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Of no materiality 351

Posted on May 27, 2020 by

We’ve just learned that we’ve lost the appeal over our defamation by the then-Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, when she repeatedly and publicly made the appalling, damaging and wholly untrue smear that I was a homophobe, even though the appeal judges all agreed with the original sheriff that the smear was false and defamatory.

But when it comes to deciding the verdict in a defamation case, it seems that the fact that absolutely everyone agrees I was definitely defamed is, to borrow a phrase from later in the judgement,“of no materiality”.

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Is it safe? 784

Posted on May 23, 2020 by

Another problem solved 454

Posted on May 21, 2020 by

When the news isn’t news:

Lots of Scottish newspapers (most notably everything in the Herald And Times Group) had already ducked out of providing ABC figures at all, but this will be a godsend for the rest to save their growing embarrassment.

Wings readers can remember the pitiful state of the last published figures here.

In the hands of others 121

Posted on May 20, 2020 by

On the 1st of January, Chinese authorities took the decision to close the Wuhan food market. The following day, 41 admitted hospital patients in Wuhan, were confirmed to have contracted 2019-nCoV (novel coronavirus) which we now know as COVID-19.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a New Year message, from the private island of Mustique in the Caribbean, that the “first item” on his agenda remained his commitment to take Britain out of the EU by the end of January.

Within weeks the virus had spread across the world to many countries including Italy, Germany, Australia, the USA and of course the UK.

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A bit of spot colour 141

Posted on May 19, 2020 by

We thought readers might be interested in a small update on yesterday’s post. As we told you, Graham Shields – the Head of Strategic Communications and Engagement at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service who fobbed off our complaint about newspapers enabling the identification of sexual assault accusers – was the editor of the Evening Times until he was let go in December 2017.

Which is just two months after this happened:

So you’d think that if anyone knew what jigsaw identification looked like, he would.

Token offerings 354

Posted on May 16, 2020 by

Image adjustment 142

Posted on May 15, 2020 by

We lost a few quid to Graham Linehan at poker this afternoon and we needed a wee bit of cheering up, so God bless the SNP Twitler Youth for coming to our rescue.

Okay, now we’re worried.

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Our enemies among us 278

Posted on May 14, 2020 by

There’s a great quote from one of the founders of the SNP that Yes types are fond of using in response to the endless onslaught of brainless Unionist accusations that the independence movement is “anti-English”.

But we had no suspicion of just how remarkably true it was until now.

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The object of power 361

Posted on May 11, 2020 by

We were a bit startled to be leaked this early draft from the 2021 SNP manifesto:

We’re sure it’ll be softened up a bit in the editing process.

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The fifth column revealed 131

Posted on May 09, 2020 by

Just an SNP activist tonight, saying that it doesn’t matter whether there’s a majority for independence in the Scottish Parliament or not, and that it’s undemocratic for a new pro-indy party to stand democratically for election like any other and take seats from Unionists (as long as the SNP hold power in the devolved administration, of course).

Other SNP activists, meanwhile, are already openly trying to dig dirt and undermine the women leading the new party, which is only planning to contest list seats and therefore poses no threat to the SNP whatsoever. Does anyone still think the current SNP care about independence, rather than power?

In lockstep 147

Posted on May 09, 2020 by

Neck and neck 131

Posted on May 05, 2020 by

We’re so underwhelmed and nonplussed by this information that to be honest it barely even occurred to us to write it up, but here we go anyway:

