Y’know, maybe we were a little harsh on the lads at Holyrood Sources yesterday when we implied that a more direct and aggressive interviewing style might have cut through John Swinney and Kate Forbes’ pathetically feeble waffling evasion on the SNP’s lack of an independence strategy in their recent podcast.
But the closest thing (along with Colin Mackay at STV) that the Scottish media has left to a proper Rottweiler interviewer – Peter Adam Smith of ITV – had a shot at that five years ago and didn’t do any better.
Smith noted that even back in 2019 Nicola Sturgeon had been droning on about how Westminster’s refusal to grant a second indy referendum was “unsustainable” for two years already. But no matter how hard he pressed, Sturgeon just kept on glibly and smugly insisting that they’d concede.
“The UK government strategy is to say no. Do you have a way around it?”
“My strategy is to say yes.” [smirks]
Readers might be forgiven for wondering how long it’s going to take the SNP to accept that that “strategy” is a failure, if seven years and three First Ministers isn’t enough for them to have worked it out. But as long as the pathologically gullible keep voting for them anyway, we suppose they have no reason to.
The National carried a strange article yesterday, apropos of seemingly nothing, about a Brussels-based political thinktank supposedly linked to the right-wing Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban. The piece actually originated on superwoke “fact-checking” site The Ferret a couple of days earlier, and professed to expose how the thinktank was “stoking Scotland’s culture war”.
Alert readers will already have pricked up their ears at this point, because “culture war” is a radical-left dogwhistle term used to obscure, belittle and dismiss groups (largely though not exclusively comprising left-wing feminists) fighting for the safeguarding of children and the protection of women’s and LGB rights.
Any rational assessment of Scottish (or indeed UK or world) politics at the moment tends to be negative and depressing, so since it’s a new year we thought we’d make an extra-special effort at writing something positive.
Unfortunately that does require us to enter the realm of fantasy. But hey, everybody needs a little holiday from time to time, right?
Nobody really answered the question in this article from a few days ago. A few of the dimmer bulbs in the indy movement have been getting over-excited at what are still currently a couple of outlier polls from fringe polling companies, which suggest that the 2026 election could unexpectedly return a pro-indy majority due to the Unionist vote being split four ways in the wake of UK Labour’s implosion in government.
That scenario depends on all sorts of dubious propositions, but in any event what none of them have addressed is what that would change even if it did happen, given that Holyrood has a pro-indy majority RIGHT NOW (and has done so on every single day since the indyref more than a decade ago) and it’s produced nothing whatsoever in terms of movement towards independence by any possible measure.
And it occurred to us that we had genuinely no idea what the SNP’s current official indy strategy is, because the party’s been in such farcical chaos and turmoil ever since Nicola Sturgeon’s sudden resignation. So we thought we should go and check.
To be honest, we’re not much the wiser for having read it.
Look, we know that mocking front pages on The National is low-hanging fruit, and this particular example could hardly be any more of a self-parody if it tried.
But just for the sheer mental exercise in that stone-dead last week of December when nobody even knows what day it is, let’s imagine if it came true.
The Scottish Government just issued another response in the long-running Freedom Of Information battle with alert Wings reader Benjamin Harrop over its conspiracy to frame and imprison the late Alex Salmond on false charges. Here’s a genuine extract.
Since it was founded back in November 2011, Wings Over Scotland has been solely financed by its readers. The site has never carried any advertising, we have no secret corporate backers, everything we do is funded by transparent voluntary donations and subscriptions, mostly of a few pounds a month.
We have the freedom to write what we believe, thanks to you, our readers. And since those earliest days, opponents have tried to end that freedom by blocking our funding.
6 November 2024 was a normal sitting day in the Scottish Parliament, so we shouldn’t be surprised that Nicola Sturgeon spent the previous evening in London, watching a special screening of a dreadful BBC Three sitcom about – of course – drag queens.
But remarkably, though she must have been puffy-eyed and weary, the 6th was one of the few days when she did actually manage to turn up at Holyrood to do her job.
Polling in Scotland, the UK and Wales in the last few days has shown Great Britain taking a fairly heavy swerve to the right after just five months of Sir Keir Starmer’s government. Labour now lead Reform (who have five seats to Labour’s 411) by just three points in the UK and are even more remarkably now in THIRD place in Wales, a country where the party has won every single election for over 100 years.
