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Agents of disinformation

Posted on February 16, 2021 by

Ulster-bred (specifically the ultra-Loyalist stronghold of Antrim) columnist Neil Mackay, a man who’s been systematically undermining and dividing the Yes movement since at least 2015 while claiming to be part of it, has an opinion piece in the Herald today.

In its own way it’s an exemplar of the infiltrator’s craft. Let’s take a look.

The ostensible subject is an opinion poll various SNP politicians were crowing about last week, and which immediately raised eyebrows about how far out of line it was with every other poll that’s ever been conducted on the same subject.

“In the real world only 1 in 4 oppose GRA reform” is basically the exact OPPOSITE of what every other poll has found. Survey after survey has reported that gender self-ID is opposed by highly consistent margins of 3:1 and 4:1, even when the polls have been commissioned by extremely trans-friendly outlets like Pink News.

So that being the case, what was up with this new poll for it to be such an outlier? We immediately suspected foul play in the question wording, because that’s the only way transactivists are ever able to misrepresent public opinion on the subject.

Savanta ComRes, who did the polling, reinforced those suspicions by not revealing the question text for several days, in contravention of the British Polling Council rules that stipulate tables must be released within 48 hours of any press coverage. They finally did so very late last night, and it was easy to see why they’d been reluctant.

Because this was the gender question:

“The Scottish Parliament is currently considering changes to gender recognition laws in Scotland. Under the proposed changes, the way trans people apply for a gender recognition certificate, the mechanism by which they can change their legal gender on their birth certificates, would be streamlined to make the process less expensive and bureaucratic, and less intrusive to trans people than the current process. However some opposition to the changes focus largely on the potential impact of allowing people to self-identify their gender in single-sex spaces such as changing rooms, and women-only shortlists. To what extent do you support or oppose changes to the gender recognition laws in Scotland?”

That’s an incredibly long-winded question, but it’s also enormously loaded and leading in both obvious and subtler ways. It’s phrased in the highly biased and misleading way the Scottish Government is trying to frame the question – a mere streamlining of cruel, “intrusive” and “expensive” bureaucracy – and the downsides are barely hinted at and focused on something that has no impact on most people’s lives (all-women shortlists).

But even then, it’s a question that this site would, on a literal reading, have to answer in the affirmative, because we too support “changes to the gender recognition laws in Scotland” – in our case the change that we’d like to see would be having the idiotic, anti-scientific nonsense of the current law, whereby the government creates the legal fiction that human beings can change sex, repealed.

And yet even with the most crooked and biased formulation possible, the question still only manages to scrape up just over a third of voters in support, and half of those are only “somewhat” in favour.

Strongly support: 19%
Somewhat support: 18%
Neither support nor oppose: 27%
Somewhat oppose: 10%
Strongly oppose: 16%
Don’t know: 10%

The poll’s question about Joanna Cherry is, remarkably, even MORE bent.

“SNP MP Joanna Cherry was sacked from the SNP’s frontbench team in Westminster on Monday (1st February). Although an official reason has not been given, some believe that Cherry’s opposition to proposed changes to the gender recognition laws in Scotland have led to her dismissal, although others believe that she was sacked because of general disloyalty to the SNP To what extent do you support or oppose the decision to sack Joanna Cherry from the SNP’s frontbench team in Westminster?”

The only options respondents are offered as reasons for Cherry’s sacking are both pejorative ones and rather reminiscent of a Stalinist show trial – either transphobia or “general disloyalty”. But even in such a kangaroo court, the question tempts less than a quarter of voters to support the sacking.

Strongly support: 13%
Somewhat support: 11%
Neither support nor oppose: 25%
Somewhat oppose: 9%
Strongly oppose: 10%
Don’t know: 22%

Despite loading the question in a massively negative way, those who expressed any view split almost down the middle – 24% in favour to 19% against, with a huge 47% taking no position either way.

But that’s good enough for Neil Mackay to proclaim her crushing defeat.

His piece, of course, doesn’t tell readers the actual questions asked, but with a quite astonishing level of dishonesty paints all those, like Cherry, objecting to the proposed reforms as “anonymous extremists” guilty of “transphobia”.

(In reality, almost all of the prominent gender-critical voices have displayed incredible bravery to campaign under their own names, despite the most relentless barrage of abuse, actual violence and death threats, things which are overwhelmingly present on only one side of the debate, not to mention the constant risk of “cancellation”.)

Mackay spends most of the remainder of the article loudly singing the praises of Nicola Sturgeon and her apparently bulletproof personal popularity.

Readers can speculate for themselves as to why Mackay – a man born and bred in the absolute heartland of militant fundamentalist Unionism – might be so desperate to talk up Sturgeon and keep her in power.

But what we do know is that it was Mackay who infamously penned a major feature literally on the eve of Salmond’s trial in which Salmond was pictured alongside rapists and killers like the Yorkshire Ripper, the Moors Murderers, Charles Manson, Dennis Nilsen and Adolf Eichmann.

It was a piece so shockingly prejudicial and obviously intended at influencing the jury that the Herald pulled it within hours, although no apology or retraction was ever published and the hopelessly corrupt and compromised Crown Office took no action.

Mackay is an open transactivist, fond of pushing the endlessly-discredited line that the “trans rights” issue somehow mirrors the earlier persecution of gay people:

But in this site’s view there’s a lot more to today’s article than that. It’s simply another example of Mackay’s long-standing efforts to sow division and inflame hatred within the Yes movement, and to damage anyone he sees as an actual threat to the Union.

We hope that it at least pays well.

.

[EDIT: We’ve removed a paragraph from this piece that didn’t add anything to the story and which Neil Mackay was using to whip up a lynch mob. We hadn’t been asked to, but we can’t be bothered with the distraction and we hadn’t intended for any of the focus of this piece to land on anyone but Neil Mackay.]

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BuggerLePanda

Is Angus Robertson still funding polls by subscriptions he received?

Denise

I wonder who paid for the questions?

I suspect SNP in which case it wasn’t authorized by the NEC.
Or was it Progress Angus Robertson’s outfit?

I know it’s a small point but it’s instructive of general corruption

Is there any way to find out?

We really are seeing a concerted effort by unionists to keep NS in power. Is there anything that can be done. We all can see what is happening but it seems we are helpless. We aren’t stupid so how have we got ourselves into this situation?

Doreen A Milne

He has bumped his column 7 times this morning and isn’t get much traction yet. It’s a poorly written lap dog piece, skewed and with little merit and even less honesty.

Denise

Are you sure the SNP didn’t tack questions onto the regular ComRes?

I can’t believe either the Scotsman or ComRes came up with those questions.

sog

Can I suggest one change to your second boxed quote –

‘Sadly, too many Scottish politicians…’

Breastplate

Those questions are atrocious.
Here’s another one for them.

Some believe Pete Wishart beats his sausage dog constantly, should Pete wishart be sacked from his job?

susanXX

If the SNP persist in their trans shite I reckon there will be a backlash. It’s just a shame we’re having to crowdfund legal challenges to try and stop their weirdo decisions.

James

Welcome to Oceania.

