The great unknown in the SNP leadership contest is an extremely significant one: who are the voters? Nobody but Peter Murrell really knows how many members the party has, but almost nobody believes the claimed number of over 100,000. (Our guess, based on pretty much nothing but a gut feeling, is 75,000 plus or minus 5000.)
But more to the point, nobody knows who they are. The average member age in most political parties is over 50, and according to figures published in 2019, more than 80% of SNP members are over 40, with half of those being over 60. There’s also an almost 3:2 bias in favour of men.
Humza Yousaf will not be the next First Minister of Scotland. We’re calling it now. His trainwreck of a performance on last night’s leadership election debate on STV dealt a blow to his chances that we can’t see him recovering from, and the SNP establishment is now under such intense scrutiny over the electoral process that the chances of a fix being orchestrated by Peter Murrell are receding fast.
In the debate Yousaf declared that Nicola Sturgeon was the best politician in the UK, that he wasn’t as good as her, and that she’d failed to find a successful strategy for independence and therefore he couldn’t either.
If you’re talking about “transwomen”, you’re almost always talking about people with a fully intact and functional penis. More than 95% of people who identify as trans have NOT undergone any genital surgery, and that’s a fact that’s still not widely understood.
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.
sarah on Faces In Sand: “Yes United and Independence Forum Scotland have started Yes2030.scot – it had a spot at the SSRG Conference to publicise…” Oct 26, 21:47
William Smith on Faces In Sand: “Drat! Here I was, waiting on our impending liberation! I don’t know about you, but I can’t cope with any…” Oct 26, 21:15
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “”Have you any idea how stupid these statements make you look?” I’m going with “no”.” Oct 26, 21:08
Alf Baird on Faces In Sand: “‘Unionist’ cheerleaders need to believe that a union exists, in fact their colonial ‘condition’ depends on maintaining the hoax at…” Oct 26, 20:45
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “The usual suspects can’t believe in the impending bankruptcy of the U.K. because they already believe Scotland is hoaching with…” Oct 26, 20:31
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “So you’re saying there’s no date to save? I’ve been saving a space on the front of the fridge to…” Oct 26, 20:11
Chas on Faces In Sand: “Word reaches me that the ‘High Executive’ at the UN have met in secret session to discuss the recent presentation…” Oct 26, 19:54
Aidan on Faces In Sand: “I believe the tidal generation project in the Pentland Firth will be the highest capacity tidal project in the world…” Oct 26, 19:27
Dan on Faces In Sand: “Like other articles, this starts ok but ends with pushing nuclear. Ideal as it only takes a couple of months…” Oct 26, 18:58
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “Nah, CC, Confused retired from a long, successful and lucrative career in the higher echelons of the diplomatic service. That’s…” Oct 26, 18:38
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “Nope, Marie, I didn’t.” Oct 26, 18:21
Aidan on Faces In Sand: “On point 1: yes I am obviously saying that, I don’t know how anyone could think anything different. The treaty…” Oct 26, 18:18
Xaracen on Faces In Sand: “Aidan, are you claiming that the 1707 Treaty was not voided by England’s coercion of Scotland to bring it to…” Oct 26, 18:15
Xaracen on Faces In Sand: “Are you claiming that the 1707 Treaty was not voided by England’s coercion of Scotland to bring it to the…” Oct 26, 17:52
Aidan on Faces In Sand: “The only thing missing from your explanation is the eccentric bit which is; “I, Xaracen, posting on Wings over Scotland…” Oct 26, 17:08
Xaracen on Faces In Sand: “@Northcode; Re your “The Myth They All Rely On” post of 21 October; (I was too busy with a flitting…” Oct 26, 16:42
Aidan on Faces In Sand: “It is extremely tedious, and it is not presented with the intent to provoke debate or discussion, it is simply…” Oct 26, 14:44
Spartan 117 on Faces In Sand: “I doubt anybody in the M25 omniclusterfuckpermashambles-on-Thames is paying any attention to the UN capers (all of which is just…” Oct 26, 13:41
Spartan 117 on Faces In Sand: “Pished, hysterical, incoherent rambling as per.” Oct 26, 13:31
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “Yes, the “useful idiot” argument (from a Unionist POV) isn’t lost on me. 🙂 However, it is bloody tedious, isn’t…” Oct 26, 13:25
Aidan on Faces In Sand: “I think Confused is having a tougher time as an adult. I would guess passing the days drinking very strong,…” Oct 26, 13:24
Aidan on Faces In Sand: “It has a practical purpose in driving the cause of independence down a dead end and diverting time and resources,…” Oct 26, 13:18
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “I’m guessing you had a tough time at school, Confused, and were no stranger to the “bogwash”.” Oct 26, 12:40
Confused on Faces In Sand: “getting into the english at the UN is useful, and enjoyable, because it “hits them where they live” – they…” Oct 26, 12:17
Confused on Faces In Sand: ““Rewilding” is another con job – what it means is : GET ORFF MOI LAND – and whenever an ANGLO…” Oct 26, 12:14
Lorncal on Faces In Sand: “Northcode: although contemporary international law would back us up in most areas, the Treaty will almost certainly come into play…” Oct 26, 11:30
Spartan 117 on Faces In Sand: “Alf, but the UK *does* exist, legally, politically and physically, not just within its territory but it is internationally recognised.…” Oct 26, 10:55
Northcode on Faces In Sand: “I understand the frustration — democratic systems are imperfect everywhere. But my point was simply that, unlike in 1707, Scots…” Oct 26, 10:24
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “Hey, it’s almost as though this “ancient guff” that happened over 300 years ago is of no pragmatic consequence in…” Oct 26, 10:14
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “So it’s a case of “Schrödinger’s Union” then, eh Alf? 😀” Oct 26, 10:08