Tonight sees what’s likely to be a highly-charged Scottish Cup quarter-final replay at Ibrox Stadium. Defeat will effectively end the losing side’s season, and games between the participants, Aberdeen and Rangers International, have tended to be fierce affairs ever since the latter club was formed in controversial circumstances in 2012, with this season’s clashes already having seen numerous red cards.
(Mainly for the home team’s temperamental striker Alfredo Morelos.)
Football authorities will be hoping for a minimum of flashpoints on the field which might lead to repeats of shocking recent scenes of abuse and violence from spectators, which have prompted the nation’s media to wring its hands in theatrical angst and demand that something be done.
The public’s view on the subject, meanwhile, has remained absolutely consistent.
Sundays have been the low point of Scottish political journalism for a while now. Traditionally a day when newspapers are heavy on comment and light on news (because politics tends to happen on weekdays), they unleash all the weary old dinosaurs who’ve been driving away readers for the last 30 years.
So you really have to stand out to be noticed for especially appalling hackery on a Sunday, which is probably why nobody from Scotland On Sunday wanted to have their name on this toe-curling piece of second-hand, lifted-from-another-paper garbage.
Professor Ronald MacDonald, you say? That name seems to ring a bell.
MARR: “What would [Theresa May] need to bring back [from Brexit negotiations] to win you over?”
DAVIS: “She needs to bring back a clear ability on the part of the United Kingdom to be able to leave this treaty when it chooses to. There is no other treaty in the world I’m aware of where a sovereign nation undertakes to join up and can only leave when the other side says so.”
We’re pretty sure we can think of an example, David.
Michael Glackin of the Sunday Times is the only serious contender to the Scotsman’s demented Brian Wilson as the most poisonously, blindly instinctive hater of anything even passingly connected to the SNP or independence in the Scottish media. His weekly bilious rants in the paper make even Scottish Daily Express hacks wince and say “Blimey, that’s a bit strong”.
But even by those standards, this week’s column is quite something. So let’s take a little look at just how much of an idiot you can make of yourself if you never allow facts to get in the way of your rage.
Watching the Six Nations rugby tournament every year is usually quite a dispiriting experience – not just because of Scotland’s invariably underwhelming performances (broken up by the occasional false dawn), but because talking about it on social media always results in an extremely tedious flood of comments about how rugby is a sport played and watched exclusively by middle-class Tory No voters.
(That’s Scotland skipper Greig Laidlaw there, with Wings mascot Hamish.)
Speaking as someone whose interest in the tournament (in the pre-inflation days when it was the Five Nations) was first sparked when my extremely working-class Bathgate comprehensive school started taking pupils to Murrayfield in the 1980s – 50p for the bus and 50p for the match ticket, which got you a seat on wooden benches actually on the grass – this attitude has always instinctively felt like complete nonsense.
So when we did our latest Panelbase poll during this year’s competition, we figured we may as well actually find out.
Today is International Women’s Day, and we wouldn’t normally pay much attention to that fact because this is a Scottish politics website, not a feminist one. But the Scottish Government is currently putting itself at odds with women in a way it would have been hard to imagine when Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister, and since what Wings does specialise in is hard data – and at the request of a lot of women – we thought it was worth putting some solid numbers on a few things in our latest poll.
Scottish Labour’s 2019 conference, which starts in Dundee tomorrow, isn’t taking place in the most auspicious of circumstances, to put it kindly. The branch office is trailing a breathtaking 22 points behind the SNP in the latest Holyrood polling, 8 points behind the Tories, and the gap is getting bigger.
Westminster polling isn’t a great deal better, with the SNP 15 points ahead despite having been in power for 12 years and doggedly attempting to commit electoral suicide with a raft of increasingly unpopular policies (more on that to come).
A few days ago we received a reply from the Information Commissioner’s Office, and as a result have sent a letter to the Conservative Party’s compliance department. You can read it below.
We’ve just got the tables from a new Panelbase poll back, and they make grim reading for Labour (North British Branch Office) on the eve of their conference.
Holyrood voting intentions (constituency):
SNP 41% (nc)
Con 27% (+2)
Lab 19% (-4)
LD 8% (+2)
Grn 3% (nc)
UKIP 2% (+1)
(1002 Scottish voters, 2-6 March 2019) Changes from December 2018
That’s getting perilously close to the all-time low of 14% achieved around the tail end of Kezia Dugdale’s disastrous leadership. And the list vote isn’t much better.
Holyrood voting intentions (region):
SNP 36% (-2)
Con 26% (nc)
Lab 19% (-3)
LD 9% (+2)
Grn 6% (nc)
UKIP 3% (+2)
But even with astonishing leads of 14% and 10% after 12 years in power, the SNP have nothing to be complacent about either – according to the Weber Shandwick seat projector, these numbers would give Nicola Sturgeon’s party 57 seats and the Greens just 4, meaning Holyrood’s pro-independence majority would be a goner and the Nats would need backing from at least one Unionist party to pass any bills, meaning no new mandate for an indyref.
Like everywhere else, Scotland is currently split down the middle and nobody knows which side of the tightrope it’ll fall off in the event of a push.