SilverDarling

He is so off and out of step with what is going on that it has to be deliberate. The part in his column about his daughter where he admits he uses his connections:

“At Caitie’s request, I raised my concerns with the authorities – including justice minister Humza Yousaf and the police – and you can read what they, and others, thought about her case in The Herald tomorrow…I’m lucky that as a journalist I can get the justice minister, and other figures of authority, on the telephone and tell them what is going on.”

He has a hotline to the justice minister and they presumably have access to him when they need it.

What a truly scary man.

A Person

If they need to twist a poll so much to proclaim that NS is so popular, what does that tell you about how popular she actually is?

Republicofscotland

Sounds to me as though Mackay is a British state actor, who knows Sturgeon isn’t interested in dissolving this vile union, loaded poll questions help foster the division in Scotland, but we see you Mackay and the flegs you hold up.

Captain Yossarian

I think that what’s going-on just now is what’s known as ‘deflection-tactics’. Nicola Sturgeon is expert at it. Old Alex remains in the shaddows, waiting.

Ian Mac

Combine that pathetic effort with the notorious BBC/SNP attempt to compromise the inquiry and the Spectator ruling, and you have evidence of inside anxiety that some chickens are coming home to roost. Thus the sudden desperate media manipulation efforts. No doubt there will be more stunts and disinformation to come. They abstain from legislating on important issues, doing the hard work, and spend all their time on twitter storms and PR nonsense. They must have learnt something from the appalling Johnson government.

TNS2019

The most staggering news I have heard today is that ScotGov has not taken any external legal advice of the legality of holding indyref2.
What!!!!
Does that not tell us everything about their lack of ambition?
It really does fit into the emerging narrative around a campaign to suppress the JC faction which under any cursory analysis appears to most accurately represent the views of indy supporters.

Cenchos

Glad to know that Donald Trump’s Twitter usage had no impact on the ‘Real World’ then.

‘Trump receives Backing from Mhairi Hunter and Pete Wishart.’

Colin Alexander

If the corrupt Establishment (such as the colonial parliament and MSPs) won’t rid us of the corrupt SNP Govt politicians ( and the corrupt Tory, Green, Labour, LibDem opposition) then:

Don’t vote for any of the above. Vote only for those who seek a direct mandate for indy.

A major problem with the List ISP is that they maintain a pro-SNP stance.

Sorry, I don’t want to vote for a party that wants to keep the SNP in power, if that will mean Sturgeon or Robertson or any of their allies are kept in positions of power.

Republicofscotland

TNS2019.

Independence isn’t even a topic of the Scottish government, says it all really.

link to gov.scot

Captain Yossarian

We all do what Sturgeon tells us to do. If we refuse, then we will be intimidated and threatened. Google the word ‘Junta’. I think Gordon Dangerfield has noticed that that’s the direction we are headed, too.

This is Holyrood Scotland. Personally, I would rather the May election was postponed and I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that way. Once you shovel out the shit from Holyrood and St Andrews House, I doubt there would be many left standing.

dandydons1903

Seems to be a lot of these ulster unionist types working in the media and elsewhere in Scotland have the brits ran out of porchjock placemen and are now filling the positions with no surrender squatters?

Robert Hughes

How anyone can take this bam seriously after his – truly , vile and ludicrously OTT Salmond ( attempted ) character assassination defies belief , actually , how he’s still employed as a ” journalist ” equally so .

The entire Scottish Establishment , in which the current SNP management must be included along with the MSM – should be subject to a thorough disinfecting . Their sole aim seems to be to keep Scotland in a state of backward ignorance and insulted intelligence .

Not content with that the SNPG also want to inflict American imported lunacy on an largely unwitting population

As the HE approaches it will become much more aware of these idiot policies though , the consequences of that awareness will almost certainly not be to the benefit of the SNPG , more importantly , to the benefit of Independence

Lothianlad

Yep he definitely wins to show division in the yes movement.

He is outed!

A unionist to the core. No wonder he wants to keep sturgeon in power indeed!

Bob Mack

Staunch Unionist wants Sturgeon to stay as FM.

Alarm bells must surely be going off somewhere.

David Caledonia

Who the feck is Neil Mackay, and much more important, who the feck reads the herald, I have never seen anybody buying one.
So now I know he’s an irish unionist, but does he play the flute while mincing down the street on the 12th July, and does he use the funny handshake and roll up his trousers, and can he keep a secret
I think we should nickname him nipple, as he comes across as a bit of a tit

Mac

Ahhh so it was this walking turd that was responsible for the disgusting Herald hit piece on the eve of AS’s trial.

That hit piece in The Herald had to be reviewed by a sub-editor etc. No way did he just sneak it in. That was the Herald’s no-going-back moment, like it was for The Sun on Merseyside years ago.

Judging by his physical condition, bloated features, puffy eyes and poor skin I am going to wager this chap MacKay has a drinking problem.

I mean you’d have to be half-cut to draft that Salmond story in the first place so it fits.

When you think, Craig Murray is up for contempt on a pile of contrived pish while this specimen gets to pen that astonishing hit piece, publish it in a Scottish Newspaper on the EVE OF THE TRIAL and the COPFS just look the other way (for the umpteenth time) and instead busy themselves seeing non-existent crimes with which to persecute innocent people (for the umpteenth time).

Basically we have two sets of laws now in Scotland.

One set for those who Sturgeon favours and another set for those Sturgeon disfavours. And it seems Sturgeon very much favours Tangoman MacKay… no wonder why.

Mike

Sounds like the guy is a Trojan horse!

Strathy

‘The most significant thing with this is the gap between Twitter and the ‘real world’.’ – P Wishart.

‘As ever, Twitter does not = real life!’ – M Hunter.

Interesting that they both decided on the same morning that Twitter is a waste of time, despite spending most of their lives on it.

Has the SNP noticed that they are losing ground, even in the home of Nicola’s most vociferous sychophants?

Scot Finlayson

Is David Clegg no from Antrim as well.

Astonished

A reasonable person could very reasonably assume our imperial masters want to maintain a significant asset.

Where is the ring-fenced money ? And what are police Scotland doing about it ? (I think this will prove their achilles heel).

Allium

Johann Lamont doing more good work re Humza and the hate bill right now. Can’t believe I’m cheering her on. Such strange times.

Cenchos

The imp of the perverse in me wants an SNP landslide just to see what an omnishambolic fuck-up emerges in the ensuing ultra-woke trans cult Covenment.

But it would be so bad they’d probably have to close down Holyrood, which is, by the looks of it, their ultimate plan anyway.

Josef Ó Luain

@Silver Darling “He has a hotline to the justice minister and they presumably have access to him when they need it”.

The Scottish MSM is the propaganda-arm of the Scottish establishment—the SNP has, since 2014, become it’s political arm.

Then again, maybe I’m just too thick to fully comprehend the nuances of our benighted wee polity.

Stuart MacKay

If the SNP are so determined to administer the Coup de grâce to themselves at what point do we just let them get on with it?

If they are so not focused on independence then really it makes no difference whether they stay in power or whether they go. Since they won’t stop the likes of the Internal Market Bill then just maybe it’s actually better for them to lose power and take the Hate Crime Bill and GRA with them.

Sure it sets the chance of gaining independence back by years, but we’ve past that point already. Just maybe it’s time to starting building up from the bottom once more.

