The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Author Archive


How Scotland Hates Women 137

Posted on August 31, 2023 by

Readers may have been baffled by a news story yesterday, in which an event where two men insulted each other in the street (“Deviant!”, “Bigot!”) has led to one of them, but not the other, being arrested and charged with an unspecified crime by police.

In particular, many people on social media have contrasted the situation with one from a month ago, when a large male transactivist violently assaulted a feminist woman at a “Women Won’t Wheesht” meeting in Aberdeen but merely received a recorded warning rather than being arrested and charged.

So we’re very grateful to Roddy Dunlop KC, the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates (the “trade” body of Scotland’s senior barristers), for posting an extremely informative, and disturbing, summary of the relevant laws on Twitter this morning.

Read the rest of this entry →

When they tell you who they are 97

Posted on August 30, 2023 by

Wings, a little under two years ago: “there is no “independence movement” any more, just an independence industry.

And then today:

You should believe them.

Enemy Of A State 97

Posted on August 29, 2023 by

So this popped up this afternoon.

I checked, and it’s legitimately from Apple.

Read the rest of this entry →

If there’s time 66

Posted on August 29, 2023 by

We’ve just come by the final agenda of the weekend’s meeting of the SNP National Council in Perth. (The National Council is an essentially toothless talking shop which the party abolished in 2018 but then reinstated this year in order to pretend members actually had any influence over policy.)

Click the pic to read the whole thing, but we’ve got the highlights.

Read the rest of this entry →

Raising a glass 63

Posted on August 29, 2023 by

The Scottish Government in March:

National Records of Scotland today:

So, um, cheers! we suppose. It could have been worse!

Read the rest of this entry →

A plague of weasels 172

Posted on August 27, 2023 by

Scotland’s biggest cultural problem famously used to be with its alpha males: hard-working, hard-drinking men, often sexist and openly sectarian, with an easy propensity for violence. (The archetype cut right across every social class, from shipyard workers to high-ranking police officers and everywhere between and beyond.)

But times change, and thankfully those characters are now almost entirely a thing of the past. Less happily, though, they’ve simply been replaced by a breed that’s every bit as unpleasant, just in slightly different ways. Readers, meet the Beta Bullies.

Not literally, obviously. Nobody wants that.

Read the rest of this entry →

The Lasting Effect Of A Single Word 93

Posted on August 27, 2023 by

This is a Sunday Mail cover story today:

And it’s almost easy to dismiss it as meaningless. You can report to the police that aliens dug up your prize petunias and they’ll record it and give it a reference number and promise to investigate, before concluding that it was actually the neighbour’s cat.

But there’s one word in the 500-word piece that makes it much more interesting.

Can you spot it, readers?

Read the rest of this entry →

Somebody make it make sense 42

Posted on August 26, 2023 by

Humza Yousaf today:

So… his job is to get a legally binding referendum (something which doesn’t actually exist), but he knows that if we’re likely to win it we’re less likely to get it, so… we need to look like we’re going to lose one if it happens?

So presumably with support for the SNP already plummeting through the floor, the next phase of his grand strategy will be to drive support for independence down too? We suppose that’s a more rational explanation of the party’s actions in recent years than anything else we can think of, right enough.

Or of course, it might be that the guy’s just a complete gibbering idiot. You tell us.

The Hollow Heart 192

Posted on August 25, 2023 by

Yesterday we took an extensive tour of all the red flags in the SNP’s 2022 accounts, which show a party in very deep financial trouble. But there was one part we left out because it deserves a post of its own.

The picture above – which was posted by then-CEO Peter Murrell during last year’s SNP conference – is a revealing one in all kinds of ways.

It starkly exposes how a party chose to hold an event for around 800 members in a venue with a capacity of 15,000 and then went to a lot of effort to disguise how empty the space was, rather than, for example, just hiring somewhere of an appropriate size (and cost) in the first place.

(Look how far into the hall the stage has been placed, leaving half the arena vacant, to then be hidden behind a giant screen and curtains and banners in order to give a false impression of how full it is.)

But what’s more symbolic is that there are almost no people in it.

Read the rest of this entry →

Don’t you wonder sometimes? 76

Posted on August 24, 2023 by

About sound and vision, we mean.

Three hundred and forty grand?

Read the rest of this entry →

Dead Cat Bouncing 58

Posted on August 24, 2023 by

We know the meanings of words are very flexible these days, especially in the SNP.

But this isn’t our understanding of the term “turning around”:

Read the rest of this entry →

The Day The SNP Died 116

Posted on August 23, 2023 by

Luckily, someone else has already said it for us.

The haunting words of a dead man, brought to you again on the exact anniversary of the day William Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered at Smithfield in London for treason against the English crown.

Three deaths for the price of one. RIP.