Mark Beggan on The quality of mercy: “If no-one else is going to say it then I will. Thankyou Police Scotland for protecting the Scottish people from…” Apr 9, 00:33
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The quality of mercy: “A lovely poignant 16th Century Scottish song — REMEMBER ME MY DEIR (Amarcord – Harmonia Mundi) https://gobha-uisge.blogspot.com/2021/05/remember-me-my-deir-scottish-16th.html” Apr 8, 21:09
Geri on The quality of mercy: ““Best to await the outcome of their performance before making assumptions.” Best to just have a referendum eh? Y’know, what…” Apr 8, 20:52
Geri on The quality of mercy: “Cave dweller “The usual disingenuous, ill informed drivel from you.” Google AI – dickhead. Why don’t you go get a…” Apr 8, 20:39
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The quality of mercy: “MUSICK FYNE: JAMES IV, ROBERT CARVER « Thirteen years into the sixteenth century, King James, the fourth Stewart of that…” Apr 8, 20:20
Northcode on The quality of mercy: ““…the people are finally beginning to understand their colonial ‘condition’.” Frantz Fanon said “Once a people realize they have been…” Apr 8, 20:10
James on The quality of mercy: “YL – Excellent stuff. Certainly the French assumed the Alliance was still in place, with English ships being charged port…” Apr 8, 19:53
Young Lochinvar on The quality of mercy: “%er I don’t actually think the National comic and BIS have really that much influence on the majority ie Joe…” Apr 8, 19:13
Young Lochinvar on The quality of mercy: “C Meant to respond, aye, the auld alliance had its ups and downs but it was big French aid to…” Apr 8, 18:48
100%Yes on The quality of mercy: “We have recent polls suggesting that the SNP is going to get a outright majority or the SNP is going…” Apr 8, 18:44
Bilbo on The quality of mercy: “Cynicus says: 8 April, 2026 at 10:43 am TACO Trump is employing Madman theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory The problem is how does…” Apr 8, 18:29
agentx on The quality of mercy: “Alf Baird says:”Hence the Alliance to Liberate Scotland Party standing at this election means the people are finally beginning to…” Apr 8, 17:43
Mark Beggan on The quality of mercy: “The very same system that allows the worst in our society to sneak in and spread their poison. Progressives are…” Apr 8, 17:21
Young Lochinvar on The quality of mercy: “C Amen to that! However even though they found Dick da Turds corpse in a Leicester municipal car park, they…” Apr 8, 17:17
Aidan on The quality of mercy: “When did this recession occur which knocked 30% off the value of the Scottish economy to give a $200bn dollar…” Apr 8, 17:00
Alf Baird on The quality of mercy: “Three hunner year o colonial oppression does result in a certain pathology, Sven, whereby theday almost half o Scots still…” Apr 8, 16:25
Alf Baird on The quality of mercy: ““Ireland (no oil), Norway (oil), Switzerland (banking) have GDPs in the range of 600-800B USD. Ours is 200B USD. Liechtenstein…” Apr 8, 16:16
James on The quality of mercy: “The water shortage headline reads “Britain” then the article reads “England”. Funny that, eh? Oh, and aren’t house Yoons Wilma…” Apr 8, 15:58
Cynicus on The quality of mercy: “TURABDIN says: 6 April, 2026 at 4:56 pm From WIKI:?«The earliest use of the term appears in 1507, when King…” Apr 8, 15:18
Northcode on The quality of mercy: “Due to the proliferation of mindless, illiterate and ill-informed pish scribbled doun in this place by colonialists (unionists if preferred……” Apr 8, 14:52
Sven on The quality of mercy: “Mark Beggan @ 14.11. Mot a country of deranged morons … more a devolved administration of deranged morons elected under…” Apr 8, 14:29
Northcode on The quality of mercy: “Nae ither folk bar the Scots thersels hae the nous, the knawledge or the experiens o mony generaciouns, tae unnerstaun…” Apr 8, 14:14
Confused on The quality of mercy: “Reality check time. The only relevant benchmark for Scotland’s ECONOMIC POTENTIAL is with our small nation peers, most of whom…” Apr 8, 14:12
Mark Beggan on The quality of mercy: “Never mind the oil. The world sees Scotland as a Lady Boy. A country of very confused, weak and deranged…” Apr 8, 14:11
Confused on The quality of mercy: “they just won’t give it a fucking rest, will they – frog face weighing in https://archive.ph/cHiZ4 – but, but -…” Apr 8, 14:09
Aidan on The quality of mercy: “Well if it’s all been done before, why are you so utterly clueless about it and posting (in that last…” Apr 8, 13:38
Dan on The quality of mercy: “Ooh, an lse report… oh aye, this had been done to death long before Johnny come lately Aidan turned up.…” Apr 8, 13:11
Aidan on The quality of mercy: “Do you have a link to those figures “James”, since I can’t find them anywhere. What I can find is…” Apr 8, 12:52
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The quality of mercy: “BANNED DOCUMENTARY ON SCOTTISH OIL (The McCrone Report) « Tha paipeirean oifigeil a bha dìomhair ach a-nis air am fosgladh,…” Apr 8, 12:49
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The quality of mercy: “McCRONE REPORT – Scotland’s Hidden Oil Wealth « In 1974 the Tory government under Edward Heath commissioned a report by…” Apr 8, 12:42