Scozzie

OT (just a little) here is this week’s War on Women by Glinner…it’s just yet another fucking week of gaslightling, abuse, erasure…be kind women (need an eye roll emoji).

link to grahamlinehan.substack.com

David Caledonia

Dogmatism

…………………

I think the main problem for the fight for independence are the SNP dogmatists, they are willing to vote for the SNP even though they know how corrupt the leadership is just now
I could go on about this subject for quite some time, but you get the jist of what i am on about, so no need for me to rabbit on about it to much
A guy on my facebook group does not agree with me about not voting for them, he basically said, the SNP are the only party to get us independene, and he asked me with my superior knowledge, ( his words not mine ), how I would get us independence, my reply to the idiot was.
We will get us independence, not the crowd you are going to vote for
Dogmatists like him used to vote for a monkey with a labour rosette pinned to its arse

Liz

As regards twitter, just noticed today, a teeny criticism of SNP strategy re indy from someone I know who worships NS and in the recent past threatened to block anyone who criticised her.

There is hope yet

Anonymoose

Cenchos says:
16 February, 2021 at 11:34 am

The imp of the perverse in me wants an SNP landslide just to see what an omnishambolic fuck-up emerges in the ensuing ultra-woke trans cult Covenment.
—-

An SNP landslide is the worst possible outcome for anyone who believes in Scottish independence.

Given the social populism of the current SNP, the most effective way of voting for pro independence partys is using your regional list vote for either the AFI or the ISP no matter which region you are registered to vote in.

Any regional list ballots for the SNP are a wasted vote, you might as well spoil your ballot paper, the system is designed to disregard regional list votes of the FPTP party who wins on the constituency votes in that region.

Tommy Sheridan does a great breakdown of the reasons why in his latest article:
link to sputniknews.com

Kenny

Consistent if nothing else, nice to see Mackay finally giving up the pretence of ‘pro-Indy’ – there’s nowt worse than a snivelling and craven unionist creep sidling-up to good people who desire only self-determination.

Hard to believe, in the face of hard and cold evidence, that there’s still groups of adults on social media continuing to put faith in Sturgeon? wonder what proportion of them are ‘Mackay’?

Andrew F

I always try to commemorate 16th October as “Julius Streicher” day.

Not nearly enough people know that he was hung that day after the Nuremberg trials.

He was convicted of crimes against humanity on the basis of his propaganda that led to genocide. I only became aware of his existence due to considering the disgraceful role of the establishment media in directly causing maybe a million dead in Iraq and happened to search for whether any media culprits were held accountable at Nuremberg.

Socrates MacSporran

One of my mates is a post-2014 No to Yes convert.

Up until now, he has been unable to hear a word against Sturgeon,he has been convinced, she can do no wrong.

Over the past couple of weeks, however, I have been gently persuading him to take a fresh look at the Great Leader – last night, he began to, albeit grudgingly, admit I might be on to something.

I can see, once the Unionist media really starts throwing shit around, these converts, or soft noes, gradually wakening-up to Sturgeon and her crew.

I don’t see the Unionists winning the Holyrood election, but, I can see a minority SNP administration, the return of direct rule from London and a moving of the goalposts, (two-thirds majority for Indy in any future referendum for instance), designed to put Independence back in the box.

If we have not lanced the plook by mid-March, I think coffin dodgers like me will not live to see Independence.

David Caledonia

Nipple Mackay

Scozzie

David Caledonia ” 11.42
One poll that Stu posted a long time ago that always stuck in my mind, (not sure if he did the poll or someone else) was the large % of SNP voters who thought keeping SNP in power was more important than independence. Seems like that is playing out in some quarters.

Maybe someone can find it?

Ian McLean

Those questions are so clumsily long winded that their desperation to lead the desired responses is transparent.
The respondents must have lost the will to live half way though or, at best, dosed off.

Vestas

When you have all the unionist press (Mackay, Libby Brooks etc) batting for you like Sturgeon has then you are on the WRONG SIDE.

The SNP are the enemy now. If you vote for them then you’re part of the problem.

robertknight

Mike @11:30

“Sounds like the guy is a Trojan horse!”

I’ve never heard of an arsehole being called a “Trojan horse” before. Is this a new thing?

Allium

I suppose there will be other strangely phrased polls and supportive columns in the near future, in order to justify the inclusion of the GRA policy in the SNP manifesto. They still seem to be pushing the “thick women have misunderstood, nothing to see here” line, hoping it will take off this time, and we’ll all shut up.

Nicola’s supporters want their reward asap, and I expect they’ll get it.

TOMMY SHERIDAN

I am sure I was not the only one to instinctively read the coverage of this opinion poll with huge skepticism and suspicion. The woman who won more votes than all the other nominees added together to be elected onto the SNP NEC was apparently so unpopular with the public that her dismissal from the front bench was popular? While promotion of a Gender Recognition Act which has been so cogently and reasonably opposed by countless feminists and women’s groups as a very real threat to their own long fought rights is actually popular with the public?

It read like guff, looked like guff and now, thanks to Wings excellent research and expose, is guff. Well done yet again in seeking the real story from under the rubble of mainstream unionist media bombast designed to distort and confuse and divide at every turn. Your reference to MacKay and the Herald as a whole is instructive and necessary.

This is a guy and newspaper group that did their best in 2015 to try and undermine the grassroots and active campaign Hope Over Fear. They carried stories alleging threats against journalists, character assassinations of those involved including me and others and levelled criticisms at anyone who dared share platforms at such events despite the fact several thousand enthusiastic Indy supporters were regularly mobilised.

I well remember reading a contribution from Robin McAlpine of Bella Caledonia at the time who had to defend his decision to address over 6,000 people in George Square in September 2015 during which he made some wise comments about where such mainstream media and righteous middle class attacks on a working class part of the movement would lead. After trying to blacklist me, Hope Over Fear, Robin for speaking, who would be next? Wings Over Scotland? How accurate that prediction was link to bellacaledonia.org.uk.

The Herald and many others in mainstream media represent the status quo, the elites in society, those who are comfortable and happy with how things are. They will do all in their power to oppose fundamental change like independence by any means necessary, fair and mostly foul. When high profile individuals and organisations are targeted and attacked by these hired hyenas of unionism it is always with the purpose of seeking to sow division, discord and disdain within the movement.

The consistent reach of Wings is testimony both to the quality of the research and output and the intelligence and resilience within the wider Indy family. I think it was Mark Twain who remarked we can refuse to read newspapers and be uninformed or read newspapers and be misinformed. I prefer to read Wings and other independence minded bloggers because their material is more often than not well researched, well intentioned and designed to open minds and shed light not noise. Keep up the good work Stu.

Hope Over Fear is still active. Wings is still read by hundreds of thousands. And the integrity of both is not for sale unlike those newspapers and alleged journalists who have sold whatever principles they ever held years ago to get a seat at the rancid table of unionist propaganda and disinformation.

Stuart MacKay

Scozzie, thanks for the link. Hats’ off to Con Óg Ó Laoghaire. Who’d have thought that bored, teenage, males in search of a good laugh would be the gateway to our salvation?

