Hats off to the SNP. Every time we think that the party’s leadership election can’t get any more absurdly farcical, they pull something extra-mad out of the bag.
After this happened yesterday, it suddenly become “known” across the Scottish media that the SNP NEC was going to hold an extraordinary meeting in order to authorise the release of the membership figures after all three candidates demanded them.
Some of the country’s most senior hacks, including BBC Scotland’s Political Editor and the editor of the Daily Record, sombrely informed their readers of the development.
Tonight’s debate on Sky News between the three SNP leadership candidates was yet another inconclusive low-scoring draw, with each contender taking a few hits (almost all from host Beth Rigby) and also landing the odd blow on each other.
The most notable of the latter was probably when Ash Regan gave Humza Yousaf a rather uncomfortable time over his claiming credit for the Queensferry Crossing when he was Transport Secretary.
As well as frantically trying to deflect by pretending Regan had attacked the SNP’s record on the project in general, Yousaf insisted that he’d played a major role in the bridge’s delivery. So let’s just check the timeline.
The Unionist media in Scotland (ie all of the media in Scotland) usually keeps up a pretty united front when it comes to the subjects of independence or the SNP. So it’s been fascinating in these last couple of weeks to see a genuine schism develop between them on the subject of the party’s leadership election.
(For the avoidance of doubt, we do not include Holyrood Magazine, whose splendid front cover image that is, in “the Unionist media”.)
Right back at the start of the contest we highlighted The Times’ full-on love-in for Kate Forbes, but most of the Scottish press has now made their preferences clear. And you’ll never guess who they really, really DON’T want to be the next First Minister.
In fairness, you can’t really accuse them of hiding it any more.
The faint hearts and pension-seekers of the SNP think that their time has come – the moment when the party’s pursuit of independence can be quietly downgraded to a vague long-term aspiration that will ensure their seats on the gravy train for decades.
Starting at noon tomorrow is your very last chance to stop them.
While idly browsing Twitter this morning, we made a startling discovery triggered by the SNP leadership election, and it was this: nobody in Scotland really knows what the nation’s law on abortion is.
It was prompted by these two tweets, both of which appear to be true:
The thing they agree on is that Humza Yousaf has just declared that he wants to change the law around abortion so that women can abort babies in Scotland solely on the grounds that they don’t like which sex they are. And that seems like something that should probably be bigger news.
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.
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.
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.
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Powerful post indeed Red. Needed said.” Aug 6, 22:00
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: ““all part of the decolonization process (Fanon)”, eh, Alf? What does Fanon say about the hijab and tea towel wearers?…” Aug 6, 21:44
Skip_NC on The Party Of The Dead: “The Express? Well that explains it. I prefer the Beano.” Aug 6, 21:37
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: ““Nicola could not have done this alone” The killer punch line in a knock out post.” Aug 6, 21:36
Andrew Kidd on The Party Of The Dead: “Large amount of assets disposed of. Looks like the auditors have done a thorough inventory of what was actually owned…” Aug 6, 21:27
James Barr Gardner on The Party Of The Dead: “If the SNP gang bankrupt an’ restart again wull it be ca’d the Newco SNP, jist asking fer a freind……..” Aug 6, 21:14
Bilbo on The Party Of The Dead: “Great post Red. I only got involved in independence around late 2000’s but I always remembered that nationalism was a…” Aug 6, 21:12
James Barr Gardner on The Party Of The Dead: “Fraser MacDonald left SNP in February 2026. He took over from Murray Foote who quit after 14 months in the…” Aug 6, 21:07
100%Yes on The Party Of The Dead: “The SNP is refusing to pay it back, if I’m correct.” Aug 6, 20:24
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: “Helpful analysis, Red, and where the impending ‘disintegration’ of a national party that has been ‘co-opted by colonialism’ and which…” Aug 6, 20:16
100%Yes on The Party Of The Dead: “Sorry Naw, clad YES. The SNP lost its true supporters and ended up with tits and morons as a membership…” Aug 6, 20:13
Nicky T Naquetti on The Party Of The Dead: ““Heather Herbert”…? “Humbert Humbert”, moar like” Aug 6, 19:15
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Whoa there LL!! I was a brickies labourer prior to enlisting, it was a blistering hot summer way back then…” Aug 6, 18:43
Aidan on Anatomy Of A Grift: ““Any money you send us will be split as usual between running costs, commissioning polls, a wage for myself and…” Aug 6, 18:41
Red on The Party Of The Dead: “Lothianlad mentioned Nicola Sturgeon as the architect of the SNP’s demise. She is greatly responsible, but the rot set in…” Aug 6, 18:14
Dan on Anatomy Of A Grift: “What’s the status of a new Wee Blue Book and revenues raised for producing it? https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-loose-end https://donorbox.org/last-call” Aug 6, 18:00
thothScot on The Party Of The Dead: “It’s not uncommon that the undead are still there years and years later, shambling around shopping malls accosting people who…” Aug 6, 17:55
Bilbo on Anatomy Of A Grift: “I’ve got a feeling that social media is going to change beyond recognition in 5 years time. This is going…” Aug 6, 16:57
agentx on The Party Of The Dead: ““John Swinney @JohnSwinney ? The publication of the SNP’s accounts today shows that at the end of 2025 the party…” Aug 6, 16:51
Ian Smith on The Party Of The Dead: “I would not be surprised if they lined up positions for anyone leaving with one of their pet quangos or…” Aug 6, 16:43
Effijy on The Party Of The Dead: “They could busk until dusk and not finance the next election. Anyone with glass bottle returns, Embassy Coupons or Greenshield…” Aug 6, 16:42
Knuckle_Heid on The Party Of The Dead: “Good point Elmac and even if the SNP do manage to claw back the £400k from Peter Murrell, hopefully enough…” Aug 6, 16:38
Ian Smith on The Party Of The Dead: “Has anyone heard when the campervan and miscellaneous luxuries go up for auction? With no appeals, would it generally all…” Aug 6, 16:37
agentx on The Party Of The Dead: “I notice that they spent £221,079 on Information technology (page 15) and £117,636 on Audio Visual at the Conference (page…” Aug 6, 16:32
agentx on The Party Of The Dead: ““In November, the SNP’s ruling body agreed to a more “streamlined” staffing structure and announced plans to cut jobs from…” Aug 6, 16:22
Alf Baird on Anatomy Of A Grift: “People are conditioned by their environment, Hatey. Thus, in a colonial society the oppressed colonized group tend to suffer from…” Aug 6, 16:15
Elmac on The Party Of The Dead: “I assume that the liability of the SNP to those who donated to the ring fenced fund stolen by the…” Aug 6, 15:54
Skip_NC on The Party Of The Dead: “The drop in salaries cannot be explained by Murrell’s activities alone. There must have been redundancies and pretty hefty ones…” Aug 6, 15:37
