The motion completely ignored both the findings of the Cass Review and the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland, but not a single MSP spoke in opposition to it. (Jenni Minto, the Minister For Public Health And Women’s Health, actually broke down in tears at the end because she wasn’t managing to get children’s futures permanently destroyed with sufficient urgency, mainly because the UK Parliament took legislation out of Holyrood’s hands to protect them.)
To be honest, we’re mainly putting these here so you don’t have to keep looking at that picture of Alan Cumming.
But they also show what you can achieve, whether in football or politics, if you actually attack rather than being content to endlessly shuttle it all sideways and backwards until you get beaten without even taking a shot.
Perhaps the key graphic from last night’s by-election in Caerphilly is this one (green means Plaid Cymru in the context of Wales):
In the end, Plaid won pretty comfortably in what had been predicted to be a very tight contest between them and Reform, with a majority of almost 4,000. But Plaid aren’t going to be the next government of the UK, so what’s the real story?
Last month, when half a football team of armed police ambushed and arrested comedy writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport for a couple of tweets, we said this:
Today, even more swiftly than we thought, this happened:
We should point out right at the start that a reader donated £12 back in the summer specifically to send us to Nicola Sturgeon’s book event in Bath last night.
So on the surface level this is just flat-out hilarious.
Firstly because, as we showed you yesterday, the “significant proportion of Scotland’s population” which appears to have been won back to the SNP since John Swinney became its leader is… 1%.
We were going to write something today for the anniversary of Alex Salmond’s tragic death, but then we read Kevin McKenna’s piece in today’s Herald On Sunday and we can’t improve on it, so go and have a read of that before you do anything else.
Alex always believed in looking forward, not back, so we doubt he’d be overly fussed at the pathetic “tribute” paid to him at the SNP conference this morning. What would undoubtedly have exercised him a lot more would have been the wretched current state of the party he loved and built from almost nothing into the dominant force in Scottish politics.
And nothing typifies that wretched state better than the craven and gutless capitulation of a speech given by Tommy Sheppard yesterday, opposing the rebel amendments to John Swinney’s non-strategy on independence.
It said a lot more than he thought it did, but none of it good.
It’d be quite hard to find an image that more completely summed up the wretched state of the SNP in 2025 than this one. Look at that tiny handful of miserable faces, sitting dejectedly around a near-empty function room. It’s so bleak Mike Leigh could make an entire movie out of it.
And we know what you’re thinking – that we sat through some internet livestream to find the most pitiful-looking freezeframe imaginable to show them in a bad light. But nope. Kevin Stewart MSP posted this cheery snapshot of his own free will on Twitter on Sunday morning, presumably in the hope of boosting party morale in some way.
Nor was it even the fact that his death was captured in all its shocking, bloody horror on video, and inescapable on social media, nor that it came just the day after footage broke of another appalling killing in the States, the unprovoked stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a violent lunatic who’d been released on no-fee bail despite 14 previous arrests and should never have been at large.
In the end, the most chilling thing about this particular crime is this: Charlie Kirk was killed for doing exactly what civilised people are supposed to do.
