least try.

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

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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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