It’s pretty interesting that today marks the first really tangible diversification between the Scottish and UK governments with regard to the coronavirus crisis: the Holyrood administration has rejected Westminster’s much-criticised new main slogan and will be sticking with the old “STAY HOME” message.
(Here at Wings we’re mainly upset that the extremely misguided new campaign will undermine our years-old pro-alertness position.)
Because what our latest Panelbase poll showed is that there’s a huge gulf between perception and reality in Scotland when it comes to virus strategy.
Just an SNP activist tonight, saying that it doesn’t matter whether there’s a majority for independence in the Scottish Parliament or not, and that it’s undemocratic for a new pro-indy party to stand democratically for election like any other and take seats from Unionists (as long as the SNP hold power in the devolved administration, of course).
Other SNP activists, meanwhile, are already openly trying to dig dirt and undermine the women leading the new party, which is only planning to contest list seats and therefore poses no threat to the SNP whatsoever. Does anyone still think the current SNP care about independence, rather than power?
It’s becoming quite remarkable how often the concerted attempts from within the Yes movement to silence the world’s biggest pro-independence website coincide with it being about to say things the cult of transgenderism doesn’t want people to hear.
And with that, on to our latest Panelbase poll results.
Alert readers may have noticed that this site is once more under attack from Twitter. Following the suspension of the main Wings account last December, and one we set up for the prospective political party – suspensions which Twitter has never justified, because the Wings account did not break any of its rules – it has now suspended my personal account (@RevStu) and the account of old spinoff site The Sealand Gazette, both supposedly for evading the ban on the @WingsScotland account.
This allegation is clearly a nonsense, because the RevStu account predated the Wings one by years and was in constant use from its creation up until this morning, and the Gazette account was only used briefly as an emergency backup for the RevStu one when it was temporarily locked at the weekend for unspecified “suspicious activity”, which is a technical security issue rather than a suspension for supposed wrongdoing.
The actual reason for the suspension of all four accounts is this site’s opposition to controversial and massively unpopular transgender ideology, which Twitter supports and which is currently the subject of some hotly-contested and important lawmaking.
(It’s the same reason why Twitter has banned scores, probably hundreds of feminists for the most absurdly innocuous of tweets perceived as challenging trans ideology.)
In other words, these actions are direct censorship and deliberate interference in the political affairs of a country by an unaccountable and unelected foreign corporation serving the interests of a massive right-wing pharmacological lobby.
And even people who despise Wings Over Scotland should be alarmed by that.
This site used to have a running joke about the number of times the Scottish media screamed “SNP CIVIL WAR!” whenever any two people in the party – one of whom would invariably be either Jim Sillars or Gordon Wilson – disagreed with each other about whether you should put the milk or the boiling water in a cup of tea first.
Yeah, we know we said we weren’t going to say anything else about the COVID-19 crisis, but sometimes there’s just too much stupid going around to stay silent.
A disturbing number of people appear to have interpreted the undoubted seriousness of the pandemic to mean that nobody is ever allowed to be even slightly happy for the briefest of moments until it’s all over.
As a result, while half the country is full of people just trying to cope as best they can while acting sensibly and responsibly within both the letter and spirit of the emergency restrictions, the other half has elected itself officers of the Lockdown Gestapo, pointing fingers and shrieking at anyone deemed not to be miserable enough.
Scotland’s media is still unable to contain its outpouring of bitter, resentful rage over Alex Salmond’s exoneration by a jury on trumped-up sexual assault charges.
Flailing blindly in all directions it’s achieving little other than to embarrass itself, such as last night when Scotland On Sunday had to change its front page in a late panic. But the media’s toxic fury at being denied Salmond’s head on a pole has also led it to do something far, far more serious and reckless.
And every one of them knows exactly what they’ve done.
It will come as little surprise to any observer of the Scottish media for the last decade that the trial of Alex Salmond is to continue indefinitely after the actual court case that cleared him of all charges.
With very occasional honourable exceptions, including some from rather unexpected sources, the Scottish press has been – even by its own spectacularly low standards – an absolute sewer for the past week. Wings has taken the decision not to link to any of the most disgusting articles, even as archives, because frankly in the current stressful situation none of us needs any extra poison in our headspace.
Scotland’s political journalists have been unable to contain their seething fury at being robbed of the head on a pike that they were all expecting and salivating about like Pavlov’s dogs. But scumbags are gonna scumbag, and that’s not news. What’s far more alarming is something in today’s papers that they didn’t write.
This article is the only thing Wings is going to say about the COVID-19 crisis, because (a) we’re on holiday, (b) it has very little to do with Scottish politics, and (c) we’re not virologists and have no expertise to offer.
But in so far as we have some sort of reach and to some extent people listen to us, and we don’t want any of you to die, here’s a small plea for all our sakes.
Today a mostly-female jury drawn from the most Unionist city in Scotland and directed by a female judge delivered the only verdict it was credibly possible to reach on the (total absence of) evidence before it: that Alex Salmond was not guilty of any crime.
