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.
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.
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.
It’s almost – almost – worth voting SNP in May because of this:
Because it would be at least momentarily absolutely hilarious watching Swinney try to explain why his “100% guaranteed” second indyref didn’t happen if the SNP actually did get a majority on 30% of the vote (which is narrowly feasible on current polling).
This week The National published a poll it commissioned from Find Out Now for this May’s Scottish Parliament election, alongside a seat projection from Sir John Curtice. Here are the list-vote figures from the poll.
The seat projection calculated that the election would result in 59 SNP MSPs (six short of the number John Swinney says is the minimum needed to force a second indyref), 25 for Reform, 13 for the Greens, 12 each for Labour and the Tories and eight for the Lib Dems.
It didn’t specify how many of the seats were constituency ones and how many were list ones, so we dropped Sir John a line and asked him.
Yesterday we noted in passing that independence support now outstrips that of the SNP by more than 20 points, making the party into a gigantic liability as the vehicle for enabling Scots to leave the UK. Put simply, even when voters want independence (as most now do), they’re not willing to vote SNP to get it.
(Not, of course, that they WOULD get it if they voted SNP – the party still having no coherent or credible strategy to achieve it – but more than 40% of would-be Yes voters are no longer prepared to even try giving them the benefit of yet another mandate.)
And since what everyone loves most of all on New Year’s Day is a good old wade in some political stats, we thought we’d take a little more detail on that.
Young Lochinvar on A Stitch In Timing: “The Royalty, Scottish nobility, the Church of Scotland and the Scottish legal community; the main players in 1707 of ensuring…” Feb 5, 20:33
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “Dear Lord, will people stop trying to blame everything on England and take responsibility for what is happening in Scotland?…” Feb 5, 20:32
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: ““It’s like someone committing a vile and vicious murder and then when found guilty the judge says there is nothing…” Feb 5, 20:28
J Robertson on A Stitch In Timing: “If it has taken in excess of 4 years to bring a case for malicious prosecution to court this is…” Feb 5, 20:16
PC Foster on The Marshalling Plan: “So heartening to see the EHRC intervene in the way that they have.” Feb 5, 19:34
Hatey McHateface on The Marshalling Plan: “Here’s one you can write on the side of a bus, BB: “Just 3 months left to save our NHS”…” Feb 5, 19:08
Hatey McHateface on The Marshalling Plan: “Ah, c’moan noo, Fearghas. Take away his antisemitism and what’s he left with? Just rabid anti-Englishness, enthusiasm for gas chambers,…” Feb 5, 19:02
Willie on A Stitch In Timing: “The decision shows you vicious, malicious politically motivated prosecution can be mounted against selected individual and thereafter, when the prosecution…” Feb 5, 18:53
Tartan Tory on The Marshalling Plan: “Yes Iain, I will be voting for an English Nazi party. I’ve spoiled all my votes for almost the past…” Feb 5, 17:50
Cantankerous Skank on The Marshalling Plan: “That comment about (do do do the funky) Given being given a place on a law course with bad grades…” Feb 5, 17:37
Sven on A Stitch In Timing: “John Burns @ 16.42. Obviously inspired by their succes with the Fur Farming prohibition Act of 2002, our devolved administration…” Feb 5, 17:06
John Burns on A Stitch In Timing: “Only the SNP could bring a bill before the Scottish Parliament to ban something that doesn’t exist in Scotland (…” Feb 5, 16:52
Andy Wiltshire on A Stitch In Timing: “I’m almost tired of being tired of being outraged. It really seems that there is nothing that can actually be…” Feb 5, 16:38
100%Yes on A Stitch In Timing: “It make you wonder if the incompetence of justice system in Scotland isn’t being done by design, in order to…” Feb 5, 16:28
Jesus H. Cunt on A Stitch In Timing: “Scots law, along with Scottish institutions and Scottish democracy, is being deliberately and systematically undermined and discredited in plain sight…” Feb 5, 16:28
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Marshalling Plan: “ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE by Herman Dooyeweerd PDF of full book HERE: https://vcho.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Roots-of-Western-Culture-B-Vol-15.pdf” Feb 5, 16:11
100%Yes on The Marshalling Plan: “Cynicus, The Euro lottery is enough. Who ever becomes PM nothing changes for the Scots.” Feb 5, 15:51
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Marshalling Plan: “(Perhaps not the optimum choice of headline, but anyway…) WOMEN’S GROUP PETITIONS FOR BLANKET BAN ON MEN IN WOMEN’S PRISONS…” Feb 5, 15:49
sarah on The Marshalling Plan: ““Better” in many ways e.g. that the people were sovereign, in addition to the examples I mentioned re politicians being…” Feb 5, 15:32
sam on The Marshalling Plan: “Starmer should, and probably will, have questions to answer about Palantir. Although the Tories used Palantir for managing England’s NHS…” Feb 5, 15:31
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Marshalling Plan: “I again deplore the anti-Jewish element of your discourse. I would draw people’s attention to GEORGE STEINER’s essay THE HOLLOW…” Feb 5, 15:28
Alf Baird on The Marshalling Plan: ““In a nutshell” Fascism: state actors immunity from prosecution. Scots hiv tholed hit for mair nor chree hunner year, an…” Feb 5, 15:05
Cynicus on The Marshalling Plan: ““it would be Ed Miliband who’d be the next PM.” You can get odds of almost 8 to 1 against…” Feb 5, 14:50
Confused on The Marshalling Plan: ““now it’s dark … ” one of the annoying things about the yooni is how they teach you to speak…” Feb 5, 14:45
Confused on The Marshalling Plan: “KELLY GIVEN WAS ON SCOTCAST … wait what ? – are the brothels full ?? no she is telling us…” Feb 5, 14:40
100%Yes on The Marshalling Plan: “The only thing Starmer needs to do to win any vote regarding his leadership, is to threaten his MP’s with…” Feb 5, 14:29
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Marshalling Plan: “Grouse Beater article today: MARK HIRST CASE « In a nutshell: Scotland’s Court of Session has ruled that Scots Law…” Feb 5, 14:21
sam on The Marshalling Plan: “Epstein seems to have had at least 15 Russian visas. https://allchronology.com/2026/02/04/the-quiet-meeting-that-sparked-a-storm-inside-the-mandelson-starmer-palantir-connection/ Peter Thiel co-founded and is CEO of Palantir. Thiel…” Feb 5, 14:17
Hatey McHateface on The Marshalling Plan: “All very well Fearghas, but what did Dooyeweerd have to say about Fanon and Memmi? Surely he took the knee…” Feb 5, 13:19
Hatey McHateface on The Marshalling Plan: “Could be just me, Northy, but I’m not minded to take advice from somebody self-identifying as a colonising, inter-stellar Pict.…” Feb 5, 13:01
