The Hate Crime Act has rather faded into obscurity after the furore surrounding its introduction, with the police apparently just trying to pretend it doesn’t exist by ignoring thousands and thousands of complaints, and the useless Scottish commentariat duly proclaiming as a result that it was all just a big fuss about nothing.
But as soon as everyone stopped looking at it, there it was.
In many ways, the fabricated, hysterical furore of Humza Yousaf Vs Elon Musk is the ultimate in summer-silly-season politics stories.
Absurdly plainly, the former First Minister ISN’T going to take any legal action against the billionaire owner of Twitter. He only likes bullying small nurseries, and even then he doesn’t follow through. He didn’t even sue us for calling him racist a few months ago, so there’s zero chance he’s going to square up to the world’s richest man.
Every now and again you’ll go to clean them up and find something that you’ve been meaning to write about in a quiet moment, and this certainly counts as a quiet moment in Scottish politics, so let’s do this one now.
Because the story above is from March, but we don’t think we’ve ever seen anyone anywhere talk about just how weird it is, or what it tells us about the 2024 SNP.
You’d have to be living in a pretty strict prison not to have heard the big story from today’s Olympics in Paris, in which male Algerian cheat Imane Khelefi was put in a boxing ring with young Italian woman Angela Carini and allowed to hit her in the head for 46 seconds until she retired, in tears and in fear for her safety, saying “I had to preserve my life”.
Sound like your kind of fun, men? It’s surprisingly easy!
We’ve been off for a little break in the country, and as far as we can tell we’ve missed absolutely nothing in the moribund world of Scottish politics. We did, however, arrive back just in time for something mildly interesting, or at least revealing.
It’s the latest episode of a new podcast by veteran Scottish political journalist and broadcaster Bernard Ponsonby and jobbing opinion columnist Alex Massie, inventively titled The Ponsonby And Massie Podcast.
The first 35 minutes or so weren’t very noteworthy, other than the curious omission – when predicting the makeup of the next Scottish Government – of the idea of a Labour-SNP coalition, which to this site remains by far the most practical and logical outcome of the 2026 Holyrood election.
As we’ve repeatedly pointed out, Wings has made NO comments about the “workplace harassment” allegations made against Alex Salmond several years ago. We’ve only commented on the CRIMINAL allegations, and workplace harassment isn’t a crime. (It’s a matter for an employment tribunal, not the police.)
But the real question is WHY Andy Wightman is so doggedly attached to these two complainers that he’s determined to keep digging himself further into a hole of lies. And everyone knows what you tend to find when you start digging holes.
David Davis may be the last of his kind – a libertarian Tory from a council-scheme and grammar-school background, and also one of the few remaining big beasts occupying the political jungle of the back benches.
(He could in fact have been Tory leader, and would have been if David Cameron and George Osborne hadn’t teamed up to defeat him in 2005 after he won the first ballot.)
So on the rare occasions when he leads a Commons adjournment debate, as he did last Thursday evening, those with an educated eye for politics sit up and take notice.
In any functional nation, Friday’s revelations in Parliament by Sir David Davis would have been headline news. An extremely powerful figure, the then-First Minister’s chief of staff, was named and accused of conspiring with the Scottish Government, civil service and media to imprison an innocent man – the former leader of the country – on very serious charges of sexual assault, and of seeking to destroy his reputation by illegally leaking the false allegations to the press.
Liz Lloyd had never been publicly named as the suspect before that moment, so it was almost immeasurably bizarre that only two of Scotland’s newspapers (and two of its lowest-selling), namely The Times and – belatedly – The National, bothered to even report the accusation, far less spend any time seriously delving into it.
But it still wasn’t as odd as THIS response from a former Green MSP.
What on Earth is being suggested here? Let’s try to find out.
It’s both a comprehensive refresher of events surrounding the Scottish Government’s conspiracy to convict Alex Salmond on false charges, and a sharp reminder of why Scotland is, in truth, not yet a country in a fit administrative state for independence.
But one part in particular ought to be the headline news tonight.