Ottomanboi

In a truly free society citizens are entltled to be or describe themselves in whatever terms they choose. However, why should the apparatus of the state get involved.
Wear a dress, ‘marry’ a piece of wood or your cat if that pleases but get on with it in a manner that does not require the approbation of the largely indifferent majority. Besides, doesn’t seeking approbation indicate insecurity?
In the past outlandish behaviour was tolerated as individual eccentricity and was accepted as long as the eccentric did not aggressively proselytise ie frighten the horses.
The mania for labelling or taxonomy in human behaviour causes more disharmony than it merits and is leading to prescription, proscription and manifest censorship.
Live and let live, but let the rest get on with their lives free of concern about the peculiarities of yours.

Achnababan

David Clegg, Neil Mackay, the BBC’S Tom English …all key media placemen in Scotland…

English does to Scottish sport what Mackay does for the Yes movement…. pours could pish on it while pretending to be insightful and authorities…

The British are deploying their ace card…Ulstrt.

Mac

Being in opposition for a spell would be great IMHO.

Being in Government generally does not make you popular. The SNP were supposed to be only doing it to demonstrate their competence to run an independent country. (That worked out well then.)

Reminding the Scottish public what a labour / liberal / conservative government was and is like is no bad thing either.

It also provides the window in which we topple the Murrells and clean out the wokerati infestation or simply start a new party and leave them to slowly disappear into a sinkhole of their own idiotic shit.

The movement is already set-back. It is no ones fault other than Team Nicola’s. They are the ones who quite deliberately drove wedge through the heart of the movement.

It is hard to imagine anything worse that they could have done to AS other than resorting to direct violence. It is the most outrageous abuse of power I have ever seen in politics in my whole lifetime, by orders of magnitude above anything else.

For it to happen in a modern western democracy, it is an act of unmatched thuggery and it reeks of the gutter.

Nicola has disgraced everything almost. This can’t be just a coincidence.

David Caledonia

Albert Speer escaped the noose, what a brilliant guy he was, like our dear Dilly Dolly Nicola, he could talk shite with the best of them, and spin a good fairytale when he needed to.
Yes Nicola Speer could escape her own noose by declaring like speer, I am sorry, but it wisnae me, I new nothing about what was going on
Then again, maybe she is to thick in the head to understand what she’s doing

Morgatron

Another one of the questions was, if you seen Pete Wishart hitting a sheep with a stick, would he be done for flogging his mutton?

Achnababan

Sorry cauld pish and ulster..

Morgatron

It’s not Tits McGee , we shall name him Tits MacKay.

Gman1424

Brilliant article Rev.

Keep them coming please, they are an essential antidote to the propaganda, poison and downright lies of all of those, who seek to negatively influence, our fight for self determination, at this crucial moment in history and that INCLUDES certain parts of the SNP at Government level.

Another_Ian_Blackford_Speech

Achnababan says:
16 February, 2021 at 12:01 pm
Sorry cauld pish and ulster..

Think Tom English’s coverage of the rugby is pretty on-point to be honest. Couldn’t say about the fitba.

velofello

Seems to me best that the Holyrood election is postponed due to the Sturgeon/Salmond investigation being unresolved, and mainly due to the obstructive, delaying tactics of the SNP government.

Once the investigation is completed and publicised then the electorate will be informed of the good guys and bad guys in the Salmond stitch-up. I doubt that the SNP will lose power but hopefully it will have lost some less than wholesome MSPs.

Rev – a reminder on List vote tactics article might be useful, Twitter has many “vote SNP twice” posts without any reasoning provided. Fie Fi Foe Fum, i smell shite.

Scozzie

Stuart MaKay @ 11.59am
Yeah take a bow to the Irish bloke showing how absurd (to coin a phrase) this crapola has become.

Scozzie

My comment about the Irish bloke was sincere – hope it didn’t come across as sarcastic.

Dave Llewellyn

I support gender reform.
It should be reformed to men and women from birth. End of argument

Dorothy Devine

Socrates, like you I am getting long of tooth and I had wanted to leave this earth living in an independent country so that the next generations could make it a truly good place to live for all who chose Scotland as their home.

A country capable of great things, not least of looking in the mirror and recognising errors of judgement , corruption and general misdeeds and sorting them out .

I get disappointed daily and depressed in equal measure.

The clown in Westminster and his supporting acts , like Aunt Sally’s, pose to be kicked into touch on a regular basis but not one mainstream outlet takes accurate aim and neither does the SNP – a toothless , too comfortable by far cohort.

Am awa tae greet.

SilverDarling

@Josef Ó Luain

And maybe I was stating the obvious but I honestly thought it would take longer than it has to assimilate NS into the cozy relationship once held by SLab and the MSM.

When you don’t want to acknowledge what is in front of your nose it takes time.

true scot

Reminded of this famous true quote: LAWYER: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?
OTHER LAWYER: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.

Scot Finlayson

So English is Irish but Scottish.

Watched (some of) `Scotland from the Air` and all the `experts` on Scotland were not Scottish,

we are being assimiltated into the Westminster Collective,resistance is futile.

Mac

If you stop and take stock, i.e. do a little audit, of where we are right now as a country it is quite shocking.

I don’t trust the Police. It has been building for a good while but seeing this last few years has taken it to a whole different level. I am also frightened of them. I think they are quite capable of fitting me up.

I don’t trust the COPFS. Jesus, they scare me more than the Police do. They just make it up as they go along and are prepared to see black when it is really white, up when it is really down, if it means they can persecute you. It is a COPFS more suited to Zimbabwe than Scotland. Really shocking.

I don’t trust the media, the so called fourth estate (paaaah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…good one). Look no further than exhibit A. The lying sack of shit that penned that Salmond hit piece on the eve of his trial trying to influence the jury by equating him with the Bulger killers amongst many others. Some countries have a functioning press that contributes to democracy, we have one that makes sure we are denied it.

I don’t trust the SNP or its leader. Something very weird has happened there. It is almost like it has been infiltrated and systematically destroyed from the inside.

I don’t trust the opposition parties. Seems to me like they all work in cahoots and for the aims of another country.

I don’t trust the 2014 referendum result. I think we were cheated. It is very much in their playbook and who can now doubt they are capable of it after seeing what the try to do to AS. Cheating 2014 was nothing compared to that.

Here we are, left clinging on to a handful of sites where we can still find the truth, but they are like small lifeboats in an ocean of lies and deceit.

So I don’t know what you would call this state we are living in in Scotland but it is very, very distant from anything you could call a democracy.

I’d say it is basically a failed state, corrupted by outside forces in virtually every dimension you look.

This is political suppression plain and simple.

Helen Yates

This article strengthens my belief that Sturgeon is going nowhere and neither is independence. we’ve been well played.

Daisy Walker

It takes a particular kind of … person… who when reporting an assault on their child, does not give the Police a chance to do their job, but instinctively gets on the phone to ‘call in favours, and connections’, almost, almost as if they are aware of some very serious corruption, and don’t want poor service deliver on their own.

But then from what I can see of hard line ultra unionists from NI, their idea of heaven, was shitty services and corruption all round, but they would be all right, cause they knew someone and could scratch backs with the best of them.

Yuck.

OT – I’m updating the Timeline I did at the end of last year. Trying to collate the events that the allegations were based on, then the conspiracy, then the trial/inquiry.

It will be long, but I think it would be useful to have a consequential sequence of events in one place.

So can anyone assist….The original 2 complaints of harassment Ms A and Ms B – do not appear to be the same A and B as for the criminal trial.

