Sleeping in thunder 232
Posted on
February 06, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The First Minister has gotten herself into quite a pickle.
But worse, there’s no way out of it.
Archive for the ‘analysis’
Don’t you think she looks tired? 289
Posted on
January 29, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Scotland’s Dregs Problem 150
Posted on
January 26, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Man, we wish we hadn’t used this headline up two days ago.
BBC Scotland’s Debate Night programme last night was rather peculiar. It took place in a mostly-empty studio, but clearly not due to COVID precautions because the people who were there were all jammed tightly together in the middle. (In fairness, given BBC Scotland’s audience ratings they may still have outnumbered television viewers.)
On an all-female panel it featured, “by popular demand”, someone presenter Stephen Jardine described as “one of our best-loved comedians”, a former electrician called Susie McCabe, who we’d never heard of in our lives. (She apparently presented the channel’s Hogmanay show, something no sane adult has watched since 1982.)
She made one particular contribution that set social media aflame.
The Grooming Of Holyrood 244
Posted on
January 23, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s been hard to avoid the puffy, perpetually-smirking face of Edinburgh transactivist Beth Douglas, the co-convener of the Rainbow Greens, recently. He’s been all over the media, from Glasgow Live and Edinburgh Live to The National (print and podcast) to Penis News to various national TV bulletins, and interviewed by Owen Jones.
Last week he was prominent in a protest outside Queen Elizabeth House against the UK government’s S35 intervention over the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. He spoke alongside MSPs including Patrick Harvie, Karen Adam, Ross Greer, Paul Sweeney and Alex Cole-Hamilton, who lavished fulsome and effusive praise on him, going so far as to say that it was for Douglas personally that MSPs had pushed the bill through.
But Douglas wasn’t always called Beth.
What you’re willing to hear 185
Posted on
January 18, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The final result of our Twitter poll from yesterday was pretty conclusive.
(It was also by a distance the biggest response we can ever remember getting for one – normally our Twitter polls get around 3,000 votes.)
But of course Twitter polls aren’t scientific – they’re self-selecting and they draw from a biased sample, in this case people who follow Wings and are more likely to agree with us on most things. So we need a bit more data for a better picture.
The more that I saw you burning 131
Posted on
January 17, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The recently-restored Wings Twitter account has a little over 56,000 followers, the vast bulk of them accumulated at a time when this site had far less reason to criticise the SNP or the Scottish Government. So while this poll isn’t scientific, the indy-friendly nature of the respondent base makes it pretty interesting.
Those numbers closely mirror what every actual proper poll tells us about Scottish people’s opinion of the GRR itself – they oppose it by margins of between 3:1 and 4:1. So if the Scottish Government is counting on the UK’s intervention to increase support for independence, frankly it looks like they’re onto a massive loser.
The endless road 228
Posted on
January 14, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Okay, folks, time to put our hands up and admit it: we got this one wrong.
We thought they’d be subtle.
Pete’s New Programming 118
Posted on
January 11, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A few months ago, we all had a good chuckle at Pete Wishart’s screeching 180-degree turn on the subject of using a plebiscitary election for independence, a strategy which switched overnight from “suicidal, disastrous fringe lunacy with no hope of success” to “genius plan Nicola herself came up with”.
But after that crude ad-hoc field patch, we’re delighted to be able to report that Pete has submitted himself to SNP HQ for a full operating system update and is now fully compliant with the New Truth.
The Rorschach Test 82
Posted on
January 10, 2023 by
Mar Vickers
The release of some early 2021 census statistics relating to gender was greeted with glee and elation by Nancy Kelley, CEO of Stonewall in the UK. Vindication at last!
(Kelley declined to mention that her figure of 262,000 was substantially less than half the number of trans and non-binary individuals – 600,000 – that her organisation has habitually claimed for years.)
The census suggested that England and Wales are home to 48,000 transwomen (and 48,000 transmen), from the total who’d answered No to the voluntary question asking if their gender identity aligned with their sex at birth.
(The largest number that said No, around 118,000, didn’t tick the boxes of transwoman, transman or non-binary, nor wrote in their own. An unknown number of these may have been rejecting “gender” altogether. 30,000 ticked “non-binary” and 18,000 wrote in a gender because they were REALLY special.)
But, as we’ve been told time out of number, we must accept what people say about themselves. So 48,000 transwomen it is. So few. So vulnerable. And that number got me thinking.
The suggestion of blueberries 112
Posted on
January 06, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Alert readers of Wings will know that I have a fondness for sweet and fruity things, and a particular favourite of mine are Tropical Vibes still lemonades. (NB Other drinks are available, this site is in no way sponsored by or financially affiliated to Tropical Vibes.)
I especially like their Ocean Blue variety, a deliciously sharp and tangy refresher which contains real blueberry juice.
Just not very MUCH real blueberry juice.
There are no ships 127
Posted on
January 05, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The response to our post of last night has been astonishing.
(Although we’re not sure how “new followers” is being calculated there. We actually have more than 500 extra followers since 8pm – we can only assume that it’s only counting those who right-clicked and followed from that specific tweet.)
And part of the reason is that it’s plain that almost nobody knew about the report, even though it came out three months ago (when Wings was still in retirement). We had to dig deep to find any media coverage of it at all, and what there was was cursory at best, and sometimes a lot worse.
Raise all of the flags 186
Posted on
January 04, 2023 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As a journalist, readers, sometimes you want to pep a story up a bit. From time to time, it’s perfectly legitimate to sensationalise a relatively minor aspect of something in order to draw attention to a worthwhile but intrinsically dull subject.
At other times, you find yourself in the strange position of having to talk a subject down as much as you can, because if you simply report the facts calmly and neutrally it’ll sound so outrageous and ridiculous and deranged that everyone will think you’ve gone full-on, tinfoil-hat, pencils-up-the-nose insane.
Today is the second kind of day.