After two weeks hearing an assortment of lurid allegations from former friends and colleagues hidden behind cloaks of public anonymity, the jury – having been advised by the prosecuting counsel that they were the sole arbiters of fact – decided that there was no truth to them.
Since the two most serious charges, in particular, were both matters of the accuser’s word against that of the accused, and the two parties gave completely irreconcilable accounts of the facts (rather than competing interpretations of agreed events), it can only be the case that one side was lying absolutely, and the jury decided that it was the anonymous accusers who were doing so.
It remains to see whether there will be a legal reckoning for those lies. But more than one sort of reckoning will surely follow from these events.
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “Re. My previous inexcusably intemperate post. May I obsequiously and regretfully add the correction that references to “Brown people” meant…” Mar 13, 02:18
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “Yup MB It’s just so much more civilised that the “chaps” just blow up the camel jockeys, mullahs and stupid…” Mar 13, 01:59
Cynicus on Looking up at the stars: “Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh says: 12 March, 2026 at 7:26 pm “Peers backed the change by 227 votes to 221” ===== Well…” Mar 13, 01:31
Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “Right Hatey Bin Hateful Stop invading countries right now and Give that stuff back. Geri as your a self confessed…” Mar 13, 00:31
Iain More on Looking up at the stars: “Now i hear that the toxic Kaye Adams was removed from the BBC following alleged misconduct complaint against her. Several…” Mar 13, 00:23
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “HMcH Yawn.. An oath made under duress of unemployment in an area devastated by HMs psychotic government is no oath…” Mar 12, 23:26
robertkknight on Looking up at the stars: “Taxi for Swinney with G4S on the side would be nice…” Mar 12, 22:27
Iain More on Looking up at the stars: “So the SNP SG continues to drag its heels over releasing the dirt on MI6 Agent Sturgeon. Taxi for Swinney…” Mar 12, 22:24
Geri on Looking up at the stars: ““People are going to lose $trillions in wealth” Says the American on the telly. “Trump needs to get on the…” Mar 12, 22:10
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Stop talking utter shite. It’s Westerners who are squatting all over the ME & Asia Pacific. Military bases everywhere &…” Mar 12, 21:30
Geri on Looking up at the stars: ““What can take it’s place. Well my answer to that is nothing will take it’s place. ” A vacuum will…” Mar 12, 21:14
Northcode on Looking up at the stars: “James, you are one of those ‘fortunate’ Scots who sees the truth of Scotland’s relationship with England and has broken…” Mar 12, 21:11
Northcode on Looking up at the stars: ““…we don’t even have our own academics of anti-colonialism.” There’s a Scottish academic who goes by the name of Professor…” Mar 12, 21:05
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “One interesting side effect of the opening of World War 3’s third offensive front is seeing all those maps of…” Mar 12, 20:54
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Bet Wilson is white and thus an easy target for two-tier justice.” Mar 12, 20:42
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Irony of ironies, Alf. We’re so colonised, we don’t even have our own academics of anti-colonialism. We have to import…” Mar 12, 20:37
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Looks like James has the sock puppets. But considering what he’s been doing in them, best await an offer from…” Mar 12, 20:25
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Dodged the questions again, Alf. Entirely expected, but don’t kid yourself the alert readers don’t notice.” Mar 12, 20:20
agentx on Looking up at the stars: ““A mother-of-10 who kept a vulnerable woman captive as a slave for 25 years has been jailed for 13 years.…” Mar 12, 20:20
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Fact has it that you’re a man whose word can’t be trusted. Someone who swears an oath of fealty. Then…” Mar 12, 20:13
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Whatever we Scots have achieved, Northy, it’s fuck all to do with you. You’re a Pict. An untermensch. We Scots…” Mar 12, 20:03
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““We’ve only had one vote and we voted yes” Don’t you just hate it when commoners adopt the royal we?…” Mar 12, 19:59
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “PEERS VOTE TO GO BEYOND GOVT’S PLEDGE TO END NON-CRIME HATE INCIDENTS The House of Lords has voted to strengthen…” Mar 12, 19:26
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “Northcode, Three hundred years and more of conditioning has to have had an effect on the people of Scotland, Goodness…” Mar 12, 19:06
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Diabloandco @ 15.55. He did indeed, D & Co, in the (very) late 1700s. His statue stands outside the establishment,…” Mar 12, 19:00
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “Factchecker, You are right of course, the Scottish people have to attain the will to wake up first, prior to…” Mar 12, 18:48
James on Looking up at the stars: “Apologies, Geri, but I’ve got to correct you there; it’s not “rubbish” the site Prick babbles 24/7, but pure, unadulterated…” Mar 12, 18:46
James Che on Looking up at the stars: “Mark Beggan, The age of aquarius is supposed to be the age of enlightenment, so its said, when truths are…” Mar 12, 18:32
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “James Rumour is that Hatey likes Dickens, just not on the first date! Allegedly..” Mar 12, 18:31