WITHOUT NAMING NAMES for obvious reason, can anyone clarify / she light on that. Many thanks.

Also, I understand that advice was saught from Police Scotland at the Harassment stage? Where was that information disclosed, and what month/year did that advice/corrispondence take place.

Lenny Hartley

Daisy, yup it has been said before ,that the alphabetties had different letters for civil and criminal procedures.

Geoff Anderson

I know it is very hard for many not to vote SNP because of the desire we all have to drive Independence. However the policies such as GRA and the Hate Bill are only the tip of the iceberg.
Look at how the rules have been changed to exclude the voices of members.
I thought we could take our party back. I was wrong.

If you do nothing else cut off funding and give them a wakeup call on the list. They can ignore your votes within the SNP but you can shock them by delivering MSPs who actually support Independence.

The only choice left now is your vote (or denial of vote)

Remember it is not your fault we go here. Nicola dumped 40k members to get back 25 wokerati.
I also do not believe she will pursue Independence if elected.

WhoRattledYourCage

‘Nicola Sturgeon and her apparently bulletproof personal popularity.’ Is that right, aye? Had enough of all this utter pish.

link to whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com

Effijy

His cover is blown.
If you work for a U.K. media outlet you need to be a biased
Unionist or pretend to be one to avoid redundancy.

Could we do a poll here with a simple do you want penises
hiding under a frock in changing rooms and toilets with women
and children.

I vote No.Never!

If surgery takes away the issue, you get in.

true scot

All this defying of gravity cannot last forever – but it could last long enough to give them a damaging majority. The unifying feature of all the legislative agenda of the SNP is that it does not in any way make Scotland any more ready for independence. However divisive – all of this ‘stuff’ is at the easy end, signalling virtue and quite probably hoping to get younger members. I worry. I can no longer fantasise about moving to France. Carlisle doesn’t have the same appeal or panache. Interesting to see Gavin Williamson’s war on woke getting some teeth as our political leaders double down on ever deeper state censorship.

Lenny Hartley

Tommy Sheriden. That was brilliant thanks, as a target of the British State you speak with experience, i Always thought you would be the man to take us to Independence, i Had my doubts for a while but its clear that the Establishment Party of the SNP are not going to lead us to Freedom. the people are losing faith in them in droves, it will be a peoples movement that will win us Indy and i hope when called your voice will be strongly heard.
Rock on Tommy.

Ian Brotherhood

Where the hell is the Lady Dorian ruling?

John Martini

Single issue politics can be a bit of a trap

link to en.m.wikipedia.org

iain mhor

Hahahah, it’s all that miserable, I needed a laugh, – then I clicked the Wings Twitter feed 😀

Annie 621

“You cannot hope to bribe or twist, Thank god, the SCOTTISH journalist.
But,seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to”…

to paraphrase Humbert Wolfe…
(no relation.)

katherine hamilton

“Where the hell is the Lady Dorian ruling?”
Ian, I expect stuck in the hell of delay, obfuscation and manipulation to stop Mr. Salmond appearing next week, if at all.
Time passes.

Hamish Kirk

Is Mackay an agent of The Deep State ?

100%Yes

I have come to despise the SNP and I know what I’m in control of my election vote and the SNP aren’t getting either, now that control.

Feliks

Achnababan

While Clegg and MacKay probably self-identify as Bradish, Ton English is a Limerick man.

susanXX

Effigy: surgery and cross sex hormones do not change the fact that born xy means you’ll die xy. And hence have no right to be in female only spaces.

cirsium

@Mac, 12.28

It’s a colony, plain and simple.

AndyH

Nae votes SNP fae me.

30 years they have had my vote.

They can get stuffed now.

Captain Yossarian

It may just be that the man’s an arse, rather than he’s from Antrim and so he must be an arse.

We’re at risk of importing this sectarianism shite which has never existed in Scotland.

Anyone who has experienced sectarianism will know what I am talking about.

Cath

That Salmond page the night before the trial was just horrific. It should have merited a contempt of court case in any reasonable country – hell, the media coverage in the run up would have had the trial collapsed in any reasonable country. That was the spread which turned me right of that journalist, who up until then I had thought was generally on the pro-indy side.

Mac

That comment from Tommy Sheridan reminds me of another utterly shameful investigation by Police Scotland.

Remember when they raided TS’s house and saw that Gail Sheridan had a collection of 150 miniatures of spirits and they tried to make out she had stolen them from her employer.

I could not believe they would stoop so low at the time but now I completely believe it.

The Police are tripping over themselves to see crimes where there are none when you are a perceived ‘enemy’ and completely looking the other way when you are one of their buddies.

Miniatures FFS… what wankers.

Mist001

‘a man born and bred in the absolute heartland of militant fundamentalist Unionism’. Coincidentally, where was Tommy Sheppard born and bred?

From Tommys WIKI: “Following the 2017 election, which he described as a “major wake-up call” for the SNP, Sheppard encouraged First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to abandon plans for a second Scottish independence referendum before Brexit.”

HEL-LOOO…

Wake up call…

JillP

I’m sure I did that survey but not through ComRes. The questions were such that I had to think about what it meant and how it would be used.
When I saw those questions yesterday they looked so familiar and looking at them more fully above I’m certain I’ve been asked those. Could it have been sent out via Panelbase?

Effijy

Susan,

My fear is a male appendage can be used to rape in female changing rooms
and toilets.

If they don’t have the tools of rape I don’t mind them
saying their female or dress as a female.

I wish them well as long as their demands don’t create dangers for
those who are born as women.

Anonymous Alphabet Man.

Well remembered point Mac about the Police having a go at Tommy Sherridan’swife because she had a lot of minsters of spirits.

The Police and Prosecution very clearly have a history in pursuing politicians in this country. It’s a tried and tested technique. And then there was the miners strike before that. And actor Tommy Royal from the 70s too.

Salmond is just getting the deep state treatment. Just like Willie McRae got the even deeper deep state treatment.

Garrion

Just donned my hazmat suit and nipped over to twitter to see Neil whining about being victimized. What a truly awful hypocritical, devious and unpleasant human being.

However my heart goes out to him, it seems that having things written about you that you don’t like…hurts.

Jacqueline McMillan

Mac

Yes I remember that and the polis keeping her and refusing her rosary. Accused Gail of PIRA tactics . Disgusting now as it was then. Where the bloody hell do we go from here?? It just goes on and on and on. Stretched out by nicla and this disgusting jurno using his daughter ffs. How low, how base!!!!

Lorna Campbell

I was reading a piece last night about the SA led by Ernst Rohm in Germany. These people, many of them young, homosexual men, beat up Jewish people at the drop of a hat; also Communists and Socialists; and women, if they infringed the rules and mores set out by the prevailing regime. Hitler was happy to let them do his dirty work until he was in a position to get rid of them, and they were to be seen kicking and punching people who were in some way opposed to the fascist ideology.

This picture of the SA reminded me forcefully of the trans activists, often not trans themselves. The latter operate on Twitter, while the SA physically beat people to a pulp – in gangs, of course. Cowards never operate alone, whatever the era or whatever the means.