Northcode on The Long Walk To Freedom: “It might not be true, but I heard somewhere, somewhen, that Salmond pissed pure alcohol… so he might very well…” Dec 9, 15:03
Mark Beggan on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Funny you should say that. I nearly caused a riot when I started reading my copy of, ‘Homosexually in modern…” Dec 9, 15:01
Northcode on The Long Walk To Freedom: “(please note: Any text capitalized and italicized and spelled in American-English and surrounded by single quotation marks in any of…” Dec 9, 15:00
Mark Beggan on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Typical pleb with hands out begging for your tax back.” Dec 9, 14:49
Northcode on The Long Walk To Freedom: ““…while my modified version would work in the real world…” It might well work in some other ‘real’ world… just…” Dec 9, 14:39
James on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Alex wouldnae piss on the likes of you if you were on fire.” Dec 9, 14:23
sarah on Off-topic: “Hi Marie and Tinto, I’m sitting in the car after 2 teeth extractions whilst MOH has one done so I…” Dec 9, 14:20
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Written by Anonymous: ———————- Much ado about Alex: I was standing at the bar of the Kilcreggan Hotel, alone, on…” Dec 9, 13:49
Alf Baird on The Long Walk To Freedom: “The important point in liberating any colonized people is that elected national representatives no longer hold allegiance or take an…” Dec 9, 13:45
Hatey McHateface on The Long Walk To Freedom: ““The Scottish people can, if they so wish at any Scottish election, vote for a party or parties who wish…” Dec 9, 13:05
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: “Amen to all that, Marie. We live in difficult times, which Globalist Milliband would probably make even worse. Glad you…” Dec 9, 13:03
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Long Walk To Freedom: “EL RETRATO EN LA ROCA by Pablo Neruda (extract). Miré y allí estaba mi amigo: de piedra era su rostro,…” Dec 9, 13:01
Hatey McHateface on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Too many weasel words, Alf. I’ve taken the liberty of modifying your sentence so that it would work in the…” Dec 9, 12:39
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Long Walk To Freedom: “The following are excerpts from the closing pages of the book ‘THE DREAM SHALL NEVER DIE: 100 Days that Changed…” Dec 9, 12:35
Alf Baird on The Long Walk To Freedom: “This remains a key question, James, as to why none of Scotland’s three elected majorities of supposedly ‘nationalist’ MPs since…” Dec 9, 11:27
James Cheyne on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Once the parliament of Great Britain came under dissolution in 1800/1801, The Westminster parliament of England cannot reinstate the treaty,…” Dec 9, 11:24
James Cheyne on The Long Walk To Freedom: “The information I posted can be found in House of Lords. Select Commitee, Parliament Business, Lord grey Vs government, This…” Dec 9, 11:07
Marie Clark on Off-topic: “Hi Tinto and Sarah, I look in to OT now and again to see if anyone is still around. Sad…” Dec 9, 09:41
Willie on The Long Walk To Freedom: “The Sandi Peggie result is a good one. Very much in line with public sentiments. Putting a biological man with…” Dec 9, 09:14
Hatey McHateface on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Good news for once? The branding for Great British Railways (GBR) has been revealed and the amount of blue in…” Dec 9, 08:18
Hatey McHateface on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Looks like she’s in line for compo. Do you think she’ll want to divi it up with the poor saps…” Dec 9, 08:10
Mark Beggan on The Long Walk To Freedom: “‘Hello, hello, hello. Is there anybody in there, just nod if you can hear me, is there anyone home. Relax,…” Dec 9, 02:10
Mark Beggan on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Well done Sandie Peggy. She’s got balls!! ?” Dec 9, 01:45
Peter McAvoy on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Would you prefer the abolition of jury trials. How many miscarriages of justice have taken place in England compared to…” Dec 9, 01:40
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: ““…..aided and abetted by the UK high heid yins”, a fact sadly never reflected in the MSM. Mrs Tinto has…” Dec 8, 22:33
sarah on Off-topic: “Well, you’re not wrong about world events, the most awful things going on, aided and abetted by the UK high…” Dec 8, 21:53
James Cheyne on The Long Walk To Freedom: “The final analyses of the dissolution of the parliament of Great Britain time and again so the parliament of England…” Dec 8, 21:31
James Cheyne on The Long Walk To Freedom: “The parliament of England after acting as the parliament of England to make treaties and contractual agreements legally cannot re-…” Dec 8, 21:07
James Cheyne on The Long Walk To Freedom: “So what did I omit in my ramblings and thoughts to you all while I swither over the treaty of…” Dec 8, 20:45
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: “Hi, Sarah: oh, no, just girding my loins (ooh, matron!) for The Last Battle. I’ve only looked in two or…” Dec 8, 19:59
