Something very odd happened when the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal delivered its judgment – and it wasn’t just the made-up quotes and mangled law.
Call it institutional bias, ideological capture, or just the law doing its job, but what Employment Judge Sandy Kemp’s tribunal delivered was the most one-sided outcome since Butch and Sundance decided to come out shooting.
One must assume from reading the Sandie Peggie judgment that the tribunal was more concerned with discouraging further litigation than with giving full and fearless effect to the Equality Act.
At the heart of this case lies a straightforward question: does a biologically male employee have a legal right to undress in a female-only changing room? For Women Scotland answered that question at the Supreme Court: women-only spaces are for biological women.
Yet instead of applying that binding precedent, the tribunal awarded Sandie Peggie a technical win based primarily on procedural failings and delay, while simultaneously undermining the legitimacy of her core complaint. The effect is a ruling that says: “You were treated badly, but only because you reacted to a situation we pretend has no legal significance.”
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.
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: ““Scotland would vote to leave the Union if a second referendum were held tomorrow” Selfish basturt cants care nothing for…” Aug 11, 13:10
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: ““terrorist” Gaddafi built huge tunnels No shit, Sherlock! Who knew terrorists could build tunnels, funded either by oil revenues or…” Aug 11, 12:45
agentx on The Party Of The Dead: “SCOTTISH voters will not accept there is an “‘off limits’ when it comes to democracy”, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has…” Aug 11, 12:42
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: ““He pays no tax on his Scottish estate” It’s always intriguing to consider the mindset of those who believe that…” Aug 11, 12:26
Willie on The Party Of The Dead: “Ah Hatey, you raise a point. Number 10 North. The relocation of Nr 10 function to Manchester. Its a strange…” Aug 11, 10:41
Chas on The Party Of The Dead: “‘Case in point in the Carse of Gowrie at the moment. 2000 acres of prime farmland (next to the biggest…” Aug 11, 10:31
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: ““According to Andy Wightman” Explains a lot.” Aug 11, 10:26
sam on The Party Of The Dead: “Large estates in Scotland historically have not been good for the Scottish people on them. According to Andy Wightman “83%…” Aug 11, 10:20
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Now you’re just boasting about the better class of rammie you enjoy in your hoose. We’re traditionalists. “Ach, shite!” delivered…” Aug 11, 10:19
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “Sam seems to be telling us “there are some land owners who aren’t 100% perfect” in 30,000 (cut and pasted)…” Aug 11, 10:02
Minceheid on The Party Of The Dead: “Hatey McHateface says: 11 August, 2026 at 8:13 am Short and to the point, MH. But couldn’t you have phrased…” Aug 11, 10:01
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Hero to Zero in 3 weeks: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/10/andy-burnham-national-listening-tour Got to hand it to the Guardian. It must have taken a little…” Aug 11, 09:53
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “From Robin McAlpine’s latest: “independence is our ‘product’ and the current available specifications of our product are rubbish, filled with…” Aug 11, 09:34
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “If everybody competes in a letter box, then what’s the problem? Demographics tells us that’s what will happen eventually. So…” Aug 11, 08:54
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “An interesting thread. I await with interest sam linking to a study proving that immigrant ethnic minorities are greatly under-represented…” Aug 11, 08:45
Dan on The Party Of The Dead: ““Highly lucrative sports”? Is that the old huge economic boost created by shooting line being floated per chance. https://www.commonweal.scot/articles/the-goriest-twelfth https://revive.scot/think-tank-claims-government-report-on-driven-grouse-shooting-shows-the-bloodsport-is-economically-unviable/” Aug 11, 08:44
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Aw, c’moan noo, diabloandco. Wasn’t the CG ruined fir mony by those boys strutting aboot in kilts an tartan an…” Aug 11, 08:30
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “If there’s one area of expertise in which Dan is King, it’s the making of soup. Only fair we also…” Aug 11, 08:19
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Short and to the point, MH. But couldn’t you have phrased it in Scots? For the True Sovereign Scots reading…” Aug 11, 08:13
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: ““Local government is also heavily influenced by large landowners in the area, seen as major sources of income and employment”…” Aug 11, 07:53
Oneliner on The Party Of The Dead: “There is no common wealth. It’s in either London or The Cayman Islands. Why promote the myth?” Aug 11, 06:51
sam on The Party Of The Dead: “https://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/who-owns-land-matters “Who Owns The Land Matters The Scottish Land Commission has found through extensive research that having a system dominated…” Aug 11, 06:46
sam on The Party Of The Dead: “https://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/who-owns-land-matters “Much environmental work on such land is then paid for by the government, land rights campaigner Peter Peacock points…” Aug 11, 06:38
sam on The Party Of The Dead: “https://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/who-owns-land-matters “Interviews from back in 2021 with enthusiastic representatives of Savills and Knight Frank show what is going on: We…” Aug 11, 06:31
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Anniversary today of the 1460 crowning of James III in Kelso Abbey. Not regarded as the best monarch he however…” Aug 10, 23:28
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Dan I agree we should be doing everything towards reaching zero reliance on importing agricultural production from elsewhere except where…” Aug 10, 22:33
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “AX Don’t watch it myself but the argument could be made for such camera angles to see which female athletes…” Aug 10, 21:59
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “HMcH Fash not so Hatey! A bit of a civil servant sore point over-reaction from you there. 🙂 I don’t…” Aug 10, 21:53
Dan on The Party Of The Dead: “Chas there, showing what a pathetic twat he is in trying to get one over on somebody, and responding to…” Aug 10, 21:46