By 1939, the SA had gone, most of them murdered at Hitler’s behest, the (mostly harmless) cross-dressers and drag queens of the Weimar Republic night clubs had been herded into the re-education camps, such as Dachau, as were homosexuals and lesbians, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Socialists, prostitutes, pimps, Catholic priests, etc. Now, before the intellectually-challenged think I am advocating getting rid of people because of their sexual, political or religious choices, think again.

My point is that, if you create a society where intolerance of different ideas holds sway, where you un-platform and cancel people, you are in grave danger of being hoist by your own leotard because, if trans activists are not very careful, they will have created the fertile ground for something very much more intolerant than themselves to come along and occupy it. Who bothers trans people except the odd cowardly fascist doughball, fearful of his own sexuality? That could change overnight if an even more totalitarian mindset is allowed to filter through.

Basically, trans people have their rights, homosexual and lesbian people have their rights, women have their rights, black people have their rights – now. We are not in the past; we are in the present. What they might not have are equally positive end results, but that is life. It is always unfair and, sometimes, savagely so. No matter how much you fracture and splinter, it is impossible to ensure that every single person in society has an equal life in all ways. Destroying the liberal, democratic culture in which the West sits is so stupid and dense and immoral that it is hard to articulate just how mind-numbingly idiotic it is.

Trans people have exactly the same human and civil rights as everyone else. What they want is to extend the privileges given them by the 2004 GRA which is now redundant because its purpose was to afford them the right to same sex marriage. It has been overtaken by the same sex marriage legislation and ought to be repealed, not extended. There is nothing in trans rights that is comparable with the lack of human and civil rights for homosexuals/lesbians. That is downright sophistry. Homosexuals and lesbians were grossly discriminated against and they had to campaign to obtain the rights that the rest of the population took for granted. Homosexual men could be jailed if they were caught in the act. It was insupportable.

Trans people refuse to campaign as trans people, but demand the rights of others. Create unisex bathrooms in all toilet blocks, leaving male and female/family ones alone. If the SNPG doesn’t have the cash, ask Stonewall to ask its benefactors from corporate America, or, better still, use the public money that is diverted to Stonewall – for what exactly remains a mystery since nothing is ploughed into safe spaces for trans people. Strengthen the 2010 Equality Act safety provisions for women and keep trans women out of women’s spaces completely.

There is absolutely no requirement for them to be in our faces, anyway. They are not discriminated against in any way. They want to self-ID. That’s it. I’m a woman because I say I am. No, you are a TRANS woman and can never, ever be anything else. Ergo, you do not get to enter women’s safe spaces, women’s sports, etc. Trans women are at less risk of assault than natal women, and the statistics bear that out.

If this goes on, and they get their own way, the trans lobby will overturn years of progress for discriminated-against groups in the West. It is, compared to many other parts of the world, liberal and open, a society where, if the trans lobby just shut its big, fat mouth, trans people could go about their business without drawing hostility form the rest of the population. Nobody actually cares if trans people want to dress as men/women and live their lives as the opposite sex (although we will not have our children experimented upon), nobody really minds. It is when one group tries to take away the rights of others that trouble starts. The trans lobby needs to stop whining and behaving like victims. They are not; they are oppressors of others right now, and they could be heralding in something they will bitterly regret having heralded in if they weaken and demoralize the West too much. The West ain’t perfect, but, by God, it’s a lot better than some regimes in the world.

Confused

GRA and HCB are massive landmines the SNP have planted under themselves – and handed the detonators to their opponents. It looks like sabotage.

The “real world” right now DO NOT KNOW what GRA/HCB are, or their consequences, but – they will have it all EXPLAINED TO THEM in lurid and crude terms on the doorstep come election time. Watch Boaby from Penicuik scrutch his face as it dawns on him

“.. wee kylie has to share the lavvy with a big hairy tranny perv …”

that’s a lost vote and you won’t get it back by crowing about free prescriptions or personal care – the reaction to this may massively shrink the SNP lead. The only question is how hard the tories and labour want to hit it on the hustings, for they, in their own way (cf Boris and his girlfriend, the woke princess) are just as “signed up” to the id-politics as the SNP.

Biggest party/forms govt/minority is the best outcome for the leadership – the “indy stuff” can be kicked down the road for years (“it’s just not possible!”), while they can continue to virtue signal themselves into oblivion; another 5 years of “knife and fork jobs”. Meanwhile, for us, the moment is gone, the momentum lost, brexit adjusted to, the new normal. In that time, another trillion or so will be stolen from us.

Rev now accused of stirring up sectarianism.
link to youtube.com

Captain Yossarian

I wonder what’s taking Lady Dorian so long? It’s not a complex case is it. Presumably this is for The Spectator’s legal team to fight-out and it won’t be costing Alex Salmond anything although, if our government has anything to do with it, they will attempt to cost him money…as much money as they can.

Alf Baird

Mac

“So I don’t know what you would call this state we are living in in Scotland but it is very, very distant from anything you could call a democracy.”

I would call it colonial.

Which is the main reason all ‘peoples’ have sought independence.

kapelmeister

Rhiannon, Mhairi Hunter and Leask all rushing to console Mackay on his twitter for being picked on by nasty old Wings. He seems to be rather enjoying the attention.

That Big Read piece just before the Salmond trial showed his true colours.

Big Jock

When an Ulster Unionist is your friend. You really need to examine your moral compass!

Keith

In coming Mackay pile-on. He’s been tweeting like a demon for the last few hours and the likes of Mhairi hunter and Rhi-Rhi now rounding up the troops.

anadventure

Lorna Campbell – damn you’re smart – and a good writer. link to wingsoverscotland.com should be it’s own Wings post – and newspaper opinion piece.

You’ve expressed it all so well in a condensed form – and without hyperbole.

StuartM

@ Daisy Walker

From the Scottish Sun
link to archive.is

“On Monday, Ms H told Mr Salmond’s trial at the High Court in Edinburgh – where he’s accused of 14 sex attacks on 10 women – that he stripped naked and “pounced” on her in a Bute House bedroom known as “the Connery room” in June 2014.”
(snip)
“The witness, the first to give evidence at the trial, said she tried to find out about the SNP’s process for dealing with sexual harassment complaints after publicity surrounding the #MeToo movement was sparked in 2017 by allegations about ex-film producer Harvey Weinstein.
She said she’d started to have “flashbacks” about what Mr Salmond had allegedly done and contacted Ian McCann in the SNP’s party HQ on 5 November 2017.
She told the court: “It was on the back of the Harvey Weinstein case and the issues which started to be discussed and I started to have what I would describe as flashbacks.” ”
(snip)
“Under cross examination by defence counsel Shelagh McCall QC, it was pointed out that MSP Mark McDonald had resigned from his role as children’s minister in the Scottish Government the day before on 4 November.

She asked the witness if she thought at the time that Mr McDonald might also resign as MSP for Aberdeen Donside, to which Ms H replied: “I didn’t give it a lot of thought.”
It was suggested to the woman by Ms McCall that if Mr McDonald had quit, she may have thought there was a “possibility” Mr Salmond would try to re-enter Scottish politics.
Ms H said: “I don’t think I linked the two events together. I wasn’t aware he (Mr Salmond) wanted to stand for the Scottish Parliament again.”
The QC asked if it was “coincidence” she’d contacted Mr McCann the day after Mr McDonald resigned and said: “You didn’t want Alex Salmond to pass any future vetting process.”
The witness said: “It was not a coincidence in terms of the #MeToo movement and the whole issue of women basically being abused by people in positions of power.” ”

BTW I find her story absurd. “He stripped naked and “pounced” on her in a Bute House bedroom” – a man begins to take off his clothes and she just stands there and waits until he’s naked? Wouldn’t she try to escape the room? I doubt many rapists disrobe completely before attacking their victims.

