The Sunday Post’s lobby reporter James Millar noticed today that all the parties have submitted their nominations to sit on the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster.
As has already been noted, the majority of the committee – seven from 11 – are MPs for English seats (list below). But one name in particular caught our attention.
We didn’t notice this piece in Scotland on Sunday three weekends ago, because we were on holiday and, well, it was in Scotland on Sunday. But it seems odd that nobody (including SoS) has picked up on its ramifications at the time or since, because if it’s true then it would officially and conclusively mark the complete abandonment of the “vow” all three Westminster party leaders made to Scottish voters prior to the referendum, just 10 days after Scots voted to believe that vow.
Don Paterson is a celebrated Scottish poet, writer and musician. The essay below comes from a new anthology of Scottish writers called Irish Pages: Scotland, and is reproduced with his permission.
Remember The Vow? Most of us have tried to forget it. This was Westminster’s Hail Mary as polling day approached in the 2014 referendum; a vote that Yessers – people tend to forget this part too – initially had no real expectation of winning, until an inspirationally positive campaign saw the polls draw neck-and-neck.
Then lo! There it was, splashed across the Daily Record: a fancy-font promise from Westminster party leaders that if Scotland voted to stay within the UK, we would enjoy new devolved powers. There was some other waffle about defence and opportunities and having an equal share in the UK’s prosperity. But the message was clear enough. We would be listened to.
On 15 October 2012, I signed the Edinburgh Agreement with David Cameron to secure the independence referendum of September 2014.
On the same day Peter Kellner of the polling company YouGov wrote one of his condescending commentaries from London dissing any hope for the Yes campaign.
Kellner’s view was almost universal, and not just among the London pack of journos and politicians. Most, if not all, of the Scottish media agreed with him.
However, by September 2014 things looked very different.
Every now and again you’ll go to clean them up and find something that you’ve been meaning to write about in a quiet moment, and this certainly counts as a quiet moment in Scottish politics, so let’s do this one now.
Because the story above is from March, but we don’t think we’ve ever seen anyone anywhere talk about just how weird it is, or what it tells us about the 2024 SNP.
The Unionist media in Scotland (ie all of the media in Scotland) usually keeps up a pretty united front when it comes to the subjects of independence or the SNP. So it’s been fascinating in these last couple of weeks to see a genuine schism develop between them on the subject of the party’s leadership election.
(For the avoidance of doubt, we do not include Holyrood Magazine, whose splendid front cover image that is, in “the Unionist media”.)
Right back at the start of the contest we highlighted The Times’ full-on love-in for Kate Forbes, but most of the Scottish press has now made their preferences clear. And you’ll never guess who they really, really DON’T want to be the next First Minister.
When the Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts died last month, the first of their songs that popped into my head, for no particular reason, was “Under My Thumb”, a mildly controversial 1966 album track the band never released as a single in the West.
Its most infamous place in history, though, is this.
Until Watts’ death I was only very broadly aware of the events at Altamont Speedway in 1969, a free festival at a racetrack near San Francisco at which four people died in scenes of malevolent chaos and which is widely regarded as the grim headstone of the hippy era.
But on seeing the extraordinary footage above for the first time on the day of Watts’ death – taken from “Gimme Shelter”, notionally the official movie of the show, although the first two-thirds of it are actually a mundane travelogue of the preceding tour dates – I did some proper reading up on it.
And as I did, a horribly familiar feeling started to unfold.
The weekend just past saw a convulsion as big as any we can ever recall witnessing on Yes social media, triggered by a series of tweets by Nicola Sturgeon which caused an extraordinary negative reaction out of all proportion to their ostensible content.
The reason was that the First Minister – who had remained silent about countless episodes of hideous misogynistic abuse aimed from her own side at MPs and MSPs like Joan McAlpine and Joanna Cherry – had chosen to suddenly leap into action in defence of the toxically divisive horror that is Glasgow councillor Rhiannon Spear after Spear had been widely criticised for making blatantly false claims in a video promoting her attempt to be selected as the candidate for Argyll & Bute.
(Sturgeon had no such public condemnation for the torrents of abuse the SNP Twitler Youth then unleased on Kirsten Thornton, the female SNP activist and Generation Yes founder who’d pointed out Spear’s untruths.)
The move sent the party’s woke and sane factions into a frenzy of bloodletting which in itself will have little if any impact on the wider electorate, but nonetheless threw into sharp relief the life-and-death battle currently going on for the SNP’s soul.
And since that’s related to what we’ve been writing about on Wings for the bulk of this year, it seemed worthwhile to get some things down on the record once and for all.
