We’ve just had the results back from some very interesting new polling, and the first snippet is a particularly instructive one.
When challenged on questions of gender, the reflex response of politicians of most parties in the Scottish Parliament is to bang on about how overwhelmingly MSPs voted for the Gender Recognition Reform bill.
Curiously, so far no journalist has bothered to ask whether they care that according to every poll, they’re utterly failing to represent the views of their constituents on the subject – which is, after all, what they’re supposed to be there for.
So we just asked directly if people felt their MSPs were doing their jobs.
Ouch. By well over 2 to 1, respondents felt that they were being let down by the people who are supposed to speak for them. (Excluding DKs the margin is just shy of 70/30, very similar to the margin by which people in polls oppose self-ID generally.)
But it’s when you drill down into the detail that it gets a bit disturbing.
Below are two news reports from the Scottish Sun this week:
Both of the people arrested were male-bodied individuals who identify as women. As far as we’re aware, neither of them has a Gender Recognition Certificate. They are both the same sex, biologically and legally, and both describe themselves as female.
Yet in giving statements about their respective arrests, Police Scotland called one of them a man and one of them a woman. And we’re having no luck finding out why.
Diligently alert readers may have noticed that the SNP MP, former vomit-mopper and permanent embarrassment to braincells Stewart McDonald has an article in today’s National about the best way to look like he’s trying to secure independence without risking losing his cosy lucrative job in glamorous London with all his fancy MP pals.
(McDonald is also one of the party’s most virulent advocates of its massively unpopular gender reforms, which isn’t relevant to anything but we’ve got a streak to maintain.)
Unfortunately it’s 4,000 words long and unbearably boring, but since you pay us we’ve taken the bullet for you, read the whole thing and now present it here in précis form:
The title of this article might sound a bit like the name of a band making their debut at Glastonbury this year, but in fact it’s something infinitely more serious.
News broke late last night that the person we must presumably now refer to as an “individual” who had been arrested in connection with the disappearance of a missing Galashiels schoolgirl (happily found safe and well and back home with her parents) had in fact been charged with an as-yet-unspecified crime.
But the alleged crime wasn’t the only thing going unspecified.
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.
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.
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 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.
James on A Stitch In Timing: “Must have struck a nerve eh, Prick? “This has driven right-wingers into a frenzy with completely false claims about the…” Feb 6, 23:08
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: “Sorry, Northy, but I couldn’t understand any of that. Please translate into Scots and re-post. Thanks in advance.” Feb 6, 22:41
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: “Woo Hoo, James manages to put both hands on his keyboard. Giving your usual hobby a night off, James? You…” Feb 6, 22:39
Northcode on A Stitch In Timing: “The ancients – being the ancients – had a name for when words are used out of their ordained order…” Feb 6, 21:40
James on A Stitch In Timing: ““….life changing injuries….” Yet more bollocks from the Site Prick. To quote Craig Murray; “The final question was the charge…” Feb 6, 20:45
GM on A Stitch In Timing: “I see that argument quite clearly Lorna when you put it as you just have. There are plenty women in…” Feb 6, 20:15
PC Foster on A Stitch In Timing: “Scottish Executive- correct” Feb 6, 20:03
agentx on A Stitch In Timing: “They chose to be “activatists” let them fund it themselves.” Feb 6, 19:41
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: ““we are reminded here that: “colonialism is based on psychology”” Is that because it’s Friday, Alf? Seems like only Wednesday…” Feb 6, 19:41
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Stitch In Timing: “Or Scottish Executive?” Feb 6, 19:34
Hatey McHateface on A Stitch In Timing: ““finding none of the activists guilty on any of the charges” Given they committed burglary, assault and grievous bodily harm…” Feb 6, 19:27
agentx on A Stitch In Timing: “We all know that Swinney stayed with Mandelson on his whisky trip to USA in Sep 25. I have done…” Feb 6, 19:17
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “Alf: I know it will take a lot more than that. The point I was trying to make is that…” Feb 6, 18:19
PC Foster on A Stitch In Timing: “It was always known as the Scottish Parliament. However the machinery was called the Scottish Administration until Salmond renamed it…” Feb 6, 18:04
Willie on A Stitch In Timing: “Couldn’t help but reflect on the latest reports about our out beloved Labour party politico one Mr Peter Mandelson. Its…” Feb 6, 17:40
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““try to rehabilitate Scotland before independence” I suspect that’s not generally how decolonization and ‘self-recovery of culture’ works, which is…” Feb 6, 17:18
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Stitch In Timing: “Re Sven. Point taken.” Feb 6, 17:06
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““Not the Crown” ? Hardly. The root of the despicable colonial situation is that elites in Scotland aye tak thair…” Feb 6, 16:48
sarah on A Stitch In Timing: “Scottish court cases are hugely expensive, another obvious impediment to seeking “justice”. The case in the Scottish courts for a…” Feb 6, 16:37
Sven on A Stitch In Timing: “Fearghas Macfhionnlaigh. My own view on that would be that by misnaming a devolved administration as a Parliament a clear…” Feb 6, 15:24
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “With a heavy heart, I have to agree with you, Southernbystander, but not all Scots are anaesthetized by colonialism. Truth…” Feb 6, 15:24
Lorna Campbell on A Stitch In Timing: “I’m not privy, GM, as you might imagine, to what the powers-that-be are up to, but I think that the…” Feb 6, 15:12
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Stitch In Timing: “I would assume that Alex Salmond, and Winnie Ewing (‘The Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on March 25 1707, is hereby…” Feb 6, 14:50
barelybare on A Stitch In Timing: “Thanks for the explanation am firinn. I have a feeling only the initiated are going to truly understand what is…” Feb 6, 14:46
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: “It is surely colonialism that makes a colonized people ‘dependent’. For “without colonialism there would be no colonized people” (Memmi).…” Feb 6, 14:25
Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““a devolved administration” That’s what the colonizer calls it. To the colonized it is always a colonial administration.” Feb 6, 13:47
TURABDIN on A Stitch In Timing: “@ALANM. AIDAN, HATEY All true, the political classes, not just in Scotland & England, seem stacked with those who couldn’t…” Feb 6, 13:28
Sven on A Stitch In Timing: “James Cheyne @ 12.59. Only initially renamed a ‘Parliament’ over a weekend owing to the vanity of Mr Salmond, “James”,…” Feb 6, 13:18
James Cheyne on A Stitch In Timing: “If the parliament in Scotland today was a real Scottish parliament it would not have reserved matters restrictions placed on…” Feb 6, 12:59