Read the rest of this entry →

  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)

    Stats: 6,747 Posts, 1,216,905 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Aidan on The Takeover: “@Dan – I’m not saying I agree with the closure of Grangemouth or the decision to close it but I…May 1, 11:46
    • Oneliner on The Takeover: “Sarwar, of course, has been proven a liar over his Grangemouth promises. This has made local MP Brian (Brain) Leishman…May 1, 11:37
    • Alf Baird on The Takeover: “Yes James, and Scots are an oppressed (doun-hauden) ethnic minority in oor ain laund. Which is why we (i.e. Scots…May 1, 11:31
    • James Cheyne on The Takeover: “Under those stats, it would appear that Scot are officially an ethnic minority in Britain, sorry Anas and Humza.May 1, 11:05
    • James Cheyne on The Takeover: “Not including the recent immigration that The parliament down south has allowwed to invade the isles of Britain The population…May 1, 10:26
    • sam on The Takeover: “Geri’s observation about the efforts made to discredit Corbyn are well made. Al Jazeera obtained a large number of leaked…May 1, 10:26
    • Hatey McHateface on The Takeover: ““What a time to be alive eh, living in a suppossedly high functioning state when all around is fucked. Is…May 1, 10:07
    • Bilbo on The Takeover: “As Dan says, while it may be cheaper for Ineos oil refinery abroad, it is going to cost us, as…May 1, 10:05
    • Hatey McHateface on The Takeover: “@Dave Hansell While you are seated comfortably on your virtue signalling high horse, perhaps you could favour us with your…May 1, 09:51
    • Hatey McHateface on The Takeover: ““countless atrocities carried out around the globe by the USA & it’s gen-ocidal chum” Be honest now. Everything is countless…May 1, 09:24
    • Dan on The Takeover: “@ Aidan Hospitals are hugely expensive to build, maintain and operate and are particularly energy intensive, so should we just…May 1, 09:12
    • Bilbo on The Takeover: “Was bored last night and put on radio, flicking through the channels and stumbled on a conversation about the Supreme…May 1, 09:01
    • diabloandco on The Takeover: “I note with (dis)interest that 400 luvvies have signed a letter backing trans rights. It would be really interesting how…May 1, 07:47
    • Aidan on The Takeover: “@Dan – simple really, refineries are hugely expensive to build, maintain and operate and are particularly energy intensive, so it’s…May 1, 06:21
    • Geri on The Takeover: “diabloandco You’re right. They don’t come around too often. I can think of two recent politicians that put ppls interests…Apr 30, 22:45
    • Bilbo on The Takeover: ““I am one of the folk that needs to be convinced, I voted yes but now would vote no like…Apr 30, 21:49
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Takeover: “Try the following quality full colour illustrated bilingual booklet by Roddy MacLean / Ruairidh MacIlleathain: GAELIC AND NORSE IN THE…Apr 30, 21:20
    • Chas on The Takeover: “Geri It is not the wee diddy message board on the internet that puts people of Independence. It is the…Apr 30, 21:12
    • Dave Hansell on The Takeover: “Thank you for your response. Being from Yorkshire, I’m more than a little biased in regard to a culture which,…Apr 30, 20:59
    • Geri on The Takeover: “LOL! That’d be about right… SNP on the karaoke… This one is to all our ex members out there.. Oh,…Apr 30, 19:52
    • Yoon Scum on The Takeover: “Geri How will a free Scotland keep control of us cap doffing English worshipping filthApr 30, 19:50
    • Yoon Scum on The Takeover: “if you’re a NAT can you think of anyone worse then the English culture? If you aren’t I think the…Apr 30, 19:48
    • Geri on The Takeover: “I’ll explain it cause they won’t. It’s the great colonisers swindle. Unrefined raw products are cheaper to buy. They’ll collect…Apr 30, 19:24
    • Geri on The Takeover: “Insider If you’d bothered to follow the recent ICJ case presented by South Africa via Palestine you’d be aware that…Apr 30, 19:04
    • David Holden on The Takeover: “The Royal visit to Mull was a non event for some and a big thing for others. Calling it a…Apr 30, 18:53
    • TURABDIN on The Takeover: “HACKERS break into Scot. gov IT and declare Scotland a sovereign state. A criminal act says SNP spokesperson.Apr 30, 18:46
    • Dan on The Takeover: “Aye, maybe all those on here extolling the benefits of the Union can explain the positives to these folk losing…Apr 30, 18:44
    • Oneliner on The Takeover: “Today we have the first of the Grangemouth Refinery redundancies. Today we have the Prince and Princess of Wales visiting…Apr 30, 17:55
    • agent x on The Takeover: “Thank God I live in the real world and not the imaginary world on here.Apr 30, 17:29
    • James Cheyne on The Takeover: “More a starmer thought process perhaps.Apr 30, 16:45
  • A tall tale



↑ Top