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.
Aidan on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “I’m sorry Northcode, that’s bollocks, and I hope you don’t find yourself in a position of responsibility in any organisation…” Aug 17, 19:29
David Wardrope on The Giant: “As I read this again now, it strikes home how his presence is sorely and utterly missed. And how the…” Aug 17, 19:28
Elmac on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “The Police bemoan lack of public support and assistance. This nonsense encapsulates exactly why they are not trusted by the…” Aug 17, 19:08
Northcode on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: ““Police Scotland would definitely have the information on who made each payment and who authorised it.” Apart from this being…” Aug 17, 18:51
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “If you can print that on 100 L T-shirts and 100 XL T-shirts, I’m in the market, if the price…” Aug 17, 18:49
John Traynor on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “I’m aware there’s a certain irony to this given Wings opinion of Hillsborough but often getting justice is sometimes a…” Aug 17, 18:42
James Che on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “Even the treaty of union states the people of Scotland are Sovereign in that they have their own private rights…” Aug 17, 18:22
James Che on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “The realisation of what you know and what is legal in Scotland. The devolved parliament and those who claim they…” Aug 17, 18:08
Alf Baird on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: ““this has the British state all over it” Indeed, and Frantz Fanon explained the inner workings of a colonial justice…” Aug 17, 18:03
James Che on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “And in Scotland the devolved parliament is not a Sovereign entity nor those that sail under that banner, The people…” Aug 17, 17:54
James Che on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “Where do you go once discovered that there is no official crown office in Scotland due to the treaty of…” Aug 17, 17:49
Frank Gillougley on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “The sooner they put the Scottish parliament building up for sale the better. It’d make quite an impressive second-hand furniture…” Aug 17, 17:14
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: ““GORGON HEAD OF POWER” Extracts from ‘The Crisis in Humanist Political Theory’ (1931) by Herman Dooyeweerd: « In his work…” Aug 17, 17:14
Aidan on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “I’m going to say that this is very unlikely to be true Northcode, Roddy Dunlop only has the information that…” Aug 17, 17:08
Northcode on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “You’ve put forward a reasonable question. Here’s an answer that might help clarify things. Signing off accounts does not meet…” Aug 17, 15:55
sarah on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “Without restoring Scotland’s independence, we will never have a chance to rectify the corruption of our various institutions. We needn’t…” Aug 17, 15:42
ALANM on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “This case provides further evidence of a phenomenon which has been growing rapidly since the start of the century. I…” Aug 17, 15:36
cirsium on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “Rev – I thought that the fact that Scotland is not currently fit to be an independent nation again was…” Aug 17, 15:30
100%Yes on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “The noose around Scotland neck is Holyrood and thinko’s who work their.” Aug 17, 15:29
Graf Midgehunter on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: ““It makes no sense to me that here is the golden opportunity to rid the UK of the Scottish national…” Aug 17, 15:18
Heather McLean on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “Unfortunately Scotland is a banana republic without the actual bonus of bananas. The contempt for the people of Scotland is…” Aug 17, 15:11
Ian Smith on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “It was a big achievement to push the Murrell court date past the election, and hardly likely to be a…” Aug 17, 15:07
Skip_NC on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “Because with Holyrood there is the pretence that we have some control over our own affairs. Without it, the truth…” Aug 17, 15:06
100%Yes on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “McDuff, I quite agree, the British state knows and is involved. Sturgeon is being protected. Independence isn’t going to die…” Aug 17, 14:50
Hatey McHateface on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: ““you have nothing worth fighting for” What tripe. It’s worth fighting for the establishment of a system of justice that…” Aug 17, 14:46
robertkknight on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “… let’s face it. If the SNP were prosecuted on what is clearly an open and shut case and were…” Aug 17, 14:32
