In so far as it’s worth talking about Scottish constitutional politics at all these days, it’s worth taking a moment to analyse the bloodless, anodyne nothingness spouted by the First Minister on The Sunday Show at the weekend.
That clip is less than three minutes long, but it’s so soul-crushingly boring and full of content-free drone and waffle that it’s almost impossible to sit all the way through it, so we’re going to translate and summarise it for you.
Warning: despite the quite zingy title this is actually going to be a very dry stats post, readers. It is, on the other hand, based on a man having something disturbingly close to a complete psychotic mental breakdown, so there’s always that for a bit of colour.
Because the paragraph above, and in particular the highlighted part, is without a doubt the most dishonest, diametrically false and wildly extreme lie about Scottish politics that we’ve ever seen anyone tell in the 13.5 years of Wings Over Scotland’s existence.
And as a rule we don’t bother addressing them because they’re so demented you could spend 5,000 words pulling apart all the individual strands of lunacy every time, and lunatics thrive on attention, but this one does merit a very brief comment.
Because “Vote Labour, get indy” wasn’t our plan. It was John Swinney’s.
Even by the embarrassing standards of The National, the gulf between this morning’s blaring front-page splash and the weak, watery weasel words in the actual article is a chasm so wide and so yawning (in every sense of that word) that it would put the epic planetary scar of Mars’ Valles Marineris to shame.
Coupled with a feebly underwhelming Programme For Government (in which the main policy was the re-abolition of peak rail fares just months after the SNP insisted such a move was unaffordable, with no clue as to where the money had suddenly been found) and a pitiful list of candidates for next year’s Holyrood election featuring the likes of Sally “all aboard the gravy bus!” Donald, Kaukab “DECAPITATE TERFS” Stewart, Kirsten “DECAPITATE TERFS” Oswald, Alison “DECAPITATE TERFS” Thewliss and Alyn “throw anyone who doesn’t want to DECAPITATE TERFS out of the SNP” Smith, the story was an abject vision of a bleak future for independence.
On reflection, we feel we may have not taken this story seriously enough. After all, they don’t put just ANY old guff on the front page of the Sunday Mail.
The less said about the Scottish Government’s toe-curlingly embarrassing “summit” last week, the sooner we can all pretend it never happened. We’ve got little to add to the withering assessments of Robin McAlpine and Kevin McKenna and just about everyone else who’s bothered covering this pathetic waste of everyone involved’s time. (Not that the time of most of these useless quangocrats was worth anything anyway.)
We take a moment only to note something remarkable: the closest Scottish Labour’s hapless branch manager Anas Sarwar has ever come to understanding anything.
Yesterday the Scottish media gave Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman what she’s never willingly given anyone else – a platform on which to make her case.
Most did a very poor job challenging her on her outrageous comments about the Supreme Court, with BBC Radio Scotland’s Drivetime show being an especially wretched example of allowing the interviewee to ignore every question and then just ramble on endlessly about something else entirely, but LBC’s Gina Davidson was on top of her brief and put all the points that reasonable people wanted to be made, while giving Chapman ample time to answer uninterrupted.
Let’s break down how that went, with the help of our handy Bullshit Buzzer.
At the weekend, Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman was filmed applauding as a notoriously unhinged transactivist ranted through a megaphone to a small and almost exclusively male crowd of protestors about how he was going to openly break the law by continuing to use women’s public toilets, and addressing JK Rowling with the words “We should all take a shite on you, you heinous creeping old bitch”.
At another protest, Chapman herself asserted that the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling on the correct interpretation of the Equality Act 2010 was motivated by not by a solemn consideration of the law or by the arguments of counsel who appeared before it, but by “bigotry, prejudice and hatred”.
Chapman is – incredibly – Deputy Convener of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament, and as such her comments sparked a storm of wholly justified outrage over her flagrant breach not only of Parliamentary rules but also of the law – specifically the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008, which requires all MSPs to uphold the independence of the judiciary.
