Wings Over Scotland

If there’s ever been a (branch office of a) political party that could somehow manage to blow it in Scotland against the burning trainwreck in a ditch full of sewage that is the SNP right now, it’s definitely Anas Sarwar’s hapless Scottish Labour.

Honestly, this stuff is comedy gold. But in a winner-takes-all dumb-off with Humza Yousaf’s SNP, it’s way too close to call.

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One year ago today, Nicola Sturgeon suddenly resigned as First Minister. And what a spectacular 12 months it’s been for the Yes movement since her departure.

That, of course, is a somewhat selective graph.

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When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time.

Because give him some credit, he’s not lying.

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We long ago ran out of words to express the magnitude of the contempt in which the SNP now hold the people of Scotland. Which is unfortunate, because this probably calls for the invention of a whole new scale.

Shall we go through just a few of the more crassly insulting holes in this pitiful excuse for a cover story, just to pass the time while we wait for the former First Minister to appear before the COVID inquiry? We don’t know about you, but we’ve got nothing better to do.

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There are many people in the world deserving of sympathy at the moment, readers, but spare a thought in your busy day for Scotland’s Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain.

Just two and a half years into the post (most incumbents post-devolution have served around five), she’s already had to deal with a lot of what sports people call “hospital passes”. But she’s about to find herself in another nasty spot not of her own making.

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We make no apology for returning once again to the depressing subject of the Scottish Government’s proposed new law to ban “conversion practices”, because it provides such an illuminating microcosm of how far a once competent and widely-respected administration has fallen since 2015.

Emma Roddick, who is piloting the bill towards the statute books in much the same way that Mohamed Atta piloted American Airlines Flight 11 towards the World Trade Centre, is a 26-year-old who by her own admission suffers from a serious and debilitating mental illness that any sane country would regard as an insurmountable bar to political office.

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After yesterday’s disturbing article about the indoctrination of Scottish schoolchildren into transgender ideology via the Scottish Government’s proposed new “conversion practices” legislation, Wings was contacted by a number of current Scottish teachers telling us we had no idea how far it had already gone.

The message below was by no means untypical:

“This stuff around the UNCRC has been a concern for a while. Some of the articles seem to be being interpreted in ways they were never intended. It has become a vehicle for activist teachers to push their own agendas, all the while hiding behind ‘children’s rights’.

Getting certified is being pushed heavily in every school. Headteachers seem to be under a lot of pressure (coming from Scottish Government) to get it all implemented. We’re currently working towards silver.”

And we asked: getting certified for what?

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The bespectacled older person in the clip below is Aedan Wolton, a biological female (formerly called Aimie) who is the Strategic Lead for Equality at Sport England.

It’s from a 2018 BBC3 documentary called Becoming A Trans Man – Leo. The 15-year-old child in the video plays with a Rubik’s Cube as Wolton, who was 31 at the time, enthusiastically grooms her into transitioning into a “man”, advocating chest binders, a double mastectomy and the irreversible mutilation of her genitalia (“Lower surgery – you want that”) that will, Wolton confirms, lead to her permanent sterilisation, as well as the destruction of her future adult sexual function.

The BBC presents it as a heartwarming tale of friendship.

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Well, imagine our surprise.

There was very little realistic prospect of any other outcome, particularly in light of the same judge – Lady Haldane – ruling last month that the definition of “woman” was not limited to biological reality.

In doing so she placed it beyond any credible dispute that the Scottish Government’s proposed Gender Recognition Reform Act did indeed impinge on equality law reserved to the UK government, because the rules on who constituted a legal man or woman would have been different in Scotland and England.

But what now for poor beleaguered Humza Yousaf?

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The response of the Scottish media to yesterday’s momentous events in the Court Of Session has been illuminating in terms of who is and isn’t even attempting to do proper grown-up journalism, although as far as we can tell The Times is alone in having NO coverage of the hearing whatsoever.

The National’s “Politics” section has 54 stories on its main page, many of which are embarrassingly trivial, and mentioned that the hearing was taking place, but the actual outcome is in a completely different section, buried 30 stories down in the “News” category, 29 places below the return of David Jason to “Only Fools And Horses”.

The Herald has the barest skeleton of a report, while you have to turn to page 14 of the Daily Record for a similar piece that conveys the basic facts with nothing at all about the significance of the ruling, and STV News – embarrassingly – just runs an agency release despite having the estimable Colin Mackay and Bernard Ponsonby on its staff. (They also had nothing on air last night.) Maybe they were busy.

The Scottish Sun is by far the best of the print media on the subject. It first ran a extensive but very strangely-timed article that included reporting of actual events at the hearing but NOT the verdict, even though the court delivered its judgement mere moments after hearing the counsels’ submissions.

(The piece finishes “The appeal at the Court of Session is expected to last one day, with a written judgement taking weeks or months”.)

It followed up a couple of hours later with another substantial story including the reactions of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Information Commissioner (the opposing parties at the hearing). But the only actual analysis was done by the BBC.

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To the surprise of most of those watching, including ourselves, the Court Of Session delivered its judgement immediately at the end of today’s hearing, after only the most cursory of conflabs between the three august panel members.

The short version is that the Scottish Government lost, and must now comply with Wings reader Benjamin Harrop‘s FOI request regarding evidence that was supplied to independent adviser James Hamilton during his inquiry into the unlawful investigation of false allegations against Alex Salmond.

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The Scottish Government will make history tomorrow. For the first time ever since the advent of devolution 24 years ago, it will take the Scottish Information Commissioner to the Court Of Session to prevent disclosure of information.

On the bench will be the full firepower of the inner council of the Scottish judiciary. The Lord President himself, Lord Carloway, will be presiding (and presumably lording) over the hearing. Joining him on the bench will be a former Lord Advocate, Lord Boyd, and a former Solicitor General, Lord Pentland – pictured below, and of whom readers will last have heard here.

To use the legal parlance, that’s a big-boy lineup.

To present their case, the Government are fielding not one but two King’s Counsel – James Mure KC and Paul Reid KC.

This top legal talent does not come cheap and nor does a Court Of Session hearing. So what is this vital information that the Scottish Government – which as recently as May this year pledged to “ensure that we are the most transparent Government on these islands” – is trying so desperately to hide from the Scottish public, at the Scottish public’s very considerable expense?

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