All the other allegations seem to have emerged after the police investigation began. Probably someone with legal knowledge told them that without corroboration the complaints wouldn’t stand up in court unless they could invoke the Moorov Doctrine. At which point they started to concoct more allegations.

WhoRattledYourCage

‘“So I don’t know what you would call this state we are living in in Scotland…”

Vassal.

Sylvia

“The QC asked if it was “coincidence” she’d contacted Mr McCann the day after Mr McDonald resigned”

NOT a conspiracy!

Dream Brut

I see Mr MacKay is now accusing you of sectarianism Stu

WhoRattledYourCage

Some new footage of Question Time at Holyrood. 🙂

link to youtube.com

Bob Mack

My, my. For such an insignificant website as they say Wings is,people certainly do take notice of articles.

SilverDarling

Humza’s hotline will be ringing off the hook. Questions will be asked in the parly soon.

Achnababan

Thanks i stand corrected Felix… a limerick man just like good old Sir Terry Wogan……another bbc British-Irish pal?

Andy Ellis

@Rev Stu 2.24pm

Welcher Hassan – check.
Derec “Cherry abuser” Thompson – check
Mhairi Hunter – check
Rhiannon Spear – check
Mark McGeoghan – check
David “something of the night” Leask – check
Peter Arnott – check
Tristan “misogynist Green” Gray – check
Micheal Sturrock – check
Jonny “SNP-staffer” Kielman – check

All the folk whose vision for an independent Scotland would make emigration look attractive. 🙂

Colin Alexander

It’s obvious now how the SNP Scot Govt flung money at the Unionist press.

The SNP under Sturgeon / Robertson are British Establishment colonial administrators. Friends of the Union.

The MSM and the SNP are on the same side: devolutionist Unionism aka Imperial England and its Scotland colony.

Stoker

Mike says on 16 February, 2021 at 11:30 am:
“Sounds like the guy is a Trojan horse!”

LOL! There’s a whole stables worth in the SNP.
__________

@ Mist001 on 16 February, 2021 at 1:29 pm

Correct!

Sylvia

HUMZA Yousaf has been criticised for refusing to say if the Scottish Government believes there are more than two sexes.
The SNP Justice Secretary came under fire as MSPs debated possible changes to the Government’s controversial Hate Crime Bill.
Labour MSP Johann Lamont tabled a series of amendments designed to find out whether ministers believe there are more sexes than male and female, and if so what they are.
However, Mr Yousaf conspicuously ducked the question, and opposed Ms Lamont’s ideas for changing the Bill, saying it was important to be “inclusive, particularly of non-binary persons”.
Ms Lamont said she was “concerned” that Mr Yousaf had failed to say if “he believes there are two sexes”.
Some campaigners argue that sex, like gender, is fluid and on a spectrum, while others, including Ms Lamont, argue it is binary and immutable.

link to archive.is

Effijy

Scot Gov claiming to have the most advanced vaccination program in Europe.

Westminster parties in Holyrood fuming and the fake smile shop is sold out!

Ottomanboi

Seems politicians are the blockheads/roadblocks impeding the independence process.
Those elected on a independence ticket should stick to the requirements of that ticket.
Carpet baggers should be encouraged to take their exotic causes elsewhere, to the Duke & Duchess of Sussex perhaps.

Magnus Erlendsson

I am reminded of this article in the Belfast Telegraph about the extent of secret service infiltration in Northern Ireland.

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/half-of-all-top-ira-men-worked-for-security-services-28694353.html

Caroline Wilson

MacKay is currently retweeting himself & quote-tweeting replies (as per) like a mad’un. He’s asked if this article constitutes ‘sectarianism’ & has been reassured by a fully qualified ‘therapist’ no less, that it most definitely does. All in all, he’s lovin’ it, I rather suspect.

Oh, & if that doesn’t put the fear into you, he’s been given legal advice by wee Declan.

Anonymoose

Lady Dorrians judgement:

link to scotcourts.gov.uk

WhoRattledYourCage

Sylvi – as well as being a fanny, Yousaf is Muslim. I wonder what Islam says aboot all this trans stuff. Would not view it too favourably, I would imagine.

covidhoax

Another Swamp creature exposed. Is there a single mainstream journalist who isn’t in cahoots with the evil empire these days?

dramfineday

The Ghana Tourism Authority on twitter -hahaha- brilliant.

“Scotland is awful. Come to beautiful Ghana instead.”

Flute players wearing orange as well…..1st class guys.VG.

Frank Gillougley

I would only like to point out historically that The ‘Glasgow’ Herald probably wasn’t known colloquially as ‘The Proddy Herald’ for ’nuffink’.
– Just a statement of fact, nothing else.

Mac

Wow.

Pretty revealing seeing SNP MPs crawling up the fat plukey arsehole of the guy who penned that disgraceful Herald hit piece on Salmond on the eve of his trial.

Neil MacKay is a fat lump of turd in any religion. Mairi Hunter and co you have really found your ‘soul mate’ win this one, a greasy independence hating nutcase Irish unionist… how very New SNP.

Jockanese Wind Talker

“Twitter does not = real life”

and

“No one reads Wings”

But yet Twitter pile on ‘cos of something they read on Wings?

FANNIES!

I suppose “Fannies” is that some kind of phobic insult now!

Republicofscotland

Now we have Dorian the turncoat, and the ultra woke Harvey pile in on Mackay’s Twitter. We have the goods on those two as well and they know it.

Both are up for reelection soon, we can end their time slurping at the taxpayers trough in May, it must be done.

link to twitter.com

Sylvia

WhoRattledYourCage-Sitting on the fence and not having the Courage of his Convictions speaks volumes – too afraid to speak in case he gets cancelled by the Wokerati.

Alf Baird

TOMMY SHERIDAN @ 11:59

As Lenny Hartley says @ 12:50, I too believe you will and must have a significant role to play in Scotland’s independence. Your perspectives on a plebiscite election in May would be much appreciated. I note also the statement made by Solidarity on this aspect, which I expect you will update soon as ongoing events develop, and as the dominant National Party’s rotten pampered bourgeoisie elite continues to collapse.

Neil Wilkinson

Lorna Campbell says:
16 February, 2021 at 1:59 pm

______________________________

Well said Lorna

McDuff

You can see why Sturgeon would like a bridge to NI as it would be easier to import MacKay and his ilke.
With the Herald indulging this cretin and the National also promoting NS the unionist machine is ramping up for May’s election.

AllyBally2305

People with mental illness also have rights. Obviously stalking/ sexually threatening behaviour is wrong and must be stopped. Likewise denigrating a disabled person and using platform agency to expose them is also predatory behaviour, I thought so at the time and still think so. I had forgotten the was responsible for the eve of tried piece, he’s all over Twitter bleating about this.

Ken

Fascinating that people “taking their lead” from social media and have artificially amplified transphobia etc get slapped down, yet people taking their lead from social media and over amplified the numbers of trans people is not worth a mention.