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    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Shield Of The Phantom: “REPUBLIC OF IRELAND GOVT: NO LEGAL OBLIGATION ON SCHOOLS TO USE PREFERRED PRONOUNS The Irish Govt Department of Education and…Jan 29, 00:55
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Shield Of The Phantom: “UK PARLIAMENT: IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE (Northern Ireland) ACT 2022 Statement made on 28 January 2026 by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent,…Jan 29, 00:44
    • Cynicus on Yelling at the tide: “Bravo, Fearghas. This contribution is important, even on a “dead board “. Even so, I urge you to re-publish it…Jan 29, 00:33
    • Saffron Robe on Shield Of The Phantom: “Only for a few generations, Agentx. Empire biscuits were originally known as German biscuits, but the name was changed during…Jan 29, 00:20
    • Iain More on Shield Of The Phantom: “He might be worried that Starmer will hand him some Vaseline and grope his arse. I guess Swinney forgot about…Jan 29, 00:05
    • Saffron Robe on Shield Of The Phantom: “Apologies for the question mark in the last paragraph. It must be an AI hallucination! It was definitely a hyphen…Jan 28, 23:39
    • Saffron Robe on Shield Of The Phantom: “I think the following reply by Perplexity AI to my question below is very revealing and sums up everything that…Jan 28, 20:32
    • agentx on Shield Of The Phantom: ““Some of Scotland’s best baking talent came together on Wednesday for a unique challenge celebrating one of the country’s favourite…Jan 28, 20:28
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Dinna fash, Alf. No ships, military or civilian, are gonna come near Scotland if the bill to criminalise prostitution is…Jan 28, 20:16
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “We’re a lost tribe of the rightful owners of the Holy Land, TURABDIN. Check out the Declaration of Arbroath. Note…Jan 28, 20:11
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Sure. Go bowing and scraping to the cants whose escaped lab-engineered virus killed tens of thousands of us and cost…Jan 28, 20:04
    • Hatey McHateface on Shield Of The Phantom: “Any chance of a few links, Confused? You can redact the personal details, but alert readers will want to know…Jan 28, 19:56
    • agentx on Shield Of The Phantom: “Don’t worry Alf – the SNP can clean off the guns on Dumbarton rock and everyone will be safe from…Jan 28, 19:17
    • Lorna Campbell on Shield Of The Phantom: “Scottish Common Law, the oldest version, has been sidelined by statute, which is a very common English habit of introducing…Jan 28, 18:01
    • Alf Baird on Shield Of The Phantom: ““John Swinney calls for UK warships to be based in Scotland” Yes, quite incredible that an allegedly nationalist political leader…Jan 28, 18:01
    • 100%Yes on Shield Of The Phantom: “John Swinney calls for UK warships to be based in Scotland, this is what your voting for in Mays election…Jan 28, 17:43
    • agentx on Shield Of The Phantom: ““John Swinney calls for UK warships to be based in Scotland” —————————————— Has he not noticed the subs?Jan 28, 17:26
    • Aidan on Shield Of The Phantom: “You cannot pass off counsels argument on behalf of a private party into a judicial committee as if it were…Jan 28, 17:18
    • Xaracen on Shield Of The Phantom: “You’re still avoiding the point, Aidan. Keen’s statement was not a blog comment, it was a legal submission. It states…Jan 28, 16:02
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Yelling at the tide: “REPUBLIC OF IRELAND GOVT: NO LEGAL OBLIGATION ON SCHOOLS TO USE PREFERRED PRONOUNS The Irish Govt Department of Education and…Jan 28, 14:44
    • James Cheyne on Shield Of The Phantom: “Simplified version. England parliament waited until Scotland signed. Then chucked Scotland out of the treaty. Then England altered its dates…Jan 28, 14:04
    • James Cheyne on Shield Of The Phantom: “Most of the supposed builds are avenues to erase the trace of funneling money out of Britain, I suppose one…Jan 28, 13:43
    • Confused on Shield Of The Phantom: “the myth of british competence was always a fiction for domestic consumption – no one anywhere else fell for it…Jan 28, 13:02
    • Confused on Shield Of The Phantom: “remember silicon glen? – not many do; it happened, sort of, but not really and then died a death. After…Jan 28, 12:58
    • TURABDIN on Shield Of The Phantom: “& the Scots were originally Irish Gaels and were so into early medieval times, causing much historic confusion, Scots Scots…Jan 28, 12:52
    • Alf Baird on Shield Of The Phantom: ““Picts, became known as Scots along with the Gaels now living in whats is called Scotland.” Much like some Scots…Jan 28, 12:30
    • James Cheyne on Shield Of The Phantom: “Eventually and slowly it comes to the attention of people in Scotland, and then one wonders does Scotland need to…Jan 28, 12:29
    • James Cheyne on Shield Of The Phantom: “To continue the records, England left what remained of its vision of a 1707 treaty with Scotland when it chose…Jan 28, 11:53
    • Alf Baird on Shield Of The Phantom: “A colonized people, or at least those suffering from a colonial mindset, do tend to celebrate their oppressor, nae maitter…Jan 28, 11:24
    • James Cheyne on Shield Of The Phantom: “Reverting the conversation back to the Laws at the present time in Scotland and the difference of Englands laws that…Jan 28, 11:01
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