We must admit it’s a shock – we were expecting the SNP President to remain neutral in the leadership election – but it’s hard to reasonably interpret this any other way.
(We’re not aware of Russell giving any media interviews last night so we assume from the timing that these comments were made at the regular meeting of the SNP Westminster Parliamentary group.)
Because both Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes couldn’t have been any clearer that their indy strategies centre on getting Westminster to agree to another Section 30 order, and by pointing out that that’s never going to happen (which we all knew anyway), Mike Russell is admitting that a vote for anyone but Ash Regan is a vote to surrender any hope of independence for the foreseeable future.
We don’t often agree with him these days, but on this one he couldn’t be more right. For the sake of the SNP (and the Yes movement) we hope its members heed the sage, albeit coded, advice of their President.
Let’s take a moment off, folks. In our latest Panelbase poll, we also threw in a question just for fun, with genuinely no agenda at all, simply because we were curious to know what the answer was. Here it is:
By now many of you will have seen last night’s article on Craig Murray’s site, in which a current SNP branch convener revealed how the party machine is setting fire to all its own rules in a desperate attempt to secure the succession of Humza Yousaf.
Yousaf is the party establishment’s last hope of keeping all of its misdeeds in the last few years under wraps, and realising the magnitude of what’s at stake if he loses to Ash Regan or Kate Forbes, they’re abandoning all pretence of neutrality or integrity and throwing everything they’ve got at getting him elected.
Last month Wings broke a story about a “survey” being conducted by dozens of primary schools in the Aberdeen area in which children as young as nine were being asked about their sexual orientation and “gender identity”.
The charity LGBT Youth Scotland is currently the subject of a live police investigation over its involvement in a second major child-abuse scandal in little over a decade.
So you’d expect Police Scotland to be taking that pretty seriously, right?
Wings Over Scotland has been monitoring the BBC’s coverage of Scottish politics for over 11 years now, readers, and other than The Nick Robinson Incident we’re honestly struggling to remember seeing anything worse than this.
The Corporation’s “coverage” of Ash Regan’s campaign launch for the SNP leadership election ran for roughly seven minutes. And we suppose we should be grateful that it did at one point feature a brief, incidental cameo appearance from Ash Regan.
We read some harrowing tweets this week from an Edinburgh SNP activist. Sensitive readers should look away now, as the following article contains potentially triggering information about the wild and lawless streets of [checks notes] Corstorphine.
James on Clocks And Calendars: “Wima & Adrian. Twa great big gammons. ?” Apr 1, 15:20
Aidan on Clocks And Calendars: “I think a more rationale explanation is that your insistence that Scotland is an oppressed country with its people subjugated…” Apr 1, 15:11
Northcode on Clocks And Calendars: “Your ‘intellect’ is incapable of grasping the nuanced subtleties embedded in anything I write in this place, AI Dan; and…” Apr 1, 14:52
Geri on Clocks And Calendars: “You are a walking knob & yer ID will show one big knob face. That’s plenty! The clerk will already…” Apr 1, 14:51
Geri on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Testing … http://archive.today/3Son4 Btw, Clinton’s have about ten organisations they fund around the world that recruit rent-a-mob activist operations to…” Apr 1, 14:39
Captain Caveman on Clocks And Calendars: “So in summary: “No big knob pictures on the ballot paper” Cool beans, thanks for the info. 🙂” Apr 1, 14:19
Aidan on Clocks And Calendars: “There is choice in this election but use your choice to vote for X There is no point participating in…” Apr 1, 14:14
Northcode on Clocks And Calendars: “Scotland is a colony. The Scots are a coloniZed people. The Scots have no democratic voice… at all. May’s election…” Apr 1, 13:44
robertkknight on Clocks And Calendars: “Deary me. Another day, another scandal… https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp86v8lze34o “SNP candidate urged to quit over handling of Linden complaints”” Apr 1, 13:32
Aidan on Protest But Don’t Survive: “Oh this will be fun – do let me about this Scottish independence supporters who have met an untimely death…” Apr 1, 12:09
Sven on Clocks And Calendars: “Used to be that what (allegedly) occurred in the Officers’ Mess at Falane stayed in the Mess.” Apr 1, 11:55
sam on Clocks And Calendars: “It seems the wife of a man accused of being a Chinese spy has been (allegedly) seeing the captain of…” Apr 1, 10:01
Geri on Protest But Don’t Survive: ““Let me guess, they were all foreign operatives. Soldiers fired machine guns indiscriminately into crowds of people on the street…” Apr 1, 09:44
Geri on Sicknote Slippers: “Don’t let it bother yer pretty wee head who people are voting for in Scotland. It won’t be Yoon unless…” Apr 1, 09:31
Mark Beggan on Clocks And Calendars: “Baby Trump says Losing very simple, two syllables. It takes courage to visit the winners building. Everybody who loses gets…” Apr 1, 09:19
Mark Beggan on Clocks And Calendars: “Baby Biden, Sleepy Joe says. Come on man that ain’t fair. What you going to say at the state of…” Apr 1, 09:01
Aidan on Sicknote Slippers: “@YL I mean that they aren’t showing up in the opinion polls, meaning they sit in the “Other parties” categories,…” Apr 1, 08:43
Young Lochinvar on Clocks And Calendars: “Baby Trump: Oh Lord, I’m only off the throne and Melanoma has come in for her Eastern European once a…” Apr 1, 08:27
Young Lochinvar on Clocks And Calendars: “Baby Trump; Uuuuurghhh! Squiiiiish.. Well good people of America- and democrats- latest update on truth social. All the Diet Coke-…” Apr 1, 08:01
Mark Beggan on Clocks And Calendars: “Baby Senator says Starmer fighting Trump is like a Crawfish having a fight with a lawnmower. Very brave and very…” Apr 1, 07:47
Young Lochinvar on Clocks And Calendars: “Baby Trump: Well, that’s it. Keir Starmer is no Winston Churchill – great guy, pity I never knew him -…” Apr 1, 07:21
Young Lochinvar on Clocks And Calendars: “I see militarily unaware Pete Hegseth is clawing the “big bad Royal Navy” should be pulling US and Is Rye…” Apr 1, 06:15
Young Lochinvar on Clocks And Calendars: “Baby Trump says it’s all going to be over in 2 or 3 weeks. So; strap in everybody for the…” Apr 1, 05:57
Peter McAvoy on Clocks And Calendars: “For how long and how often have you criticised others posting forthright comments about politicians and their perceived inability to…” Apr 1, 01:54
Derek on Clocks And Calendars: “Martial law? Or do you mean that everything is to be turned up to 11?” Apr 1, 00:24
Jamie on Sicknote Slippers: “Aidan, you miss the point. If winning elections was all that mattered I would still vote SNP as they are…” Mar 31, 22:56
James on Sicknote Slippers: “YL; ach, he/she/it’s only following the script. Only obeying orders….” Mar 31, 22:34
George Ferguson on Clocks And Calendars: “@Peter McAvoy Because you don’t get to tell others on this site they are bastards. So I am not your…” Mar 31, 21:08
Young Lochinvar on Sicknote Slippers: “Wet P1shfart says; “A vote for the SNP is a vote for my pension pot! Vote SNP, vote for comfy…” Mar 31, 21:06
Young Lochinvar on Sicknote Slippers: “Aidan @ 12.32 “Liberate not even registered in the polls yet”.. Wowser!! Curiouser and curiouser as there’s already both a…” Mar 31, 21:03