Scotland, meanwhile, is heading for a hung Parliament in 2026 in which – as this site has been telling its readers for the last year and a half – the only possibility of a stable administration will be an SNP-Labour coalition.
gregor on The End Of The Reich: “CNBC (2024): Palantir CEO says his outspoken pro-I***el views have caused employees to leave company: “Palantir, known for its government…” Feb 11, 21:02
carjamtic on Bricked-up windows: “A few thoughts immediately spring to mind, where is the demarcation line between self interest and public interest (obstruction of…” Feb 11, 20:53
McDuff on The End Of The Reich: “When is the our spineless MSM going to join the rev in fighting this insanity.” Feb 11, 20:49
gregor on The End Of The Reich: “Forbes (2013): How A ‘Deviant’ Philosopher Built Palantir, A CIA-Funded Data-Mining Juggernaut: “Since rumors began to spread that a startup…” Feb 11, 20:47
sarah on Bricked-up windows: “Confess, Rev. You couldn’t stand the almost optimism of “The Front on the Volga” and were pleased to get this…” Feb 11, 20:41
gregor on The End Of The Reich: “Public Technology (2024): NHS claims two-thirds of trusts and ICBs now using Palantir data platform: “NHS England has claimed that…” Feb 11, 20:37
G m on The Front On The Volga: “This article highlights compares the Trans ‘rights’ movement with other rights movements. Trans rights didn’t come from the ground up.…” Feb 11, 20:26
Ian McCubbin on Bricked-up windows: “Omg the level of use of elaborate language and repetition is astounding. I admire your journalism in thus case thznk…” Feb 11, 20:21
gregor on The End Of The Reich: “I love it – makes identifying Scotland’s arch enemies far easier. I’m gonna pummel ‘The Negatron’ with my giant reality-hammer…” Feb 11, 20:20
Alf Baird on The Front On The Volga: “The Holyrood colonial administration long since dumped the national saltire for the imperial rainbow flag and its woke fascist laws,…” Feb 11, 19:58
Graeme on The Front On The Volga: “Don’t you mean the front on the Vulva?” Feb 11, 19:55
Dan on The Joker: “Be More Alert and lolz if you think I believe the current crop of political dross in Holyrood are pro-indy.…” Feb 11, 19:50
PacMan on The Front On The Volga: “I’m sure there was funding from other US Federal agencies that was being used for this as well which DOGE…” Feb 11, 19:14
gregor on The End Of The Reich: “The Sun (10/02/25): SITTING TARGETS Allies of SNP chief ‘draw-up hit list of MSPs they want to replace with axed…” Feb 11, 19:02
Hatey McHateface on The End Of The Reich: “I can’t argue with a single word of your post, Dan. As I’ve stated before, if you lived in my…” Feb 11, 18:47
Hatey McHateface on The Front On The Volga: “I’m guessing Scotland still has 24 official genders though. I’m also guessing that no date has been set for when…” Feb 11, 18:36
100%Yes on The Front On The Volga: “FFS 48% follow for transgender. When are we going to get of this subject and get back on Independence. 2026…” Feb 11, 18:32
Geri on The Front On The Volga: “‘So the Doctor could have requested an individual changing room but he rathered making women uncomfortable.’ That’s what they’ve always…” Feb 11, 18:27
Confused on The Front On The Volga: “Did you do those feral pigs? More seriously, went for a walk today and did see (only one thankfuck) north…” Feb 11, 18:27
twathater on The Front On The Volga: “ALL joking aside the devastation and damage these deviants and perverts have rained down on societies weakest and most vulnerable…” Feb 11, 18:27
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Joker: ““Stu has consistently pushed the notion that there’s nothing going on in Scottish politics” Because there isn’t. Tell me you’re…” Feb 11, 18:26
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Front On The Volga: “Only on the last day, in a desperate attempt to stop Paulus surrendering.” Feb 11, 18:19
John C on The Front On The Volga: “It needs to end before all the different and emergent trans ideologies take off. Thans-abled is a thing so that’s…” Feb 11, 18:18
John C on The Front On The Volga: “They got cocky & went after kids & that opened up a whole load of people’s eyes. It’s one thing…” Feb 11, 18:11
TURABDIN on The Front On The Volga: “The nazi/fascist mindset hasn’t gone away in the west, it skulks in the wings anticipating an invitation to step into…” Feb 11, 18:10
Confused on The Front On The Volga: “aye mibbe “ahve taken that too far” didnay even tuck his balls” Feb 11, 18:10
Lorna Campbell on The Front On The Volga: “It’s impossible to do because the narcissists want it all. So many still don’t get what this is. They want,…” Feb 11, 18:07
twathater on The Front On The Volga: “FFS confused THAT made the bile rise , gonny no dae that” Feb 11, 18:06