Peter McAvoy on Believers In The Ruins: “When Independence is declared whether after a referendum or UDI who would recognise Scottish Independence and for what reason,and how…” Aug 14, 01:34
sarah on Believers In The Ruins: “@ BLMac “Scotland is lacking..a leader who the enemy fear…”. I’d be happy with any leader i.e. with enough personality,…” Aug 13, 22:24
BLMac on Believers In The Ruins: “Looking at the history of independence movements what Scotland is lacking is a right nasty bastard as leader, ie a…” Aug 13, 22:00
sarah on Believers In The Ruins: “O/T: Mark Hirst fundraiser today for £5000 to pursue his case against the Crown Office for malicious prosecution. The crowdfunder…” Aug 13, 21:33
Breeks on Believers In The Ruins: “The weakness of a UDI isn’t necessarily constitutional legitimacy, nor political justification, both of which I consider favourable towards Scotland’s…” Aug 13, 21:14
Dan on Anatomy Of A Grift: “Trouble is Stu that there aren’t that many people btl now… That’s because 8 years of an awful lot of…” Aug 13, 20:17
Aidan on Believers In The Ruins: “Aye thats it – there’s about 15-20 regular posters here, the plan is to bore than to death until what?…” Aug 13, 20:10
Chas on Believers In The Ruins: “Made me laugh Kenny. Alf has a plan-what is it? Bleating on about colonialism every fucking day is not a…” Aug 13, 19:40
Kenny on Believers In The Ruins: “I happen to be encouraged by Prof Alf Baird’s ‘shite’ – he has a plan, wtf do you have, Salmond’s…” Aug 13, 19:16
TURABDIN on The Other Kind Of Winning: “glad to find below the liners with a sense of proportion not to mention a sense of humour. have this…” Aug 13, 18:28
sam on The Other Kind Of Winning: “I may be wrang but I think Turabdin lives in Scotland. a wee bitty racial stereotyping going on with you.…” Aug 13, 17:49
100%Yes on Believers In The Ruins: “Yes, and it can only improve and it doesn’t need the backing of the SNP to support it.” Aug 13, 16:58
Chas on Believers In The Ruins: “I owe the learned professor an apology. He is clearly suffering from dementia as this is the only reason why…” Aug 13, 16:41
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “So that’s what we’re doing, Alf, we’re following the decolonisation template. Crivens! Care to provide a concrete example? Maybe a…” Aug 13, 16:40
Hatey McHateface on The Other Kind Of Winning: “Perhaps you need to educate yourself, TURABDIN. You might discover that the Earth-Moon system is unique within our solar system,…” Aug 13, 16:13
Alf Baird on Believers In The Ruins: ““Written in the post colonial textbooks” Correct Hatey, Scots are, sure as Celts winning the league, following the ‘decolonization template’…” Aug 13, 16:12
Hatey McHateface on The Other Kind Of Winning: “An interesting idea, Chas, but in a country where the immigrants are doing an ever increasing share of the jobs,…” Aug 13, 15:47
Hatey McHateface on Believers In The Ruins: “Listen to Professor Baird. He’ll tell you that Fanon, Memmi, Cesaire, Elkins and the Jonesy boyo predicted all this was…” Aug 13, 15:37
Hatey McHateface on The Other Kind Of Winning: “All very well but where aboot’s this genocide at? Thing is, if there’s a real genocide ongoing, none of the…” Aug 13, 15:31
Captain Caveman on The Other Kind Of Winning: “Can you imagine the scale of brass neck required to approach a hard-pressed charity for a new sofa, when you’re…” Aug 13, 15:28
Alf Baird on Believers In The Ruins: ““I know the numbers who support UDI are low” One third is not that bad considering colonial rule inevitably results…” Aug 13, 15:10
Morgatron on Believers In The Ruins: “Being a Clyde supporter, I never got the whole ugly sister bitterness. But being an independance supporter my whole adult…” Aug 13, 15:03
100%Yes on Believers In The Ruins: “Scotland’s Fucked!!! The National in my opinion is having to twist the truth because it knows its failed as an…” Aug 13, 14:41
robertkknight on Believers In The Ruins: “Ugly sisters everywhere you look! Tommy: “Doesn’t it make you feel proud to be Scottish?” Renton: “It’s shite… etc.” Aug 13, 14:30
robertkknight on The Other Kind Of Winning: “Indeed… Full-time (38hr week) employment on the (voluntary) Living Wage gives a gross annual salary of £26,600 A gross annual…” Aug 13, 14:26
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Anatomy Of A Grift: “We’ve been covering this topic for eight years now, so it seems rather unlikely that there are many people here…” Aug 13, 14:24
duncanio on Believers In The Ruins: “The SNP and British Labour in Scotland are like two unipeds laying claim to a pair of ragged trousers.” Aug 13, 14:18
