As alert readers will have noticed, Wings has been perusing the SNP’s Governance And Transparency Review over the last couple of days, a document which tentatively attempts to discern just how big a mess the party’s previous leadership has left it in.
The paper has now also reached the mainstream media.
Wings already touched on that particular aspect of the party’s mismanagement back in August, but in the light of the report now formally acknowledging the problem it’s worth taking a moment to establish just how astonishingly bad it is.
These are strange and grim times for the Scottish independence movement, but we never thought it’d ever get so strange that we’d be quoting Effie Deans.
Since pretty much day one, Wings has said that the only honest and honourable way to campaign against independence would be for Unionists to say Scotland isn’t a country, but a mere region of the UK. But they lack the courage to admit what their true beliefs are, and so they fall back on fear and lies disguised as concern, all cloaked in “proud Scot” protestations.
While that might be a miserable way to conduct yourself, it’s understandable, because the moment that you acknowledge Scotland as being a country, all the debating lines against independence crumble to ashes. They’re powerless in the face of the principle that countries should choose their own governments, for good or ill, because that’s what democracy is, and few people are willing to stand openly against democracy.
And what Effie Deans’ concession of this site’s cornerstone argument reveals is that Unionists finally feel safe against any threat of independence in the foreseeable future, and with good reason.
Yesterday we took an extensive tour of all the red flags in the SNP’s 2022 accounts, which show a party in very deep financial trouble. But there was one part we left out because it deserves a post of its own.
It starkly exposes how a party chose to hold an event for around 800 members in a venue with a capacity of 15,000 and then went to a lot of effort to disguise how empty the space was, rather than, for example, just hiring somewhere of an appropriate size (and cost) in the first place.
(Look how far into the hall the stage has been placed, leaving half the arena vacant, to then be hidden behind a giant screen and curtains and banners in order to give a false impression of how full it is.)
But what’s more symbolic is that there are almost no people in it.
Slacky The Holiday Boy is off for the next THREE weeks, gallivanting around the globe on the clearly excessive wages we’re paying him. We hope he does actually come back, because his home city is becoming a poisonously hostile place for the creative.
Around 300 years ago, Edinburgh was the birthplace and residence of the Scottish Enlightenment, a remarkable period of intellectual and scientific accomplishment built around “the importance of human reason combined with a rejection of any authority that could not be justified by reason”, and which led to the city being famously dubbed “the Athens of the North”.
Humza Yousaf is played here by Morgan Freeman, the big plane carrying the bomb is the independence movement and Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are in the chopper.
Even quite alert Wings readers may not recall our brush with thoroughly obnoxious SNP councillor (and former chair of the misleadingly-named Aberdeen Independence Movement) Fatima Joji, because it happened such a long time ago.
But sometimes when someone behaves particularly egregiously in their professional role you have to at least give the proper grievance procedures a try (although it can prove very expensive to do so), and 13 months ago that’s what we did. We still have no idea how close we may be to the end of the process, but we have an update.
Anne on The Valley Of The Dolls: “There was a young man in the ladies loo at Edinburgh Botanical gardens yesterday .He hadn’t even bothered to put…” Dec 9, 16:12
Effijy on The Valley Of The Dolls: “The ruling shows a complete contradiction to the high court ruling. If this trans doctor has male genitalia then he…” Dec 9, 16:02
Paul Garbett on The Valley Of The Dolls: “I don’t say this often enough Stu but a big thank you for this forensic analysis of what is a…” Dec 9, 16:01
Northcode on The Long Walk To Freedom: “I had a similar experience when reading my hard(cover) version of “Fashionable Frocks for Clydeside Welders” in Tennents a few…” Dec 9, 15:51
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