Captain Caveman on The Hills Of Far Away: “@Aidan “Of course people living in a rich and prosperous country cosplaying as victims is one thing you missed from…” May 13, 17:38
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “Ever since 2016, the SNP’s policy has basically been to kick it down the road for two years at a…” May 13, 17:33
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “It made zero difference to the point anyway. But gah, too many numbers flying around at once.” May 13, 17:32
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “But that’s not the alternative. The alternative is a proportional system that actually works.” May 13, 17:32
Aidan on The Hills Of Far Away: “Of course people living in a rich and prosperous country cosplaying as victims is one thing you missed from your…” May 13, 17:29
Aidan on The Hills Of Far Away: “Had Blair been tried and found guilty of being a war criminal, or even indicted?” May 13, 17:14
Captain Caveman on The Hills Of Far Away: “Regardless of the whys and wherefores, Jay, one thing is certain: you’re a pretentious, obnoxious, insufferable wanker. 🙂 Yup. Deffo…” May 13, 17:10
Aidan on The Broken Rainbow: “Then when the planned showdown in the 2029 General Election goes nowhere, there will always be the 2031 Holyrood election…” May 13, 17:03
Jay on The Hills Of Far Away: “To S. MacKay: firstly you need to learn how to express yourself, even at the level of punctuation. Secondly, constructing…” May 13, 16:49
Northcode on The Hills Of Far Away: “Calling something “horseshit” isn’t an argument. It’s a way of avoiding one. Exposing the mechanics of abusive power is not…” May 13, 16:13
100%Yes on The Broken Rainbow: “Watch yourself Kelly’s Eye will be crowing from the rooftops about the mistake, but he won’t admit he conned everyone…” May 13, 16:03
Lorncal on The Hills Of Far Away: “That should read: now concentrate…” May 13, 15:51
Lorncal on The Broken Rainbow: “O what a tangled web we weave…” May 13, 15:48
Campbell Clansman on The Broken Rainbow: “Interesting, Stu, that you peg the 2026 vote for the Indy parties (even nominally pro-Indy) at 42%. Because the latest…” May 13, 15:20
duncanio on The Broken Rainbow: “The AMS makes the overall result less disproportional rather than more proportional. It mitigates the winner tale all FPTP element…” May 13, 15:16
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “EMBARRASSING ARITHMETICAL ERROR CORRECTED.” May 13, 15:07
Geri on The Hills Of Far Away: “Blair & all his demonic spawn should be removed from every government office. He’s a war crim, not once, not…” May 13, 14:33
Geri on The Hills Of Far Away: “So if I just stand on my own two feet for independence our colonial overlords will give us *permission*? I…” May 13, 14:22
Alf Baird on The Hills Of Far Away: “” cultural self-belief and constitutional reality lie so far apart” Indeed so, Northcode. Scots think o oorsels as a nation…” May 13, 14:06
Anthem on The Hills Of Far Away: “So environmental protections and climate rules only apply to Scottish oil & Gas within UK territories. I’ll just leave this…” May 13, 13:58
Lorncal on The Hills Of Far Away: “It has been on Australian TV, agentx. They were laughing their wee heids aff at the stupidity of the Scots!” May 13, 13:55
Alf Baird on The Hills Of Far Away: “Colonialism is not really that difficult to understand: https://salvo.scot/scotlands-colonial-status/” May 13, 13:54
Lorncal on The Hills Of Far Away: “Because everything ‘trans’ is about them. Everything anything is about them. They are the most victimised group ever in the…” May 13, 13:51
Iain More on The Hills Of Far Away: “Meanwhile back in Sleazy Corrupt Westmidden Tory Blair’s Daughter in Law gets a Govt AI Contract for £500 million.” May 13, 13:47
Lorncal on The Hills Of Far Away: “Not many, I should think. This was a Green party scam from beginning to end that the Scottish Electoral Commission…” May 13, 13:40
Stuart MacKay on The Hills Of Far Away: “Jesus H. Christ. Enough with this post-colonial horseshit. I you see yourself as a victim, and behave like your a…” May 13, 13:32
Chris on The Hills Of Far Away: “MAGA Americans are having a laugh at this: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/meanwhile-scotland?utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8034” May 13, 13:28
Dunx on The Hills Of Far Away: “I think most green voters can get to 12 using their fingers alone.” May 13, 13:21
Northcode on The Hills Of Far Away: “Ma fowk, the Picts, thank ye , Sam, fir yon link whit ye hiv brung tae us in this place.…” May 13, 12:47
Sven on The Hills Of Far Away: “Jings, and here was me sitting back with a strongly brewed ‘wet’ thoroughly enjoying watching the Household Brigade doing what…” May 13, 12:24