McDuff

Good one from Tommy Sheridan.
And rev you never cease to astound. This country owes you a tremendous debt of gratitude.

Michael

Another pointless character assassination, this time drawing conclusions about a person’s political views on the basis of where they were born.
I used to be a big fan of wings, I still read it but more often than not end up asking myself why I bother

Odysseus62

Better watch out Wings he is calling on first minister to take action – esp since she has influence, wonder who the influence is with?

stuart mctavish

Andrew F @11:48

Combine that nugget with conclusions to be drawn from registered Covid data, the “agents of disinformation” title, the manner in which the not unrelated landslide in America was brushed under the radar and the sectarianism and emotional blackmail angles start to look a lot like distraction from genuinely destructive errors of judgement.

Saffron Robe

The answer given is dependent on the question asked. Ask the right question and you will get the right answer; ask the wrong question and you will get the wrong answer. Ask a loaded question and you will get a loaded answer.

As regards self-identifying, it is patently obvious that such a concept is open to abuse. If someone can self-identify as anything they want without corroborating evidence, then there is nothing to stop them self-identifying as something they are not. In other words it opens the floodgates to prima facie fraudulence.

Bob Mack

@Michael,

That is naive. Read an article by Neil McKay titled PTSD and me.
He recounts a meeting in Belfast at the home of loyalist murderer.Ruthless,dedicated,psychopath. He pointed a gun at McKay and pulled the trigger but it wasnt loaded.

McKay states very clearly in the course of this interview that this thug called him “a good man”. They had met before

That from a murderer speaks volumes What did he see and hear from McKay that enabled him to say that. A man who murdered Nationalists without hesitation.

Think about it.

Jontoscots20

Funnily enough McHackay did a piece on Govanhill a few years ago. The uppity working class residents were looking for the council to take action on HMO driven squalor. Fly tipping, intimidating noisy gatherings at all hours. One complaint was of flats being used to bake bread industrially. They had to be put back in their box of course. So hark the Herald “reporter at large” was deployed. He interviewed Mhairi Hunter, a few hipster tools, some NGO apologists who ( like him) live nowhere near the place. Many who probably live in Strathbungo but love that vibe of urban seediness, contested that the area was going to hell. They celebrated fact that they can open a vegan juice bar, and run reiki classes in at Govanhill baths. The people of Govanhill were left, as E. P Thompson once put it “ To the enormous condescension of history.’

They were written off as racists and haters. Meanwhile the diminishing band of Herald readers could feel the warm pang of virtue. McKay also tried to present it as an attack on Tsarina Nicola. Maybe because she doesn’t give a shit about the working class people who keep her and Hunter in office. Today residents report Roma for covid breaches parties and mass undistancec gatherings. Police State Scotland do nothing. Since the locals only diversity is to have limited economic choices who gives a shit about them. Some are angry and pissed off. Sadly that’s the kind of ground the right are likely to exploit.

No more corruption

The Twitler youth are having a fake outrage orgasim with this and your usual suspects are all using their entitlement to say how offended they are. No shame at all that they are all in team unionists camp but as we already know, the woke team Sturgeon brigade don’t actually want independence.

Colgar

Wow there’s quite a Twitter pile in going on. I could hardly breathe.

kapelmeister

Michael @7:41

“Another pointless character assasination…”

Take a look at Mackay’s feature on the eve of Salmond’s trial. How would you describe that?

Derek

@Breastplate says:

Some believe Pete Wishart beats his sausage dog constantly…

“You can beat an egg, but…”

Aaron Aardvark Anderson

‘The parking on the left has become parking on the right ‘ the greatest political lyrics ever written which few people ever get.

WhoRattledYourCage

I liked Scotland much better when it wasn’t mad as a box of frogs on all sides. Miss those days. Pre-internet, basically. I am wondering if the phony public sanctimony (Twitter is hilariously appalling, all people looking to outdo themselves in hyperbolic superlatives and adjectives about how offended or moral they are) is coming out of our religious roots, trying to fill some sort of spiritual-cum-existential vacuum left by the death of religion in Scotland. This country, right now, is basically a joke. Seriously. And it’s making me wonder if it always was, and I just didn’t notice it so much. Cos I have never in my life met anybody who has an attitude like net-dwellers in the pompous condescension and fake morality stakes. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near them if I did. Still, it’s all done for fun and fake net cred points, eh? Pity the net had ever been invented.

Fuck it.

link to youtube.com

WhoRattledYourCage

You know what, Stu? Apologise to Mackay for involving his daughter in it. Seriously. That would shit them up. Cos you know yourself you shouldn’t have done it. If you had a daughter, you would understand.

mike cassidy

Prejudiced poll… prejudiced article

The usual

But I do love the idea that someone writes an opinion piece for a paper hardly anybody reads

Claiming that socialmedia is not the real world

And the only place it has any traction

Is on socialmedia like this site and twitter

mike cassidy

Prejudiced poll… prejudiced article

The usual

But I do love the idea that someone writes an opinion piece for a paper hardly anybody reads

Claiming that socialmedia is not the real world

And the only place it has any traction

Is on socialmedia like this site and twitter

twathater

Had a look at the twatter pileon I noticed that the majority of posts had a screenshot of certain parts of the article, my my what a righteous sanctimonious shower they are , forgetting totally or deliberately his reviled outrageous pages in the paper that inserted Alex Salmond in amongst a collection of hated murderers and sex fiends , but that could only be considered as artistic licence it was not in any way an attempt to sway or direct the jury to a certain conclusion by transference

I also note the deliberate overwhelming desire to SILENCE K MacAskill and Chris MacEleny from commenting or posting on WOS with many demanding their expulsion from the SNP
I’m afraid the unionists and the sycophants have taken total control of the SNP and it is now a hollow shell regarding indy
Anyway Stuart know that people who read and contribute to your blog still need you in the fight to free our country from the corruption

Jeannie McCrimmon

Pat Kane is one of the many I’ve blocked on Twitter for supporting Mackay whilst disparaging you

“Just to say that I’ve worked with @NeilMackay & would defend him as a solid man, a superb journalist, & a thoughtful indy supporter. Let him also be known by his scrofulous enemies.”

Tony O'Neill

Stu,I get the distinct impression that quite a lot of the we hate Stu Campbell/wings and I stopped reading it years ago brigade,haven’t actually stopped reading wing’s at all Funny as fuck so they ur lol.The crown agent McKay is trying hard for the sympathy vote it seems lol.

JohnMcDonaldish

Oh Stuart!

Maybe, just maybe, your penchant for calling a spade a c**t detracts from your primary message? Who’s talking about the survey being a load of crap and Mackay’s pendulum views?

Karmanaut

The level of vitriol stirred up in response to this was something else. Amidst all the fury I didn’t see anyone rebutting anything said on Wings, however, which gives a fair indication of why the response was so angry.

I stopped reading Mackay a long time ago. I can’t recall which article it was that finally made give up on the Sunday Herald. It may have been his “A majority for Yes isn’t enough – yes votes should be worth less” article, or it could have been his “Indy marchers are violent thugs” one. Hard to say, as there were quite a few around that time. I note the Sunday Herald folded not long after it started to ramp up the anti-yes stuff, so I obviously wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to read opinions that were very often false and seemingly malicious.


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