It is with the heaviest of hearts, readers, that we must report to you that Gordon Brown has done an intervention again.
With a new book to sell, the purposeless former Chancellor and Prime Minister who led the UK into a catastrophic financial crisis that’s now entering its second decade has put on his hindsight goggles and made a whole series of bewildering proclamations after the event, which have – naturally – been dutifully received and repeated by the fawning Scottish press like God handing down the Ten Commandments to Moses.
Young Lochinvar on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “Bad enough that it may be so without you wishing it..” Jun 17, 00:15
Young Lochinvar on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “Fred Flintstone/ aka self professed captain of industry and failed Reform candidate; For someone who once boasted here that they…” Jun 17, 00:10
Hatey McHateface on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “Not at all intellectual dross, Dan. In fact, a very interesting post. I was unaware captured methane was being used…” Jun 16, 23:22
Hatey McHateface on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “The “6 young mothers in Dundalk” were found to all be customers of the same dairy. The same milk float…” Jun 16, 23:00
MaryB on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “Radiation from Chernobyl allegedly affected west Cumbria. But in any case, it was a very convenient excuse for masking the…” Jun 16, 22:59
Hatey McHateface on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “Sure Bob. Just like at Chernobyl, there was a meltdown at Sellafield, rendering the surrounding area so dangerously radioactive that…” Jun 16, 22:52
robertkknight on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “They obviously heard the story about the Man from the Ministry who was checking for radioactive contamination in Cumbria after…” Jun 16, 22:33
Hatey McHateface on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “You just missed NC. He flounced off in a monumental huff, last Thursday I think it was. He wanted us…” Jun 16, 22:16
sam on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “There are many campaigners in Cumbria which is not in Ireland who have long wanted Sellafield closed down. They sought…” Jun 16, 22:08
dasBlimp on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “Very nice of you Sven. I’ve never really been away. I visit nearly every day for my daily chuckle from…” Jun 16, 21:35
Hatey McHateface on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: ““Once we identify an existing UN member country willing to sponsor us” That’s great news. And there are two obvious…” Jun 16, 21:27
Hatey McHateface on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: ““Ireland has compared Sellafield with Chernobyl” Nah. There are over 5 million people in Ireland. No way can they all…” Jun 16, 21:18
Hatey McHateface on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “Confused racks his brains to come up with the most offensive insult he can summon: Dew! Relax yoons. Indy is…” Jun 16, 21:09
sam on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “Exporting shite. Sellafield.National Audit Office. “Sellafield’s new leadership team has more to do to improve accountability for performance improvement within…” Jun 16, 20:59
Xaracen on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “Well, it seems you are in a bind, Aidan. According to Copilot AI, “the Expert Legal Opinions submitted by JPTI…” Jun 16, 20:39
robertkknight on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “https://news.sky.com/story/council-apologises-after-headteachers-letter-to-parents-implied-union-flag-was-potentially-offensive-or-sectarian-13384636 #notmyflag” Jun 16, 20:17
Captain Caveman on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “I’d rather be a “true anglo” [sic] than some illiterate, permanent-drunk thicko, Eight Ace.” Jun 16, 20:15
Confused on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “are you crying main mind you don’t swallow your tongue – wouldn’t want the world to get lighter” Jun 16, 20:07
Hatey McHateface on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “I don’t envy you being you, Confused. Who to gas first, eh? The Anglos or da Dews? Why are the…” Jun 16, 19:59
Confused on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “shite english water is full of shite just as they like it freemarket corporate profit water as determined by the…” Jun 16, 19:49
Confused on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “stick to the job hasbara drain, your job is to protect the yehudis day after day – you’ll double your…” Jun 16, 19:48
Hatey McHateface on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “@Confused says: 16 June, 2025 at 6:51 pm “english whining about having to put up with things the scots are…” Jun 16, 19:43
Confused on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “whining like a true anglo rattle oot the pram” Jun 16, 19:33
Confused on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “shite I am thinking of doing a swiftian ripoff – “a modest proposal” – which suggests as the optimal strategy…” Jun 16, 19:28
Dan on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “@ Hatey Methane has been captured off some legacy landfill sites for many years. Around a decade back a pal…” Jun 16, 19:24
Sven on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “dasBlimp Very pleasant to see the Blimpish shape drifting back into these turbulent airstreams, Blimpster. I trust all goes well…” Jun 16, 19:17
Captain Caveman on Let’s Not Make Some Plans: “You’re the one making this a Scotland v England thing, Buckie Benchdweller, no one else is. Might’ve known you’d find…” Jun 16, 19:14